IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/jfamec/v42y2021i4d10.1007_s10834-021-09752-w.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Impact of Absolute and Relative Commute Time on Work–Family Conflict: Work Schedule Control, Child Care Hours, and Life Satisfaction

Author

Listed:
  • Bing Bai

    (University of Redlands)

  • Neena Gopalan

    (University of Redlands)

  • Nicholas Beutell

    (LaPenta School of Business, Iona College)

  • Fang Ren

    (University of Redlands)

Abstract

Flexibility is crucial when employees manage their work and family demands and their commute between home and work. The current study examined the direct and moderation effects of variables from multiple domains including work schedule control (work domain), childcare hours (family domain), and life satisfaction (overall life domain). The impact of the geographic context on work–family conflict was tested with two contextual variables that were generated with Geographic Information System (GIS) technology, where ‘absolute’ and ‘relative commute time’ were investigated in relation to work–family conflict. The participants participated in the National Study of Changing Workforce and completed an online survey on many work and family related variables. Results support the fact that commute time has an impact on work–family dynamics, that life satisfaction can influence this relationship, and that it is important to consider neighborhood in future research to better comprehend work–family interface issues. The study also highlights the importance of urbanization, relative and absolute commute time, etc. in impacting work–family conflict. Additionally, the study discusses the impact of COVID-19 on commute and one’s work–family dynamics. Future research directions are put forward to better understand work and family experiences in the post COVID-19 world.

Suggested Citation

  • Bing Bai & Neena Gopalan & Nicholas Beutell & Fang Ren, 2021. "Impact of Absolute and Relative Commute Time on Work–Family Conflict: Work Schedule Control, Child Care Hours, and Life Satisfaction," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 42(4), pages 586-600, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jfamec:v:42:y:2021:i:4:d:10.1007_s10834-021-09752-w
    DOI: 10.1007/s10834-021-09752-w
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10834-021-09752-w
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s10834-021-09752-w?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Tim Schwanen & Frans M. Dieleman & Martin Dijst, 2004. "The Impact of Metropolitan Structure on Commute Behavior in the Netherlands: A Multilevel Approach," Growth and Change, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(3), pages 304-333, September.
    2. Valerie Preston & Sara McLafferty, 1999. "articles: Spatial mismatch research in the 1990s: progress and potential," Papers in Regional Science, Springer;Regional Science Association International, vol. 78(4), pages 387-402.
    3. Maoh, Hanna & Tang, Zhongyuan, 2012. "Determinants of normal and extreme commute distance in a sprawled midsize Canadian city: evidence from Windsor, Canada," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 25(C), pages 50-57.
    4. Farag, Sendy & Schwanen, Tim & Dijst, Martin & Faber, Jan, 2007. "Shopping online and/or in-store? A structural equation model of the relationships between e-shopping and in-store shopping," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 125-141, February.
    5. Patricia L Mokhtarian & Gustavo O Collantes & Carsten Gertz, 2004. "Telecommuting, Residential Location, and Commute-Distance Traveled: Evidence from State of California Employees," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 36(10), pages 1877-1897, October.
    6. Prashker, Joseph & Shiftan, Yoram & Hershkovitch-Sarusi, Pazit, 2008. "Residential choice location, gender and the commute trip to work in Tel Aviv," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 16(5), pages 332-341.
    7. Ren, Fang & Kwan, Mei-Po, 2009. "The impact of the Internet on human activity–travel patterns: analysis of gender differences using multi-group structural equation models," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 17(6), pages 440-450.
    8. Nie, Peng & Sousa-Poza, Alfonso, 2018. "Commute time and subjective well-being in urban China," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 48(C), pages 188-204.
    9. Kenneth A. Baerenklau, 2005. "Toward an Understanding of Technology Adoption: Risk, Learning, and Neighborhood Effects," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 81(1).
    10. Deniz Yucel, 2017. "Work-To-Family Conflict and Life Satisfaction: the Moderating Role of Type of Employment," Applied Research in Quality of Life, Springer;International Society for Quality-of-Life Studies, vol. 12(3), pages 577-591, September.
    11. Higgins, Christopher Alan & Duxbury, Linda Elizabeth & Irving, Richard Harold, 1992. "Work-family conflict in the dual-career family," Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Elsevier, vol. 51(1), pages 51-75, February.
    12. Denstadli, Jon Martin & Julsrud, Tom Erik & Christiansen, Petter, 2017. "Urban commuting – A threat to the work-family balance?," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 87-94.
    13. Lorenz, Olga, 2018. "Does commuting matter to subjective well-being?," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 180-199.
    14. Jonas De Vos & Patricia L. Mokhtarian & Tim Schwanen & Veronique Van Acker & Frank Witlox, 2016. "Travel mode choice and travel satisfaction: bridging the gap between decision utility and experienced utility," Transportation, Springer, vol. 43(5), pages 771-796, September.
    15. Mei-Po Kwan, 1999. "Gender, the Home-Work Link, and Space-Time Patterns of Nonemployment Activities," Economic Geography, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 75(4), pages 370-394, October.
    16. Yamauchi, Futoshi, 2007. "Social learning, neighborhood effects, and investment in human capital: Evidence from Green-Revolution India," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(1), pages 37-62, May.
    17. Lars Olsson & Tommy Gärling & Dick Ettema & Margareta Friman & Satoshi Fujii, 2013. "Happiness and Satisfaction with Work Commute," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 111(1), pages 255-263, March.
    18. Schwanen, Tim & Mokhtarian, Patricia L., 2005. "What Affects Commute Mode Choice: Neighborhood Physical Structure or Preferences Toward Neighborhoods?," University of California Transportation Center, Working Papers qt4nq9r1c9, University of California Transportation Center.
    19. Li, Ran & Tong, Daoqin, 2016. "Constructing human activity spaces: A new approach incorporating complex urban activity-travel," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 56(C), pages 23-35.
    20. Patricia L. Mokhtarian, 1998. "A Synthetic Approach to Estimating the Impacts of Telecommuting on Travel," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 35(2), pages 215-241, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Cezary Kuśnierz & Aleksandra M. Rogowska & Karolina Chilicka & Iuliia Pavlova & Dominika Ochnik, 2022. "Associations of Work-Family Conflict with Family-Specific, Work-Specific, and Well-Being-Related Variables in a Sample of Polish and Ukrainian Adults during the Second Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(17), pages 1-20, September.
    2. David Powell & Jeffrey B. Wenger, 2023. "Bridging Employment for Older Workers and the Role of Flexible Scheduling Arrangements," Working Papers wp453, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center.
    3. Vegh Gary & Sajedi Sarah & Naybor Deborah, 2022. "Long-Term Effects of COVID-19, and Its Impact on Business, Employees, and CO 2 Emissions, a Study Using Arc-GIS Survey 123 and Arc-GIS Mapping," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(20), pages 1-22, October.
    4. Lee, Zeewan & Tan, Poh Lin & Tan-Soo, Jie-Sheng, 2023. "Unequal Gains from Remote Work during COVID-19 between Spouses: Evidence from Longitudinal Data in Singapore," EconStor Preprints 270941, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics.
    5. Palacios, Saúl, 2021. "Desplazamientos y autoempleo en Francia: diferencias por género [Commuting y self-employment in France: gender differences]," MPRA Paper 106555, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Barbora Mazúrová & Ján Kollár & Gabriela Nedelová, 2021. "Travel Mode of Commuting in Context of Subjective Well-Being—Experience from Slovakia," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(6), pages 1-17, March.
    2. Zuoxian Gan & Tao Feng & Min Yang, 2018. "Exploring the Effects of Car Ownership and Commuting on Subjective Well-Being: A Nationwide Questionnaire Study," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(1), pages 1-20, December.
    3. Jiankun Yang & Min He & Mingwei He, 2022. "Exploring the Group Difference in the Nonlinear Relationship between Commuting Satisfaction and Commuting Time," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(14), pages 1-19, July.
    4. Tao, Yinhua & van Ham, Maarten & Petrović, Ana & Ta, Na, 2023. "A household perspective on the commuting paradox: Longitudinal relationships between commuting time and subjective wellbeing for couples in China," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 170(C).
    5. Ben-Elia, Eran & Alexander, Bayarma & Hubers, Christa & Ettema, Dick, 2014. "Activity fragmentation, ICT and travel: An exploratory Path Analysis of spatiotemporal interrelationships," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 56-74.
    6. Kroesen, Maarten, 2022. "Working from home during the corona-crisis is associated with higher subjective well-being for women with long (pre-corona) commutes," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 14-23.
    7. De Vos, Jonas, 2018. "Do people travel with their preferred travel mode? Analysing the extent of travel mode dissonance and its effect on travel satisfaction," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 261-274.
    8. De Vos, Jonas & Witlox, Frank, 2017. "Travel satisfaction revisited. On the pivotal role of travel satisfaction in conceptualising a travel behaviour process," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 364-373.
    9. De Vos, Jonas & Mouratidis, Kostas & Cheng, Long & Kamruzzaman, Md., 2021. "Does a residential relocation enable satisfying travel?," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 153(C), pages 188-201.
    10. Vincent-Geslin, Stephanie & Ravalet, Emmanuel, 2016. "Determinants of extreme commuting. Evidence from Brussels, Geneva and Lyon," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 240-247.
    11. Martín-Barroso, David & Núñez-Serrano, Juan A. & Turrión, Jaime & Velázquez, Francisco J., 2022. "Are workers' commutes sensitive to changes in the labour market situation?," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    12. Ben Clark & Kiron Chatterjee & Adam Martin & Adrian Davis, 2020. "How commuting affects subjective wellbeing," Transportation, Springer, vol. 47(6), pages 2777-2805, December.
    13. Pengxiang Ding & Suwei Feng, 2022. "How School Travel Affects Children’s Psychological Well-Being and Academic Achievement in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(21), pages 1-13, October.
    14. Julia Ingenfeld & Tobias Wolbring & Herbert Bless, 2019. "Commuting and Life Satisfaction Revisited: Evidence on a Non-linear Relationship," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 20(8), pages 2677-2709, December.
    15. Kamruzzaman, Md. & Baker, Douglas & Washington, Simon & Turrell, Gavin, 2013. "Residential dissonance and mode choice," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 12-28.
    16. Pengyu Zhu, 2013. "Telecommuting, Household Commute and Location Choice," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 50(12), pages 2441-2459, September.
    17. Mouratidis, Kostas & Ettema, Dick & Næss, Petter, 2019. "Urban form, travel behavior, and travel satisfaction," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 306-320.
    18. Junghwan Kim & Mei-Po Kwan, 2018. "Beyond Commuting: Ignoring Individuals’ Activity-Travel Patterns May Lead to Inaccurate Assessments of Their Exposure to Traffic Congestion," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(1), pages 1-20, December.
    19. Patricia L Mokhtarian & Gustavo O Collantes & Carsten Gertz, 2004. "Telecommuting, Residential Location, and Commute-Distance Traveled: Evidence from State of California Employees," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 36(10), pages 1877-1897, October.
    20. J. Ignacio Gimenez-Nadal & José Alberto Molina, 2016. "Commuting Time And Household Responsibilities: Evidence Using Propensity Score Matching," Journal of Regional Science, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 56(2), pages 332-359, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:jfamec:v:42:y:2021:i:4:d:10.1007_s10834-021-09752-w. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.