Be Careful What You Wish For

Abstract

Learning at work is usually seen as beneficial for the professional and personal lives of workers. In this article, we propose that learning’s relationship to worker well-being may be more complicated. We posit that learning can become a burden (instead of always being a benefit) in occupations that are learning intensive and tightly associated with the postindustrial economy. Results of analyses using data from the General Social Survey suggest that learning lessens work–family conflict by increasing job satisfaction, but at the same time, learning makes work–family conflict worse by leading people to work longer hours and exacerbating work-related stress.