Contributions of a supportive work environment to parents' well-being and orientation to work.
Examined the joint and unique contributions of informal social support in the workplace and formal, family-responsive benefits and policies provided by employers to the job-related attitudes and personal well-being of employed parents with a young child. Eighty married men, 169 married women, and 72 single women with a preschool child completed a survey concerning social support from co-workers and supervisor, utilization of family-responsive benefits and policies, readiness to leave the employer for additional benefits, job satisfaction, organizational commitment, role strain, and health symptoms. Among the findings: (a) Fathers and mothers expressed equal levels of job satisfaction and organizational commitment, but mothers reported more role strain and health symptoms; (b) nearly 48% of married women's organizational commitment was accounted for by measures of support in the workplace; (c) informal social support at work was significantly more important to men's well-being than that of women; and (d) formal, family-responsive policies appeared more consequential for the prediction of women's role strain, perhaps because of women's greater responsibility for adjusting work life to meet the demands of family roles.
Greenberger
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University of California, Irvine 92717.
Goldberg
W A
WA
Hamill
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O'Neil
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Payne
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CK
D000041:Absenteeism; D000328:Adult; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004650:Employee Performance Appraisal; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007588:Job Satisfaction; D008297:Male; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D010290:Parents / Q000523:psychology*; D012380:Role; D012456:Salaries and Fringe Benefits; D015406:Single Parent / Q000523:psychology; D012931:Social Environment; D012944:Social Support