Bringing work stress home: The impact of role conflict and role overload on spousal marital satisfaction

Many previous studies have explored the possibility that work stressors negatively impact the well-being of an individual's spouse with little success. This study aimed to extend the existing literature by exploring boundary conditions of the relationship including the possibility that political skill and gender modify the relationship between role conflict, role overload, and spousal marital satisfaction. It also suggests that men and women differ in their propensity to cope with different types of stressors. Using a sample of 139 matched marital dyads, analytical results generally support these hypotheses. Political skill was a significant moderator of the role conflict–marital satisfaction relationship for the husband-to-wife transaction, but not the wife-to-husband transaction. In addition, political skill was a significant moderator of the role overload–marital satisfaction relationship for the wife-to-husband transaction but not the husband-to-wife transaction. These findings are important to both research and practice in that they highlight the issue of stress crossover and the importance of coping in the workplace. Practitioner points It is advantageous for an employee's marital well-being to deal with work stressors using work-related resources. Males tend to use coping resources to address role conflict, while females divert these resources to role overload.