Parenthood, Work-Family Conflict and Well-Being: What Role Do Work Schedules Play?

Delphine Remillon , Institut National d'Études Démographiques (INED)
Ariane Pailhé , Institut National d'Études Démographiques (INED)

We aim to contribute to the literature on the link between parenthood on one hand and subjective well-being (SWB) and health on the other hand, by focusing on two essential factors: a mediator -the work-family conflict (WFC)- and a moderator -the work hours. Our main hypothesis is that changes in the family structure (including a birth or changes in the age of the youngest child) modify the level of work-family conflict and thus those of subjective well-being and health, but that this link can be moderated by an adaptation of work hours. We used fixed-effect models on the two waves (2013 and 2016) of a French panel survey. The third wave (2019) has just been made available and will be added to our analysis shortly. For women only, we found a strong relationship between having young children and WFC, a positive relationship between births and SWB and a negative one between young children and health, even with controls for the work-family conflict and the work hours. In fact, the WFC was partly a mediator between parenthood and WB but the effect of parenthood on SWB was not only transmitted through WFC. Long work hours had a negative effect on SWB for women but part-time work was associated with poorer health status for men. Finally, the effect of parenthood on well-being and health differed between fathers and mothers but also according to the level of education.

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 Presented in Session 61. Work and the family