Job and Non-Work Conflict

Abstract

The Job and Non-Work Conflict measure, developed by Small and Riley in 1990, is a specialized instrument designed to quantify the degree to which demands from the work domain spill over and interfere with an individual’s non-work life. This interference is assessed across four critical non-work roles: leisure, home management, parent, and spouse.

The scale is fundamentally rooted in the Scarcity Hypothesis, a theoretical framework asserting that individuals possess a finite reservoir of time, energy, and psychological resources. Engagement in multiple, demanding social roles (such as worker, parent, and spouse) creates inherent strain, leading to the depletion of these resources, often resulting in increased stress and burnout across these life domains. The instrument operationalizes this spillover effect into distinct, measurable subscales.

Keywords

Job and Non-Work Conflict, Work Spillover, Work-Family Conflict, Scarcity Hypothesis, Role Strain, Job Stress, Work-Life Balance.

Authors

Small, S., Riley, D.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Job and Non-Work Conflict scale is to provide a detailed, multidimensional assessment of the negative directional spillover—specifically, how job demands impede functioning in various non-work roles. It moves beyond a general measure of conflict by isolating interference into four distinct categories: marital/spousal, parental, leisure, and home management conflict.

By compartmentalizing the conflict, the scale allows researchers and practitioners to identify specific areas where work roles disproportionately deplete the resources required for effective functioning in personal and familial domains, thereby supporting targeted interventions aimed at improving work-life balance and mitigating role overload.

Construct

The scale measures the construct of Work-Non-Work Conflict (WNC), conceptualized as a form of inter-role conflict where participation in the work role makes participation in a non-work role (family, leisure) more difficult. This difficulty stems directly from the tenets of the Scarcity Hypothesis.

The construct posits that the strain experienced is a result of time-based conflict (work hours infringing on non-work time) and strain-based conflict (fatigue or stress from work making non-work roles difficult). The instrument captures these dimensions across four specific non-work domains: Job-Spouse Conflict, Job-Parent Conflict, Job-Leisure Conflict, and Job-Home Management Conflict.

Validity

The validity of the measure has been supported through correlational studies, demonstrating theoretically consistent relationships between specific conflict subscales and relevant demographic and psychological outcomes (Aryee, 1993). For instance, Job-Parent Conflict showed a positive correlation with the number of children under six years of age, indicating higher conflict levels for parents with greater childcare demands. Job-parent conflict also correlated positively with hours spent on the job for wives, though not for husbands, suggesting gender differences in how work time translates into parental role strain.

Further supporting the scale’s validity, differential patterns were observed across genders regarding psychological outcomes. For husbands, job-parent conflict correlated positively with burnout and negatively with the perceived quality of spousal experience. Job-spouse conflict specifically correlated positively with burnout for husbands, but not for wives. For wives, job-spouse conflict correlated positively with time at work, work role ambiguity, and perceived lack of career progress, establishing concurrent validity with established organizational stress factors.

Reliability

Internal consistency reliability has been established using Coefficient alpha (Cronbach’s alpha). Analysis reported by Aryee (1993) demonstrated acceptable to good reliability for the core familial subscales.

The reported Coefficient alpha values were:

• Job-Spouse Conflict Scale: .70
• Job-Parent Conflict Scale: .81

These values suggest that the items within these respective subscales are internally consistent and reliably measure their intended dimensions of conflict, meeting standard psychological criteria for research instruments.

Factor Analysis

While explicit details regarding exploratory or confirmatory factor analysis (EFA/CFA) are not provided in the initial source description, the structure of the measure inherently suggests a multidimensional factor structure. The scale is designed to assess four distinct factors of conflict spillover: Job-Spouse, Job-Parent, Job-Leisure, and Job-Home Management Conflict.

This four-factor structure implies that conflict is not a monolithic construct but rather manifests uniquely depending on the non-work role being interfered with. The creation of separate item sets for each role function suggests that the authors intended for these subscales to be treated as independent, yet related, dimensions of inter-role conflict.

Instrument

Test Type: Self-report questionnaire designed to measure inter-role conflict.

Format: Multi-item scale utilizing a 5-point Likert-type scale where 1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly agree.

Language Available: English (Original publication language).

Population Group: Employed adults, particularly those engaged in spousal and parental roles.

Age Group: Adult working population.

Population Details: Originally validated using samples of working husbands and wives.

Test Methodology: Respondents indicate their level of agreement or disagreement with statements describing the degree to which their job interferes with specific non-work roles. Scoring typically involves summing or averaging items within each of the four subscales, with higher scores indicating greater Job and Non-Work Conflict.

Keywords

Work-Family Conflict, Work Spillover, Inter-role Conflict, Job-Spouse Conflict, Job-Parent Conflict, Scarcity Theory, Psychological Measurement, Organizational Psychology.

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: N/A (Not provided in source).

Affiliation Email addresses: N/A (Not provided in source).

Correspondence Address: N/A (Not provided in source).

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

Test Year: 1990 (Original publication).

Permissions: The items were published in the Journal of Marriage and the Family, with copyright held by the National Council on Family Relations. Permission for use should be sought from the journal or the copyright holder (National Council on Family Relations, 3989 Central Ave. NE, Suite 550, Minneapolis, MN 55421).

Fee: Usage fees are not explicitly stated in the source. Academic research use often requires seeking permission but may not incur direct fees for the scale items, provided proper citation is maintained.

Reference’s

Small, S., & Riley, D. (1990). Towards a multidimensional assessment of work spillover into family life. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 52, 51-61. Items were taken from Table 1, p. 53. Copyright© 1990 by the National Council on Family Relations, 3989 Central Ave. NE, Suite 550, Minneapolis, MN 55421. Reprinted by permission.

Aryee, S. (1993). Determinants of work-family conflict: A role-overload model. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 42(1), 1-12.

Items of the Job and Non-Work Conflict

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

Responses are obtained using a 5-point Likert-type scale where 1 = strongly disagree and 5 = strongly agree.

Job-marriage conflict items:

1. My job helps me have a better relationship with my spouse
2. My job keeps me from spending time with my spouse
3. Worrying about my job is interfering with my relationship with my spouse
4. After work I am too tired to do things with my spouse
5. My marriage suffers because of my work

Job-parent conflict items:

1. My job makes it hard for me to have a good relationship with my children
2. My working hours interfere with the amount of time I spend with my children
3. Because I am often irritable after work, I am not as good a parent as I like
4. When I get home from work, I often do not have the energy to be a good parent
5. I am a better parent because of my job

Job-leisure conflict items:

1. My job makes it difficult to enjoy my free time outside of work
2. The amount of time I spend working interferes with how much free time I have
3. Worry about my job makes it hard for me to enjoy myself outside of work
4. Because I am often tired after work, I don’t see friends as much as I would like
5. My job doesn’t affect whether I enjoy my free time outside of work

Job-home management conflict items:

1. My job makes it difficult to get household chores done
2. I spend so much time working that I am unable to get much done at home
3. Worrying about my job interferes with my ability to get things done around the house
4. When I get home from my job, I do not have the energy to do work around the house
5. Having a job makes it easier to get my household chores done