ArticleSocial psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology2021
Australian parents' work-family conflict: accumulated effects on children's family environment and mental health.
Article in Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Parental Stress and Well-Being: A Meta-analysis.Clinical child and family psychology review · 2025Pooled it
- Work-Family Conflict, Parental Mental Health, and Children's Emotional and Behavioral Difficulties.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- The differential impact of increasing and decreasing maternal work-family conflict on children's executive function difficulties in South Korea.European child & adolescent psychiatry · 2025Article
- Exploring the association between the post-pandemic period and psychological problems among university students in Wuhan: a cross-sectional analysis.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Cohort Profile: Growing up in Australia: the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC).International journal of epidemiology · 2025Article
- Impact of work hours on sleep quality: a non-linear and gendered disparity.Archives of women's mental health · 2025Article
- Workload, job, and family satisfaction in dual-earning parents with adolescents: the mediating role of work-to-family conflict.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Family-to-work conflict linked to psychological distress and family life satisfaction during the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic in dual-earner parents with adolescents.Frontiers in public health · 2024Article
- Work stressors, work-family conflict, parents' depressive symptoms and perceived parental concern for their children's mental health during COVID-19 in Canada: a cross-sectional analysis.BMC public health · 2023Article
- Work-family interface and children's mental health: a systematic review.Child and adolescent psychiatry and mental health · 2023Review
- How the mental health of working parents in Australia changed during COVID-19: A pre- to during pandemic longitudinal comparison.Journal of affective disorders · 2023Article
- Risk Factors Associated With Increased Anxiety Sensitivity in Children and Adolescents in Northwest China During COVID-19 Pandemic Lockdown.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeMany parents struggle to balance their work and family responsibilities. Yet, little research in the field of social psychiatry has explored the emergence of work-family conflict (WFC) as an important social determinant of mental health, particularly for children. The current study used longitudinal Australian population-based data to investigate the impact of parents' accumulated experiences of work-family conflict on children's mental health. Levels of parent psychological distress, marital satisfaction and parenting irritability were examined as potential explanatory factors within the family environment.
methodsThe study used five waves of data from the Australian Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC), a representative community sample of Australian children and their parents. Analyses were restricted to coupled, employed mothers (1903) and fathers (1584) who reported their WFC levels in all five waves. Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was used to examine the association between accumulated experiences of work-family conflict across all time-points (AWFC) and children's mental health at wave 5. Family environment factors were assessed as possible explanatory mediators.
resultsThere was a significant association between AWFC and children's mental health at wave 5. Parent psychological distress, marital satisfaction and parenting irritability were all found to significantly explain this association (accounting for 66% of the total effect).
conclusionsChildren whose parents have ongoing or accumulated difficulties managing their work and family responsibilities are more likely to have poorer mental health. This has important implications for family-friendly work arrangements and demonstrates the need to further understand the intergenerational impacts of parents' jobs on their children's psychological wellbeing.
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