Linking Parent’s Work-Family Interface to Children’s Mental Health Difficulties: A Mediated Path through Parental Psychopathology and Family Role Performance

Abstract

This study investigated whether work-family interface (WFI) affects children’s mental health difficulties through parental family role performance and psychopathology. The study sample was composed of 444 biological parents of children between 4 and 17 years old. The WFI, parental family role performance, psychopathology, and children’s mental health difficulties were measured using the Work-Home Interference Nijmegen Survey, Family Role Performance Scale, General Health Questionnaire, and parent-reported Strengths & Difficulties Questionnaire, respectively. SEM-based path analyses suggest that parents’ psychological strain and family role performance are total mediators linking work-family interface with children’s mental health difficulties. These findings support the design of organizational and family interventions focused on balancing work and home roles. Benefits of these programs can be transmitted from working parents to their children through improvements in the family environment.

Plain Language Summary

Linking parent’s work-family balance to children’s mental health difficulties through parental strain and family role performance

This study looked at how the balance between work and family life affects children’s mental health through the way parents perform their family roles and their own mental health issues. The study included 444 actual parents of children aged 4 to 17. Researchers discovered that parents’ distress and their ability to fulfill family roles play important roles in connecting work-family balance to children’s mental health issues.

Keywords

work-family interface parents’ psychological strain family role performance children’s mental health difficulties

Introduction

In most high- and middle-income countries, parental work provides the material and social resources necessary for healthy child development (Bradley & Corwyn, 2002; OECD, 2022; Radcliffe & Cassell, 2014), but work-related stressors and interference between work and family roles can also negatively affect parental health and family functioning (Bianchi & Milkie, 2010). This means, from the bioecological model’s perspective (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2007), that even though children do not directly participate in their parent’s work, their immediate developmental environment (i.e., family microsystem) highly depends on the interaction between their parents’ work and family life domains.

In line with Bronfenbrenner and Morris’ model, some recently published studies report that the interference between work and home deteriorates family environment, exposing children to parental stress, poor health, and low family role performance (Cooklin et al., 2015; Dinh et al., 2017; Roeters & van Houdt, 2019; Strazdins et al., 2013a; Vahedi et al., 2019; Vieira et al., 2016). However, these studies are still few and have not yet assessed jointly the indirect effect (via parental stress-related outcomes) of all forms of work-family interaction (positive and negative transfers from work to family and from family to work) on children’s well-being.

The aim of this study is to investigate whether parental psychopathology and family role performance are mechanisms linking the work family interface (WFI) with children’s mental health difficulties. The contradiction or interference between work and family role demands have two dimensions, depending on which role is the source and which the receiver of conflict. The interference of work demands in family activities is known as Work-to-Family Conflict—WFC; and the interference of family demands in work activities is known as family-to-work conflict—FWC (Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985). Both WFC and FWC had been documented as associated factors with workers’ health, performance and satisfaction with both job and family (Allen et al., 2000; Amstad et al., 2011; Byron, 2005; Ford et al., 2007; Greenhaus & Powell, 2006; Hammer et al., 2016; B. K. Miller et al., 2022).

In addition to WFC and FWC, the WFI includes the bi-directional positive spillover between work and family. Work-to-family Positive Spillover (WFPS) occurs when work facilitate family life, and Family-to-Work Positive Spillover (FWPS) occurs when family facilitates work (Masuda et al., 2012). From this perspective, so-called role enhancement approach, the performance of multiple roles represents greater opportunities to obtain valuable resources (e.g., income, knowledge, skills, and social support), which are relevant to well-being and success in different life domains (Greenhaus & Powell, 2006).

Although the positive spillover between work and family have been less investigated than WFC and FWC, it has been broadly supported that WFPS and FWPS are consistently associated with work-related outcomes, such as job satisfaction, job performance, organizational commitment, turnover intention and organizational citizenship behaviors; family-related outcomes, such as family satisfaction, family role performance, and affective commitment; and health-related outcomes, such as stress, physical, mental, and general health (McNall et al., 2010; Zhang et al., 2018).

Furthermore, both the positive and negative interactions between work and family domains may generate different outcomes in each role. Specifically, WFC, FWC, WFPS, and FWPS can have a “cross domain effect,” when its consequences are more strongly manifested in the “receiver role” of the interaction than in the “source role” (e.g., when job responsibilities prevent the worker from spending quality time with his family and, due to this impediment, his family role performance decreases); or a “matching domain effect,” if its consequences are more strongly manifested in the “source role” of the interaction than in the “receiver role” (e.g., when job responsibilities prevent the worker from spending quality time with their family and, due to negative emotional and behavioral reactions directed to the source role of the interference, his job role performance decreases; Frone et al., 1992).

Meta-analytic studies suggest that WFC, FWC, WFPS, and FWPS are more strongly associated with outcomes proper from the same life domain. However, considering that the cross-domain hypothesis has also accumulated abundant supporting evidence during the last two decades (Amstad et al., 2011; McNall et al., 2010), this study analyzes the four ways of work-home interaction (WFC, FWC, WFPS, and FWPS) separately. (Cuesta & Guarin, 2024; Maldonado-Carreño et al., 2022; OECD, 2022; Perry-Jenkins & Gerstel, 2020; Young, 2019).

Work-Family Interface and Stress-Related Outcomes

WFI-related health outcomes have been found dependent from psychophysiological stress reactions. According to the conservation of resources theory—COR (Hobfoll, 1989), WFC and FWC are stressors that threaten individual well-being, to the extent that they imply depleting the personal resources dedicated to the performance of one (“victim of conflict”) role, in order to meet the demands of the other (that becomes the “source of conflict”). As stressors, chronic exposure to WFC or FWC produces increased activity in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis (Zilioli et al., 2016), which in turn has been associated to negative physical health outcomes, such as cardiovascular disease (Lovallo & Gerin, 2003; Lundberg, 2005; Malpas, 2010; G. E. Miller et al., 2007; Parati & Esler, 2012) and emotional disorders, especially anxiety and depression (Holsboer & Barden, 1996; Ströhle, 2003).

More specifically, WFC and FWC are known to be associated to negative outcomes at three domains. First, at the job-related domain, they have been found linked to absenteeism, turnover intention and decreased organizational citizenship behaviors (Amstad et al., 2011). Second, at the family domain, WFC and FWC have been stated to predict low role performance (Chen et al., 2014), low marital quality (Barling & Macewen, 1992; Fellows et al., 2016), negative parent-child interactions (Cooklin et al., 2015, 2016; Repetti & Wood, 1997), low family satisfaction (Greenhaus & Powell, 2006) and negative parenting styles (Haslam et al., 2015). And third, it has been reported that WFC and FWC may also have negative domain-unspecific outcomes (i.e. not specifically related to the performance of work or family roles), such as psychological strain, depression, and anxiety (Amstad et al., 2011).

Regarding the work-family positive spillover, the COR theory suggests that the successful integration of both roles protects against stress, to the extent that positive between-role transfers increase the resources available to cope with situational demands (Greenhaus & Powell, 2006). In the previous literature, WFPS and FWPS had been associated with role performance outcomes, such as job productivity, organizational commitment, organizational citizenship behavior, increased family role performance and affective commitment, in addition to better physical and mental health (McNall et al., 2010; Zhang et al., 2018).

In the context of parenting, the mechanism linking WFPS to children’s mental health can be explained by the increased availability of personal resources and reduced stress in parenting performance, which allow parents to be more responsive, emotionally present, and effective in caregiving (Crain et al., 2014). On the other hand, the link between FWPS and children’s mental health may be understood through the lens of social reciprocity theory (Wayne et al., 2006): when the family role supports the work role, parents tend to reciprocate by reinvesting resources into the family domain, which often translates into greater parental engagement and more consistent parenting practices—both of which are known protective factors for children’s mental health (Mistry et al., 2004).

Work-Family Interface and Children Outcomes

This study assumes that the family microsystem is the most proximal developmental environment through which the effect of exosystems (such as parents’ WFI) on children operates (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2007; Córdova et al., 2016). Bronfenbrenner (Bronfenbrenner, 1994) defines exosystems as “the linkages and processes taking place between two or more settings, at least one of which does not contain the developing person, but in which events occur that indirectly influence processes within the immediate setting in which the developing person lives.” In line with the bioecological perspective of child development, this study suggests that parents’ WFI represents an exosystem, which affects children’s psychological adjustment indirectly through parental psychopathology and family role performance.

As mentioned, there is evidence that WFC and FWC-related stress negatively affect parental health (Amstad et al., 2011), affective (e.g., attachment relationships and couple relationship quality) and operational functioning (e.g., housework, financial contribution and childcare; Chen et al., 2014; Cooklin et al., 2015, 2016; Fellows et al., 2016), which are key factors of family environment. Likewise, strong evidence suggests that parental difficulties to fulfill the emotional and operational expectations stemming from the family role (i.e., low parental role performance, Chen et al., 2014) are consistently associated with children’s poor psychological adjustment (Cummings et al., 2006; Herrenkohl et al., 2013; Shelton & Harold, 2008; Weissman, 1997); and there is also evidence that children of parents with poor metal health are more exposed than others to environmental risk factors for psychopathology, such as marital discord, social and financial problems (Bögels & Brechman-Toussaint, 2006; S. H. Goodman & Gotlib, 1999; Loechner et al., 2020).

Exceptionally, there are only five published studies that have investigated parents’ individual outcomes as potentially mediating mechanisms in the association between WFI and children’s outcomes. Strazdins et al. (2013b) found that parental mental health and irritable parenting are mechanisms linking work-family interface (WFC and WFPS) to children’s mental health difficulties. Vieira et al. (2016) found that the quality of parent–child relationship mediates the association between WFC and children externalizing and internalizing problems. Similarly, Dinh et al. (2017) found that poor parental psychopathology, irritability and marital dissatisfaction mediate the association between WFC and children’s mental health difficulties. Ferreira et al. (Ferreira et al., 2018) found that parental engagement mediates the association of WFC with child behavioral self-control. And finally, Vahedi et al. (2019) established that parental irritability mediates the association between WFC and children externalizing and internalizing problems.

However, these investigations have two key limitations. Firstly, the aforementioned studies did not separately examine the effects of WFC and FWC on parents’ and children’s outcomes. Although the instrument used by Dinh et al. (2017) to measure the WFI included items on FWC, the authors calculated a global score by averaging WFC and FWC items. And secondly, neither the investigations performed by Vahedi et al. (2019), Dinh et al. (2017) nor Vieira et al. (2016) addressed the positive spillover between work and family (WFPS and FWPS). Therefore, the previous literature might only partially examine the association between WFI and children wellbeing, neglecting central aspects from a theoretical point of view. Furthermore, from a practical perspective, evaluating all WFI dimensions (WFC, FWC, WFPS, and FWPS), and the evidence on possible differences in the associations of those dimensions with children’s mental health, may guide the selection of intervention targets and support the design of multi-component work-family programs with potential benefit for both family and organizations.

Additionally, it is worth mentioning that previous evidence on the indirect effect of work-family interaction on children’s well-being via parental stress-related outcomes is limited to Australia and Portugal, which are countries with good job quality and work-life balance levels close to the OECD average. In contrast, this research was conducted in Colombia, which has below-average OECD employment scores and occupies the penultimate position in the work-life (integration) ranking(OECD, 2022). Additionally, Colombian workers have extremely limited access to childcare services (Cuesta & Guarin, 2024), public schools have low educational quality and most of them do not offer extracurricular services for children (Maldonado-Carreño et al., 2022).

These contextual features, documented as risk factors for poor work-family integration (Young, 2019), are also typical of low-wage communities (especially ethnic minorities and immigrants) from high-income countries, such as the USA (Perry-Jenkins & Gerstel, 2020). Given these parallels, the findings from this study may have broader implications beyond the Colombian context. Low-income communities around the world—particularly those facing precarious employment conditions and limited access to childcare and educational support—could similarly benefit from interventions aimed at reducing work-family conflict as a strategy to protect and promote children’s well-being.

Study Hypothesis

The present study adds to and differs from previous literature by examining whether WFI, including all its dimensions (WFC, FWC, WFPS, and FWPS), affects children’s mental health difficulties through parental psychopathology and family role performance. This idea is consistent with the bioecological theory, that associate healthy child development with a network of social determinants that surpass the family microsystem (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2007) and, at the same time, with theories pointing to family environment as a direct influence on children’s psychological adjustment (Amato & Cheadle, 2008; Fekadu et al., 2019; Marshall & Harper-Jaques, 2008; Mikolajczak et al., 2018; Pedersen & Revenson, 2005).

According to the available (and aforementioned) empirical evidence, the following hypotheses can be proposed for this study:

WFC and FWC are positively associated with parental psychopathology, and negatively associated with parent’s family role performance.

WFPS and FWPS are negatively associated with parental psychopathology, and positively associated with parent’s family role performance.

Parental psychopathology is a mechanism that positively links (or mediate) WFI with children’s mental health difficulties.

Parental family role performance is a mechanism that negatively links (or mediate) WFI with children’s mental health difficulties.

Method

Participants

For this empirical study, participants were recruited from a public school in Villavicencio, Colombia. The final sample consisted of 444 biological parents of children aged 4 to 17 years (M = 8.7; SD = 2.85; 47% girls and 53% boys). Participants were included after excluding 122 non-working parents, 23 single or divorced parents (to avoid family structure-related confounders), and 6 cases in which the parent had been in their current job for less than 6 months. Of the participating parents, 81% were mothers and 19% were fathers. All parents were employed full-time and either married or in a common-law union. The average age of the parents was 35.3 years (SD = 7.18), which is consistent with having school-aged children. Most participants had one (30%) or two (49%) children; 16% had three children and 5% had four or more. Regarding educational attainment, 33% had completed high school, 35% held a technical or technological degree, and 32% had a university degree. On average, participants had been in their current job for 6.5 years (SD = 5.7).

Instruments

The Work-Home Interference Nijmegen Survey –SWING (Geurts et al., 2005), validated in Spanish by Moreno-Jiménez et al. (2009), was used to measure the work-family interface. The SWING is made up of 22 items (e.g., Your work schedule makes it difficult for you to fulfil your domestic obligations?) grouped into four dimensions: WFC (eight items, Cronbach’s α for this study = .86, Cronbach α from validation study [Moreno Jiménez et al., 2009] = .89), FWC (four items, Cronbach’s α for this study = .75, Cronbach α from validation study = .84), WFPS (five items, Cronbach’s α for this study = .76, Cronbach α from validation study = .85) and FWPS (five items, Cronbach’s α for this study = .79, Cronbach α from validation study = .85). SWING items (e.g., you are irritable at home because your work is demanding?) are answered on a 4-point frequency-based scale (how often does it happen that…?) where 1 = never and 4 = always. CFA conducted for this study supported the previously validated (Moreno Jiménez et al., 2009; Geurts et al., 2005) SWING four-dimensional structure (CFI = 0.963, NFI = 0.906, TLI = 0.954, IFI = 0.964, RMSEA = 0.056, CMIN/df = 1.407). The square roots of AVEs for WFC (.555), FWC (.667), WFPS and FWPS (0.680) were greater than all correlations between these factors (ranging between 3.09 and 6.08), suggesting acceptable factorial differentiation. Consequently, the scores of each SWING subscale were calculated by averaging the respective items.

Family role performance was measured with the Family Role Performance Scale (FRPS) (Chen et al., 2014). The original scale (in English) was translated into Spanish by two bilingual translators who worked independently. The two translations were compared, and discrepancies were resolved by consensus, generating a single translation. This version was retranslated from Spanish to English independently by two other translators. Subsequently, the three translations were reviewed jointly by the four translators and the research team. The resulting final version in Spanish was tested on a sample of 20 parents, who reported no difficulties in understanding or responding to the scale. The FRPS has two factors that investigate self-reported compliance with operative (four items; Cronbach’s α for this study = .78, Cronbach α from validation study (Chen et al., 2014) = .91 ; e.g., “doing housework”) and relational (four items; Cronbach’s α for this study = .92, Cronbach α from validation study = .94; e.g., “Keep family members connected with each other”) family expectations. The eight items are preceded by the following question: “To what extent do you think you meet what is expected of you in relation to the following aspects of your current family life?”. Participants were asked to respond using a Likert scale from 1 to 5, ranging from 1 = “Do not fulfill expectations at all” to 5 = “Completely fulfill expectations”. CFA conducted for this study supported the bidimensional (CFI = 0.972, NFI = 0.960, TLI = 0.951, IFI = 0.971, RMSEA = 0.074, CMIN/df = 3.161) and single-factor (CFI = 0.978, NFI = 0.966, TLI = 0.962, IFI = 0.978, RMSEA = 0.066, CMIN/df = 2.701) structures tested in the validation study(Chen et al., 2014). However, in the two-factor structure the square root of AVE for operative performance (0.59) was lower than the correlation between this construct and the other latent variable in the measurement model (relational performance) (r = 0.68), suggesting overlap between factors. Consequently, the single factor-structure was used in this study to avoid discriminant validity problems. The total family role performance score was calculated by averaging the eight items on the scale.

The General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) (Goldberg, 1988), validated in Colombia by Ruiz et al. (Ruiz et al., 2017), was used to measure parental psychopathology. The GHQ-12 evaluates psychopathology symptoms (e.g., “loss much sleep”) during the “last weeks” on a Likert scale from 1 to 4, where 1 means absence of symptom (“not at all”) and 4 “much more than usual.” The 12 items on the scale (Cronbach’s α for this study = .84, Cronbach α from validation study (Ruiz et al., 2017) = .90) were averaged to obtain a general score for psychological strain. CFA conducted for this study supported the previously validated GHQ (Ruiz et al., 2017) one-dimensional structure (CFI = 0.947, NFI = 0.909, TLI = 0.928, IFI = 0.947, RMSEA = 0.056, CMIN/df = 2.225).

Children’s mental health difficulties were measured using the parent-reported Strengths & Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) (R. Goodman, 1997). The official SDQ Spanish translation is available on the scale website (https://www.sdqinfo.org). In populations with low risk of child psychopathology, such as the one in this study, it is recommended to use SDQ measurement models with one (A. Goodman & Goodman, 2009; C. Mieloo et al., 2012; C. L. Mieloo et al., 2014) or two dimensions (A. Goodman et al., 2010). The SDQ two-dimensional structure differentiates internalizing (10 items, Cronbach’s α for this study = .61, Cronbach α from validation study (Gómez-Beneyto et al., 2013) = .75) and externalizing problems (10 items, Cronbach’s α for this study = .61, Cronbach α from validation study = .86); and the SDQ single-factor structure is a global measure of child psychopathology, derived from the 20 items of the questionnaire, which integrates both internalizing and externalizing problems into a single composite score referred to as “mental health difficulties” (Cronbach’s α for this study = .61, Cronbach’s α from validation study (Ortuño-Sierra et al., 2018) = .84). CFA conducted for this study revealed that the SDQ two-dimensional structure had a poor fit to the data (CFI = 0.914, NFI = 0.853, TLI = 0.884, IFI = 0.853, RMSEA = 0.053, CMIN/df = 2.127). Meanwhile, the single-factor structure had fit statistics that meet the acceptable thresholds (CFI = 0.960, NFI = 0.901, TLI = 0.940, IFI = 0.961, RMSEA = 0.038, CMIN/df = 2.225). Accordingly, a parent-reported children’s mental health difficulties total score was calculated by averaging all SDQ items. From this point onward, references to “children’s mental health difficulties” refer specifically to children psychopathology as perceived and reported by parents using the SDQ.

Finally, the study survey included information on the parents’ age, sex, marital status, occupation, educational level, seniority, and children’ age and sex.

Procedure

The data was collected between July 1 and October 26, 2019. Participants were recruited during the parent-teacher conference days of a public school in the city of Villavicencio, Colombia. After obtaining permission from the school, the research team explained the objectives of the study to teachers at all grade levels. In addition, the teachers were provided with flyers describing the project, which were later delivered to the parents along with the informed consent forms, and a presentation with the instructions to complete the virtual survey. All parents who agreed to participate in the research provided their written informed consent (participation rate was 39%). The study protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee at Valencia University (IRB Code: H154861680900). Subsequently, they were instructed to complete the SWING, FRPS, GHQ and SDQ questionnaires on their smartphones. Parents were assisted by teachers as they completed the questionnaires. The average time for completing the survey was 23 min. A database with the collected data was automatically downloaded from the Lime Survey platform.

Statistical Analysis

The study hypotheses were tested using path analyses based on structural equation models (SEM) with robust maximum likelihood estimations. Considering the cross-sectional design of this research, it is worth mentioning that testing mediation hypotheses with data collected at one point in time is possible when there are strong theoretical reasons to assume a priori the temporal ordering in the examined associations (Fairchild & McDaniel, 2017; Shrout, 2011). However, estimates from cross-sectional mediations are at risk of being biased (Maxwell & Cole, 2007) and therefore, the statistical models reported in this study should be interpreted with caution.

WFI variables (WFC, FWC, WFPS, and FWPS) were introduced in the model as predictors of parental family role performance, psychopathology, and children’s mental health difficulties. In turn, parental family role performance and psychopathology were used as predictors of children’s mental health difficulties. Estimators were calculated controlling for parents’ and children’s age and sex, and the number of children in household, which have been previously documented as confounders in the associations between parental psychopathology, family role performance, and children’s mental health difficulties (Dinh et al., 2017; Strazdins et al., 2013b; Vahedi et al., 2019; Vieira et al., 2016); and in the association between WFI and health outcomes (Page et al., 2018; Shockley et al., 2017).

The instruments (measurement models) and path models fit was evaluated by using Chi-square (χ²), minimum discrepancy ratio (CMIN/df), Normed Fit Index (NFI), Tucker-Lewis Index (TLI), Incremental Fit Index (IFI) and Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA). A CFI/NFI/TLI/IFI ≥ .90, an RMSEA ≤ .08 (better if ≤ .05), and CMIN/df ≤ 5.0 were used as thresholds of acceptable fit to the data (Marsh et al., 2004; Schreiber et al., 2006). When possible, the models fit was improved considering modification indexes. Following the bootstrap method (MacKinnon et al., 2004), the models’ indirect (or mediated) effects, their bias-corrected confidence intervals (95% CI) and significance were calculated by randomly extracting 2000 bootstrap samples. Statistical analyzes were performed using © IBM SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences), version 26.0, and © IBM SPSS AMOS, version 26.0.

Results

Descriptive Statistics

Table 1 summarizes descriptive statistics of the study variables. The scores of WFPS and FWPS were higher than those of WFC and FWC. The average family role performance was high, and the children’s mental health difficulties score relatively low. All WFI variables, except for the case of WFPS, were significantly associated with parents’ family role performance and psychological strain, and with children’s mental health difficulties. Likewise, parents’ family role performance and psychological strain were significantly associated to children’s mental health difficulties.

Table 1.

Descriptive Statistics of the Study Variables.

Variable	M	SD	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12
1. Age (parents)	35.31	7.18	.265**	.168**	0.026	.259**	−0.013	0.076	−0.092	−0.025	−0.023	0.002	−0.023
2. Age (children)	8.74	2.85		0.010	0.048	−0.002	0.058	.094*	−0.053	−.138**	−0.016	.128**	.401**
3. Sex (parents)^a,b	81%	—			0.045	−0.031	−0.006	−0.030	−0.009	0.019	−0.058	−.193**	−0.049
4. Sex (children)^a,b	47%	—				0.055	−0.054	−0.035	0.033	−0.001	−0.008	−0.010	0.057
5. Number of children	1.97	0.86					0.029	0.038	0.003	0.022	0.072	−0.021	0.020
6. WFC	1.69	0.43						.488**	−0.067	−.227**	−.316**	.431**	.257**
7. FWC	1.30	0.35							−.114*	−.285**	−.278**	.521**	.260**
8. WFPS	3.00	0.64								.590**	.278**	−.174**	−0.064
9. FWPS	3.51	0.50									.352**	−.310**	−.236**
10. Parental family role performance	4.43	0.49										−.384**	−.259**
11. Parental psychopathology	1.56	0.38											.356**
12. Children’s Mental Health Difficulties	2.33	1.090											—

Female.

Sex coding: Female = 1, Male = 2.

p < .05, **p < .01.

Structural Equation Modeling

The path model for predicting children’s mental health difficulties through the parents’ WFI, psychological strain and family role performance fitted the data quite well (χ² = 7.275, p = .887; df = 13; CFI = 0.997, NFI = 0.983, TLI = 0.993, IFI = 0.996, RMSEA = 0.022, CMIN/df = 0.560). Figure 1 summarizes the model estimators (covariates and correlations are not shown, see table 1 and appendix 1 respectively). Overall, the model’s predictors explained 31% of the variance of children’s mental health difficulties, 37% of the variance of parents’ psychological strain and 26% of the variance of family role performance.

Figure 1.

Structural equation model (SEM) to predict children’s mental health difficulties.

Table 2 summarizes the model’s direct standardized path coefficients (β). WFC is negatively associated with parental family role performance. Likewise, WFC and FWC are positively associated with parental psychopathology. However, FWC is not significantly associated with family role performance. FWPS and WFPS are positively associated with parental family role performance, and FWPS is negatively associated with parental psychopathology. However, WFPS is not significantly associated with parental psychopathology.

Table 2.

Direct Effects of Work-Family Interface on Children’s Metal Health Difficulties.

	Parentalpsychopathology		Parentalfamily role performance		Children’s mental health difficulties
Variable	β	95% CI	β	95% CI	β	95% CI
WFC	.22**	[.133 to .303]	−.157**	[−.278 to −.044]	.069	[−.033 to .168]
FWC	.366**	[.266 to .461]	−.012	[−.129 to .115]	.044	[−.071 to .15]
WFPS	−.049	[−.144 to .461]	.12**	[.018 to .24]	.082	[−.035 to .189]
FWPS	−.113*	[−.225 to .461]	.17**	[.04 to .307]	−.099	[−.196 to .013]
Parental psychopathology			−.264**	[−.376 to −.158]	.185**	[.072 to .284]
Parental family role performance					−.143**	[−.23 to −.042]
Age (parents)	−.006	[−.1 to .461]	−.027	[−0.117 to .063]	−.149**	[−.238 to −.055]
Age (children)	.066	[−.011 to .461]	.066	[−.022 to .151]	.395**	[.311 to .479]
Sex (parents)	−.18**	[−.243 to .461]	−.106*	[−.202 to −.022]	.004	[−.075 to .082]
Sex (children)					.041	[−.037 to .114]
Number of children	−.042	[−.128 to .461]	.071	[−.011 to.145]	.069	[−.014 to .151]

p < .05, **p < .01.

Table 3 shows the indirect effects proposed in the study hypotheses. Significant indirect paths mediated by parental psychopathology were found from WFC, FWC, and FWPS to children’s mental health difficulties. The mediation of parental psychopathology in the association between WFPS and children’s mental health difficulties was not significant. Otherwise, significant indirect paths mediated by parents’ family role performance were found from parents’ WFC, WFPS, and FWPS to children’s mental health difficulties. Finally, the mediation of parents’ family role performance in the association between FWC and children’s mental health difficulties was not significant. All mediated effects reported were “total mediations” since direct effects of WFI on children’s mental health difficulties were not significant (see Table 3 and Figure 1).

Table 3.

Indirect Effects of Work-Family Interface on Children’s Outcomes.

Indirect path					Estimate	SE	95% CI
WFC	→	Parental Psychopathology	→	Children’s Mental Health Difficulties	.103**	.038	[.038 to .186]
FWC	→	Parental Psychopathology	→	Children’s Mental Health Difficulties	.209**	.067	[.088 to .352]
WFPS	→	Parental Psychopathology	→	Children’s Mental Health Difficulties	−.015	.016	[−.058 to .01]
FWPS	→	Parental Psychopathology	→	Children’s Mental Health Difficulties	−.045*	.026	[−.115 to −.006]
WFC	→	Family role performance	→	Children’s Mental Health Difficulties	.057**	.027	[.015 to .124]
FWC	→	Family role performance	→	Children’s Mental Health Difficulties	.005	.029	[−.048 to .07]
WFPS	→	Family role performance	→	Children’s Mental Health Difficulties	−.029*	.016	[−.073 to −.006]
FWPS	→	Family role performance	→	Children’s Mental Health Difficulties	−.053**	.031	[−.137 to −.01]

p < .05, **p < .01.

Discussion

This study addresses the gap in the literature on the association between parental work-home dynamics and children’s mental health outcomes by investigating whether parental psychopathology and family role performance mediate the association between WFI and children’s mental health difficulties. In theoretical terms, connecting children’s outcomes with parents’ WFI implies, firstly, combining the spillover and role-conflict models of stress, which explains between-role stress transfers at the individual level (e.g., between work and family roles), with theories on the influence of nested environments on human development, such as the bioecological model (Amato & Cheadle, 2008).

Regarding the association between WFI and parents’ outcomes, consistently with hypothesis 1, it was found that WFC and FWC are positively associated with parental psychopathology, and that WFC is negatively associated with parental family role performance. However, the association between FWC and parental family role performance was not significant. Likewise, consistently with hypothesis 2, WFPS and FWPS are positively associated with parental family role performance, and FWPS is negatively associated with parental psychopathology. However, the association between WFPS and parental psychopathology was not significant.

First, these results are consistent with the abundant research that has documented both WFC and FWC as predictors of stress-related health outcomes (Amstad et al., 2011; Borgmann et al., 2019; McNall et al., 2010; B. K. Miller et al., 2022). Second, the discrepancy between the associations of the WFC (negative significant) and FWC (null) with parents’ family role performance suggests that, in this study participants, the work-family cross-domain effect predominates over the matching domain hypothesis. This finding is in line with the meta-analysis by Ford et al. (Ford et al., 2007), according to which the cross-domain effect dominance may be a function of a stronger conflict from work to family, such as the one found in this investigation (WFC average was higher than FWC average).

On the other hand, the findings on differential associations of WFPS (null) and FWPS (negative significant) with parental psychopathology suggest that positive transfers from family to work, but not from work to family are beneficial for health. This discrepancy is inconsistent with previous meta-analyses in which both WFPS and FWPS were shown to be predictors of stress-related health outcomes (McNall et al., 2010). However, this finding may also be due to a stronger positive spillover from work to family (Ford et al., 2007), such as the one found in this investigation (FWPS average was higher than WFPS average). Furthermore, it is theoretically possible that, for the participants of this study, the benefits derived from family are more useful as coping resources at work than the benefits derived from work as coping resources in the family role (McNall et al., 2010).

The reported path models produced theoretically consistent results, despite being based on cross-sectional data. Consistently with hypothesis 3, it was found that parental psychopathology is a mechanism that positively links WFC, FWC and FWPS with children’s mental health difficulties. However, the indirect effect of WFPS on children’s mental health difficulties was not significant. Likewise, consistently with hypothesis 4, it was found that parent’s family role performance is a mechanism that negatively links WFC, WFPS and FWPS with children’s mental health difficulties. However, the indirect effect of FWC on children’s mental health difficulties was not significant. This means that evidence was found supporting 6/8 hypothesized mediation paths. Considering that no direct associations between WFI and children’s outcomes were found, the joint results of this study are in line with the evidence pointing to WIF as key indirect determinant of children’s psychological adjustment (Cooklin et al., 2015; Dinh et al., 2017; Roeters & van Houdt, 2019; Strazdins et al., 2013a; Vahedi et al., 2019; Vieira et al., 2016).

Going beyond previous studies focused exclusively on work-to-family transfers (WFC and WFPS) (Dinh et al., 2017; Ferreira et al., 2018; Strazdins et al., 2013b; Vahedi et al., 2019; Vieira et al., 2016), this study found that family-to-work interactions may have greater weight in predicting parental and children’s outcomes. FWC was found to be the strongest predictor of parental psychopathology, and FWPS was the strongest predictor of parental family role performance. These findings suggest, in line with the meta-analysis of Mesmer-Magnus and Viswesvaran (2005), that the association of family-to-work interactions with non-work outcomes is stronger than that of work-to-family interactions. Therefore, it is important that future research on crossover stress transmissions in the work-home interactions considers all dimensions of WFI.

Implications for Practice

In practical terms, the main implication of this study is that interventions focused on balancing work and family roles, in addition to increasing working parents’ well-being, may indirectly improve children’s psychological adjustment. From the perspective of work organization, there is evidence that family-friendly policies (e.g., flexible work arrangements, including schedule flexibility, increased skill discretion, decision authority and job security) have a positive effect on workers’ health and role performance (Hammer et al., 2016). Additionally, considering the importance of positive and negative transfers from home to work, family-oriented interventions (counseling, training and education in family skills such as effective parenting and couple problem-solving skills) can also be central to working parents’ and children’s well-being (Martin & Sanders, 2003; Schaer et al., 2008). To the extent that these interventions are successful, it can be expected that positive outcomes in parents will be transmitted to children.

In an outstanding example of intervention benefits transmission within the family group, the Work Family and Health Network designed a family-supportive work culture program focused on employees’ schedule control and supportive supervision, which proved to be effective in increasing the time of workers with their children (Davis et al., 2015), parents-children relationship quality (McHale et al., 2015), children’s psychological well-being (Lawson et al., 2016) and sleep quality (McHale et al., 2015). Similarly, there is recent evidence that the benefits of schedule control can be transmitted between partners (Lee et al., 2019). In addition to schedule control, variables such as work flexibility, shift change, job autonomy, lean management, staff and material resources, and teamwork are potential targets for effective work-home integration programs (Fox et al., 2022). The effectiveness and continuity of this interventions can be greater if there is a high involvement of management and economic incentives for “family friendly organizations”. Likewise, public policies focused on helping low-income families meet basic needs such as childcare, although costly and difficult to implement, are especially necessary and beneficial in contexts with low-income families, such as the one of this study.

Limitations

The findings of this study should be interpreted with caution due to some methodological limitations. Firstly, the cross-sectional design prevents the empirical establishment of causal relationships and test reverse causality on the hypothesized associations. This design limitation precludes testing theoretically relevant hypotheses, such as a possible influence of childhood psychopathology on parents’ outcomes (e.g., the child effects model; (Amato & Cheadle, 2008)). Likewise, according to the COR theory (Hobfoll, 1989), stress-related health and performance outcomes can be associated with greater vulnerability to WFI issues, because just as resource depletion causes stress-related disease, it also increases the cost associated with resource replenishment and protection (Nohe et al., 2015). This phenomenon, known as "loss spiral", involves examining bidirectional associations that can only be detected in longitudinal research.

Furthermore, regarding the mediation analyses, there is evidence that path models estimated using cross-sectional data carry a considerable risk of producing biased estimates (Maxwell & Cole, 2007). Although the reported statistical models yield theoretically grounded results and offer a useful approximation of the proposed relationships, their outcomes should not be interpreted as conclusive evidence of causal effects or mediation mechanisms. Instead, they should be viewed as a preliminary basis that requires further validation through longitudinal studies.

Secondly, the sample size and the arbitrary selection of participants prevents generalizing results. Furthermore, unlike their main published antecedents, this study did not include both parents of each child in the sample. Therefore, it was not possible to separately contrast research hypotheses for mothers and fathers, nor to examine dyadic influences. In addition, the measurement of children’s mental health difficulties based on the self-report of only one parent implies a risk of mono-informant bias.

Third, the exclusive use of self-report measures makes this study vulnerable to common method bias and prevents determining whether the data on the work-family interface, parental psychopathology, family role performance, and children’s mental health difficulties correspond to reality or to subjective perceptions. However, this last limitation is partially compensated by the study instruments’ high reliability. Likewise, cross sectional design limitations in mediation tests are compensated by strong theoretical assumptions, previous longitudinal evidence on the temporal ordering in most of the analyzed associations (Dinh et al., 2017; Ferreira et al., 2018; Vahedi et al., 2019), and the prosed structural model’s good fit to the data.

In methodological terms, the findings of this study can be extended by more robust quantitative designs (e.g., longitudinal studies); and by qualitative research focused on describing in greater detail the family dynamics that underlie work stress contagion among the family group. Future research that includes all dimensions of WFI and more specific sources of spillover and conflict between work and family (e.g., job overload-related WFC or childcare-related FWC) may also contribute to the expansion of this research field.

It is also worth mentioning that the structural model proposed in this study included, following modification indexes, a regression path between parental psychopathology and family role performance. This association is theoretically difficult to justify, because in the scientific literature it is not clear whether mental health affects family role performance (Foster et al., 2008; Herr et al., 2007), if the opposite occurs (Sagrestano et al., 2003), or if the relationship between these two variables is bidirectional (Jones et al., 2001). It has even been found that the association between mental health and family role performance depends on gender. For example, for women, there is evidence that family functioning causally influences mental health, while for men this causality is reversed (Fincham et al., 1997). As this study has a cross-sectional design and the distribution of men and women in the study sample is not sufficient to make multi-group comparisons, the association between parental strain and parental family role performance was not included in the research hypotheses. Future studies with longitudinal designs and samples with balanced gender distributions may examine the existence and nature of the association between these two variables.

Conclusion

This study investigated whether WFI (WFC, FWC, WFPS) and FWPS may affect children’s mental health difficulties through parental family role performance and psychopathology. Although little evidence was found supporting direct associations between WFI and children’s outcomes, SEM-based mediation analyses suggest that parental psychopathology and family role performance are, indeed, mechanisms linking WFI with children’s mental health difficulties. Besides its theoretical consistency, these findings support the design of organizational and family interventions focused on balancing work and home roles. The positive results of these programs can be transmitted from the beneficiaries to their children (and other members of the family group) through the improvement of family environment. Thus, despite methodological limitations of this study (i.e., cross-sectional design, small sample size and convenience sampling, and the exclusive use of self-report measures), the reported findings may be of interest from the perspective of work organization and family counseling.

Supplemental Material

sj-docx-1-sgo-10.1177_21582440251380937 – Supplemental material for Linking Parent’s Work-Family Interface to Children’s Mental Health Difficulties: A Mediated Path through Parental Psychopathology and Family Role Performance

Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-sgo-10.1177_21582440251380937 for Linking Parent’s Work-Family Interface to Children’s Mental Health Difficulties: A Mediated Path through Parental Psychopathology and Family Role Performance by Boris E. Cendales, Mario H. Gonzalez, Sergio A. Useche, Pedro N. Valbuena, Yamile A. Montenegro and Luis Montoro in SAGE Open

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Escuela Normal Superior de Villavicencio for its support in the data collection process.

ORCID iDs

Boris E. Cendales

Sergio A. Useche

Pedro N. Valbuena

Yamile A. Montenegro

Ethical Considerations

The study protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee at Valencia University (IRB Code: H1548861680900). All study participants provided their written informed consent.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Data Availability Statement

The database used in the statistical analyzes of this study is available as supplemental material.

Supplemental Material

Supplemental material for this article is available online.

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