Abstract
Analyzing three waves of the Canadian Work Stress and Health Study with cross-lagged models, we asked: (1) How do two distinct directions of strain in the work-family interface—work-to-family conflict and family-to-work conflict—mediate the relationship between financial strain and psychological distress? and (2) Is reverse causality a possibility in these dynamics? Our results indicate that work-to-family conflict at Wave 2 mediates the relationship between financial strain at Wave 1 and distress at Wave 3, but family-to-work conflict does not function as a mediator. Financial strain is therefore indirectly associated with subsequently higher levels of distress. In tests for reverse causality, we found little evidence that distress is associated with subsequently higher levels of financial strain—and neither work-to-family conflict nor family-to-work conflict at Wave 2 mediates that relationship. We interpret our findings within the conceptual and empirical ideas associated with stress proliferation, social causation, and social selection/drift.
Keywords
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
