雙薪家庭員工的性別與工作-家庭衝突處理

Abstract

本研究的目的在探討當工作-家庭衝突發生時，個人的處理方式是否會有性別差異，以及處理方式對兩性所造成的影響是否會不同。工作-家庭衝突可分為工作對家庭的衝突與家庭對工作的衝突，藉由衝突情境的操弄，21名男性與21名女性假想自己是情境中當事人以利於進行後續訪談。研究發現多數的兩性受訪者處理工作-家庭衝突皆以工作優先，但在尋找對象照顧家人時，兩性尋求的資源卻有差異，多數男性傾向求助於配偶或親戚，女性除了求助於配偶或親戚，也會尋求鄰居、朋友的幫助，且求助配偶的男性明顯多於女性。多數的兩性受訪者認為自己的方式能順利解決工作-家庭衝突，而覺得處理得當或滿意。兩性處理工作-家庭衝突後，對工作造成負面影響的比例與原因皆相近，但男性對家庭造成負面影響的比例較女性為高，造成負面影響的原因亦有所不同。此外，以家庭優先的男性受訪者全為主管階級，女性則多數為主管。

This research studied the gender differences on the methods used to resolve work and family conflicts in dual-career families. The conflicts exist in two directions: the intrusion of events from work life into family life and vice versa. We provided two scripts each describing either of the two types of conflict to 21 males and 21 females from dual-career families and asked them to respond to the situations in the scripts. We also asked them report their encounters experienced in their work and family lives with these two types of conflict and the ways they had taken to manage the conflicts. We found both males and females, especially those with higher job rankings, took the demand of their work as priority when facing with either of the two types of conflict. They would take the demands of their jobs as precedence, worked to satisfy these demands, and looked for others’ assistance for fulfilling their family duties should the events from their work intrude into their family lives or vice versa. Gender differences occurred on the sources which subjects relied on for providing assistance to their family matters. Males asked spouses or relatives to help on the family matters if the urgent demands from work needed their immediate attentions. Females relied on not only spouse and relatives but also neighbors and friends. More males than females would ask their spouses to help in fulfilling their family duties. Both males and females were satisfied with their own methods of conflict resolution since they felt that these methods were effective in reducing conflict. Nevertheless, an equal number of males and females experienced a negative effect from the two types of conflict on their family lives. Males and females attributed different causes to their reported negative effect on their family lives.