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Work–Family Enrichment Among Ghanaian Employees: the Mediating Role Between Social Support and Subjective Well-Being

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Abstract

This study examined the mediating roles of work-to-family enrichment and family-to-work enrichment in the relationship between work–family support and subjective well-being. Structural equation modelling results, based on cross-sectional data from 217 university employees in Ghana, showed that work support and family support were positively related to work-to-family enrichment and family-to-work enrichment. The results also showed that work-to-family enrichment mediated the relationship between work support and subjective well-being, while family-to-work enrichment mediated the relationships of work support and family support with subjective well-being. This research demonstrates that work–family enrichment provides pathways through which support resources in the work and family roles influence subjective well-being. The implications of these findings for theory and practice are discussed.

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Notes

  1. The positive side of the work-family interface has been studied under other construct labels including positive spillover, enhancement, and facilitation. Although subtle distinctions have been noted among these constructs (see Carlson et al. 2006), they broadly “assess the positive effect of experiences in one role on experiences or outcomes in the other role” (Greenhaus and Powell 2006, p. 74). Thus, studies related to positive spillover, enhancement, and facilitation are considered relevant to research on work-family enrichment.

  2. The acronyms WFE and FWE are used in this paper to represent work-to-family enrichment and family-to-work enrichment respectively.

  3. Of this number, 35.5 % were from the university based outside Accra, 18.4 % were from one of the universities in Accra, and the remaining 46.1 % were from the other Accra-based university.

  4. Although age and gender were included as control variables, they were removed from the model, as they were not significantly related to any of the endogenous variables.

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  1. Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Free School Lane, Cambridge, CB2 3RQ, UK

    Francis Annor

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Annor, F. Work–Family Enrichment Among Ghanaian Employees: the Mediating Role Between Social Support and Subjective Well-Being. Applied Research Quality Life 11, 1155–1171 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11482-015-9427-6

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