Abstract
Employed parents caring for their children with disabilities struggle to meet both work and family responsibilities and attain fit between their work and family lives. Employed workers who parent children with disabilities can experience high levels of stress as a result of their exceptional care demands. Few studies have examined how personal, family, and workplace characteristics influence conflict and stress among employed parents of children with disabilities. A secondary analysis of the 2016 National Study of the Changing Workforce addressed this need. Personal, family, and workplace characteristics of parents providing disability care were compared to those of employed parents providing typical family care. How these characteristics mitigate or exacerbate work and family conflict and stress was examined. Whether having exceptional care demands moderates workplace supports on employed parents’ work and family conflict and stress was also investigated. Results from this study found significant differences between the two groups on personal, family, and workplace characteristics as well as conflict (work-family conflict, family-work conflict) and stress. Regression models investigating personal, family, and workplace supports found that caring for a child with a disability is associated with higher levels of work-family conflict, family-work conflict, and stress. Exceptional care demands also moderated the effects of workplace supports on family-work conflict and stress. Implications for organizational practice suggest that building family supportive organizational cultures and targeted interventions might reduce both work-family conflict and stress for this group of workers.
Highlights
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National survey data are used to compare employed parents giving exceptional care to those with typical care responsibilities.
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Parents with exceptional care report more work to family and family to work conflict and higher perceived stress.
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Exceptional care responsibilities moderated the influence of workplace supports on family to work conflict and stress.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge the access we were given by the Society for Human Resource Management to the SHRM 2016 National Study of the Changing Workforce. SHRM is not responsible for the interpretations presented in this article or the conclusions authors reached based on our analysis and interpretation of the data. We are also grateful for the assistance we received from Ellen Galinsky and staff of the Families and Work Institute who provided their encouragement for the study of employed family members giving exceptional care, and included key variables in the 2016 NSCW.
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The authors disclose receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article: This research and preparation of this manuscript was supported in part by a grant from the National Institute of Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research, and from the Center for Mental Health Services Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, United States Department of Health and Human Services (NIDILRR grant 90RT5030). The views expressed in the article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policies of the United States Department of Health and Human Services.
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Stewart, L.M., Sellmaier, C., Brannan, A.M. et al. Employed Parents of Children with Typical and Exceptional Care Responsibilities: Family Demands and Workplace Supports. J Child Fam Stud 32, 1048–1064 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-022-02363-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-022-02363-5