Prefigurazione del rapporto tra lavoro e famiglia: una questione di genere?

In work and organizational psychology, the interface between work and family is a central topic. In fact, work can influence family as much as family can influence work, both positively and negatively: work-family/family-work conflict (Greenhause and Beutell, 1985) and work-family/family-work enrichment (Frone, 2003; Grzywacz, 2002; Wayne et. al, 2004). Furthermore, the concepts of anticipated work-family/family-work conflict (Cinamon, 2006) and anticipated work-family/family-work enrichment have been explored, also in relation with the present research, that intends recognizing the variance of these constructs according to the gender. For this purpose it has been administered a self-report questionnaire to 429 students to detect anticipated work-family conflict and enrichment and to explore gender differences. Data analysis was conducted using PASW18 for descriptive analysis, exploratory factor analysis, Cronbach's alpha and analysis of variance, with which it was found that, for the items of work-family conflict and family-work conflict, the reliability of the scales used to measure the construct goes respectively from acceptable (0.67) to satisfactory (0.82). The t-test showed that females perceive more anticipated enrichment, especially in the direction work-family (M = 11.20, DS = 1.98, t= 3,88 with p <0,05), compared to males (M = 10.39 and DS = 1.92). While regarding the anticipated conflict, there are no meaningful differences between males and females, in contrast to the results of Cinamon (2006), which instead have shown that women perceive more conflict in both directions, than men. Again, unlike from what has been done by Cinamon, the innovative part of the study concerns the exploration of the construct of enrichment in both directions in relation to the gender. Unlike the sample of Cinamon, balanced by gender, the sample of this study consists mainly of females. In addition this study also presents another limit, besides the sampling, which is related to the difficulty of the subjects in responding to the questionnaire: it is complex to imagine how the relationship will be between working life and family life. Though, despite these limitations, the study is very useful for creating programs and counselling interventions that can help young people to make better choices about their own future and to deal with the acquisition of new life roles.