Impact of quantitative, emotional, and cognitive job demands on work-to-family conflict of university faculty in Pakistan

Abstract

University academic faculty in Pakistan are facing greater pressures and higher workload from their jobs. It was hypothesized that faculty face quantitative, cognitive, and emotional demands on their jobs which would positively impact their experience of conflict arising from work and affecting family roles. A sample of 425 public sector faculty member from Pakistan filled an online survey questionnaire. The questionnaire consisted of demographic information, Work to Family Conflict Scale-Short Form (Kacmar, Wayne, Carlson, Ferguson, & Whitten, 2014), and Job Demands Scale consisting of four items adopted by Experience and Evaluation of Work (Van Veldhoven & Meijman, 1994). Findings of t-test revealed that female faculty perceived significantly higher work-to-family conflict and cognitive demands compared to male faculty, while there was no gender difference in perceptions of quantitative and emotional demands. The hypothesized model was tested using structural equation modeling and a good fit was achieved. The direct relationship between quantitative and emotional job demands with work to the family conflict was significant and between cognitive job demands and work to family conflict was insignificant. No gender-based variance was found in the hypothesized model. The results can provide guidelines for the university administration to device effective work-family policies.