Job characteristics and work-family relationship:

A case study in the health sector

Abstract

Work and family represent the two most dominant life domains for individuals and, therefore, the attempt to manage the demands of professional and personal life has been considered a current challenge experienced by the workers. Work in modern society is characterized by a high amount of demands that require high efforts by workers to perform their work tasks, including work overload, overtime hours, and pressure/stress. These demands are the main antecedents of the Work-Family Conflict (WFC), since the workers must allocate his available resources (e.g., time, energy) into different tasks, making it difficult to balance work and family roles. Despite this, job characteristics also include resources that protect workers when meeting their job demands and help them have a better performance, they include professional development opportunities, feedback, and autonomy. Accordingly, workers also have job resources that improve their family's quality of life and allow them to benefit from their work-family relationship, resulting in Work-Family Enrichment (WFE).

The aim of the present study is to examine the impact of job characteristics, in health professionals, on their work-family relationship and the mediating role of gender.