Job Segregation and Gender Differences in Work-Family Spillover Among White-Collar Workers

We test two propositions in this paper: (1) work-family conflict varies with gender composition and hours on the job; and (2) women will experience more tension between work and family responsibilities than will men. Using a sample of white-collar workers, we measured work-family conflict with a composite scale tapping negative job-to-home spillover. Workgroup composition had no effect on men's reported work-family conflict, while work hours was positively associated with work-family conflict. For women, longer work hours and tokenism in the immediate workgroup increased perceptions of work-family conflict, but unexpectedly, the interaction of work hours and tokenism was negatively related to work-family conflict. We explored several possible arguments for this contrary finding.