Studying "working fathers": comparing fathers' and mothers' work-family sonflict, fit, and adaptive strategies in a global high-tech company

Fathering, Oct, 2003 by E. Jeffrey Hill, Alan J. Hawkins, Vjollca Martinson, Maria Ferris

RESULTS

We organize our results around the seven research questions presented earlier.

R1. COMPARISONS OF WORKING FATHERS AND WORKING MOTHERS ON WORK-FAMILY VARIABLES

Means and standard deviations were calculated for working fathers for all variables in the conceptual model (see Table 1). For comparison, means and standard deviations were also calculated for working mothers, and t-tests were calculated to determine whether significant differences existed. Because the sample size was so large, it is possible to generate statistical significance for these tests with minimal differences. Thus, effect sizes were calculated to provide a measure of the magnitude of the difference between fathers and mothers. They were calculated by dividing the difference between the means by the average of the standard deviations of the means (Shaver, 1991). To minimize drawing attention to statistically significant findings that represent only minimal differences, we discuss only findings with an effect size of .25 or higher. (That is, the difference is at least one-quarter of a standard deviation of the distribution for that variable. Hence, our use of the term "significant difference" in this article refers only to differences with an effect size greater than or equal to .25.)

Work and Family Characteristics. Working fathers reported significantly greater job travel than working mothers. They also reported significantly and substantially less childcare responsibility than mothers. The frequencies of responses associated with this item were instructive. As would be expected, 58% of all parents reported that mothers were mostly responsible for childcare and only 6% reported that fathers were mostly responsible. However, 36% reported that mothers and fathers were equally responsible, which means that 42% of all parents reported that the father in the home was equally or primarily responsible for childcare. The simple report of a mean, in this instance, masks a substantial minority of the working fathers in this sample who have assumed substantial childcare responsibility.

Work-Family Conflict. Working fathers in this sample reported the same high levels of work-to-family conflict as their female counterparts. These non-significant differences are particularly meaningful in light of the very large sample size in this study. In general, interpretation of null hypotheses should be done with caution, but the very large sample size in our study allows us to do so (Keppel, 1991). Other analyses (not shown) reveal that 87% of the working fathers vs. 88% of the working mothers reported at least some work-to-family conflict. In contrast, working fathers were significantly less likely to report family-to-work conflict than work-to-family conflict, and significantly less likely than working mothers to report family-to-work conflict. Overall, 42% of the fathers, compared to 55% of the mothers, reported at least some family-to-work conflict.

Work-Family Fit. Working fathers' and mothers' work-family fit were not significantly different. Overall, 58% of the fathers vs. 55% of the mothers reported work-family fit, indicating that a majority of both genders did not have difficulty managing the demands of their work and personal/family life.