What Happens at Home Does Not Stay at Home: Family-to-Work Conflict and the Link Between Relationship Strains and Quality

Abstract

Family scholars have devoted much effort to understand relationship strains and couple well-being. However, surprisingly few longitudinal studies have sought to capture within-individual variations in relationship strains over time, and the ways that family conditions moderate the association between relationship strains and couple well-being. Using four waves of panel data from the Canadian Work, Stress, and Health Study (2011–2017; n = 1778 individuals; 5058 person-years), this study investigates the association of relationship strains (i.e., the unequal division of housework, perceived housework unfairness, and spousal disputes) with couple relationship quality—and the extent to which family-to-work (FWC) and breadwinner status moderate that association. We use fixed effects regression techniques to analyze this diverse sample of workers with multi-item measures of focal variables. We find that the unequal division of housework, perceived housework unfairness, and spousal disputes are associated with lower levels of relationship quality, respectively. Moreover, FWC amplifies the adverse associations of perceived housework unfairness and spousal disputes with relationship quality over time—but FWC’s moderating influence is exacerbated among non-breadwinners. Our findings elaborate and sharpen the scope of FWC as a moderator (and breadwinner status as an additional contingency) in the application of equity theory alongside other conceptual ideas like stress amplification in the stress process model.