Work-Family Conflict, Psychological Distress and Well-Being Among Indian Women:Moderating Effect of Social Support

The present study was conducted to explore the role of work-family conflict (WFC) and psychological distress in subjective well-being of working women in India. It was also aimed to examine the moderating effect of domain specific social support in detrimental impact of work-family conflict and psychological distress in subjective well-being. The study was conducted on a sample of 210 married working women in the age range of 30 to 45 years. The sample was drawn from various occupations like, Engineering, Teaching, Medical, Banking, Secretarial Assistance etc. All the selected participants received the measures of work-family conflict, psychological distress, subjective well-being, and social support. The results revealed that work-family conflict is bidirectional phenomenon, i.e., work interferes with family (WIF) and family interferes with work (FIW). Both WIF and FIW have shown negative association with subjective well-being, the correlation coefficients are -.40 (p<.001) and -.46 (p<.001), respectively. Work distress (r=-.44, p<.001) and family distress (r=-.64, p<.001) also correlate negatively with subjective well-being of working women. However, the two kinds of social support, viz. family support and organizational support have yielded positive correlation with subjective well-being, respective correlations are .56 (p<.001) and .30 (p<.001). The results of regression analyses have indicated that work-family conflict, psychological distress and social support accounted for about 48 percent of variance in well-being (R2=.69, p<.0001). Moderating effect of family and organizational support was examined through hierarchical multiple regression. Results suggest that organizational support serves as strong buffer (F=8.31, p<.01) against negative impact of work distress on well-being, however, the moderating effect of family support in respect of family distress was found to be non-significant (F=2.29, p=.13). Results were discussed in the light of pertinent theoretical formulations and previous research in the field of work-family conflict and social support.