Towards a typology of work-home interference: The prevalence of work-home interference patterns under specific individual, job and home characteristics

In this paper the relationship of various types of work-home interaction (i.e. negative and positive influence from work to home, and the other way around) with demographic, family, and (perceived) work characteristics as well as with experienced health was explored in a sample of 751 postal employees. By using cluster analysis, we tried to uncover whether specific combinations of the various dimensions of work-home interaction (WHI) were more prevalent than others. Our results showed that employees did not simply experience negative work-home interaction or not, but that participants should be classified in five distinct clusters: (1) 239 employees experienced no interaction at all; (2) 74 employees experienced primarily negative interaction between both domains; (3) 113 employees experienced primarily positive influence from work; (4) 195 employees experienced primarily positive influence from home; and (5) 122 employees experienced negative and positive interaction simultaneously. Results further showed that the emerging WHI-clusters appeared to have distinct profiles with respect to demographic and family characteristics, perceived working conditions, and reported health and well-being. It was convincingly shown that workers who experienced negative interaction between work and home, perceived their working conditions as least favourable and experienced most psychological health complaints, while those with primarily positive influence from work had the most favourable perceptions of their working conditions and experienced better health than the other clusters. Employees who experienced virtually no interaction between both domains did not seem to enjoy a better quality of life than the other clusters. Implications of this exploratory study are discussed. Dans cet article nous avons explor, dans un chantillon constitu par 751 employs de la poste, la relation entre les diffrents types d'interaction entre le travail et la vie domestique d'un ct (c'est dire l'influence positive et negative du travail sur la vie domestique comme l'effet inverse), et de l'autre cot, les caractristiques dmographiques, familiales et de travail (peru), et l'exprience de la sant. En utilisant des analyses agglomres nous avons essay de comprendre si les combinaisons spcifiques des diffrentes dimensions de l'interaction travail-domicile prvalaient sur d'autres. Nos rsultats dmontrent que non seulement les employs faisaient l'exprience positive ou negative de l'interaction travail-domicile, mais que en plus les participants pouvaient etre classs selon cinq agglomrats diffrents: (1) 239 employs ne montraient aucune forme d'interaction; (2) 74 employs percevaient seulement de l'interactions ngative entre les deux domaines; (3) 113 employs ressentaient principalement de l'influence positive de leur travail; (4) 195 employes percevaient seulement l'influence positive de leur vie domestique; et (5) 122 ressentaient de l'interaction positive et ngative simultanment. En outre, les rsultats montrent que ces cinq groupes disposaient de profils diffrents en ce qui concerne les caractristiques dmographiques et familiales comme leur experiences de sant et de bien-tre. Nous avons dmontr de faon convaincante que les travailleurs qui ressentaient une interaction ngative entre travail et domicile percevaient leurs conditions de travail comme les moins favorables et reportaient le plus de plaintes de sant psychologique, tandis que ceux qui ressentaient principalement une influence positive de leur travail reportaient les perceptions de conditions de travail les plus favorables et percevaient leur sant comme meilleur que les autres groupes. Les employes qui ne ressentaient pratiquement pas d'interaction entre les deux domaines ne donnaient pas l'impression d'avoir une meilleur qualit de vie que les autres agglomrats. Les implications de cette tude exploratoire sont discutes