Sarah June Carroll and Dr. E. Jeffrey Hill, School of Family Life
Introduction
Most college students take on responsibilities and roles beyond full-time school work. Nearly three quarters of undergraduates work an average of 25.5 hours a week while attending school (NPSAS, as cited by Dundes & Marx, 2006). Between work and school, the working hours of a student may be longer than working professionals. The relationship between paid work and personal life has been addressed as it relates to working professionals (see Byron, 2005). Few researchers, however, have examined the work-family interface among the unique population of students.
As future employers, students will assist or hinder creating family-friendly work environments in their own companies. Their own strategies for managing work-family-school conflict will be vital not only to the success of their own families but will also affect the work-family environments of the organizations for whom they work. As students look to the future and plan their careers, the interactions between their personal life and their future career are a part of that vision for the future. Also, graduating students are at a critical transition as they are about to enter the workplace themselves. Such a transition could be a point of effective preventative measures for successful balance between work and family. Research is needed in order to develop such preventative programs. Furthermore, many students balance work, school and personal life, an additional role and responsibility compared to the over-studied population of working professionals. A closer examination of the student population is needed to more fully understand this unique group.
Using interviews of students and their spouses, we explored three research questions:
1. How do students (and their spouses) experience work-school-life conflict?
2. How do students (and their spouses) manage work-school-life conflict?
3. How do students (and their spouses) perceive their future work-life conflict?
Method
This study examined the experiences of graduate students in managing the demands of work, school and family life. Students in BYU’s Marriott School of Business were recruited through department emails and referrals from other participants. If married, spouses of the students were invited for a separate interview. Interviews were arranged in either the participants’ homes or in a study room in the Tanner Building of BYU campus.
Thirteen interviews from students and spouses were successfully collected. All participants were between the ages of 24 and 30 with a mean age of 26.38. All participants were members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon). Eleven of the participants were married, and of those, three had no children, two had one child, four had two children and two were expecting their first child. Five women and eight men participated. Nine students in the business school at BYU were interviewed: 7 in a graduate program, 2 in an undergraduate program. Four spouses of students in the business school were interviewed, one enrolled in a graduate program at another university and three were not enrolled as students. Nine participants were employed part time during the school year, and four were not employed.
Interviews were recorded digitally and transcribed using pseudonyms for confidentiality. Using NVIVO software for qualitative analysis, themes surrounding the experience and management of work-school-family conflict were identified.
Results
Research question 1 (the experience of work-family-school conflict) was analyzed according to Voydanoff’s (2007) theory that demands are either time-based demands or strain-based demands. Themes in the interviews that were identified as factors that contributed to the conflict were coded as either a type of time-based demand or strain-based demand. Time-based demands included long hours, late nights, inflexible schedules or group work. One participant described his situation with time invested in school:
When I think about fall/winter, the most vivid memory that comes to mind is being home, it’s very late, I’m sitting in the rocking chair beside the bed, [my wife]’s asleep in the bed, [the baby]’s asleep in her crib, and I’m sitting under a lamp reading my textbooks. I mean, I feel like that’s all I did. That’s all I can see. I don’t remember ever being home and like, doing stuff with family. I’m sure I did, but that, the most vivid memory is those late nights, or the laptop was in my lap, in the same position, the same circumstances, and like, working on a project.
Strain-based demands are the “psychological spillover” that transfers into “behavior and attitudes associated with role performance and quality and well being” (Voydanoff, 2007, p. 51). The strain based demands that were salient to students and their spouses in this study were emotional spillover, financial stressors, missing out on children’s lives, a desire to be with family more, the expectations of others, or feelings of loneliness. The wife of a graduate student articulated the emotional spillover as she noted that her husband is “definitely more stressed when he’s in school than when he’s just working. … And bringing that stress home, you know, influences the atmosphere in our home.” A few mentioned external stressors that added to the strain experienced because of the conflict between work, school and family such as mental or physical health conditions.
Research question 2 (how work-family-school conflict was managed) was found to be a salient topic. Students and their spouses managed the conflict by either a type of mental attitude or a type of strategy. Mental attitudes included sacrificing quality, establishing expectations, establishing priorities, separate the domains of family and work/school or for others to integrate the domains of family and work/school. A student who worked full time during his graduate experience described his attitude: “I guess that school always trumps work, for me. That job was, it was just a means to an end. So I didn’t really care, if I got fired or what. That was my thought process.” Strategies involved planning (whether individually or as a couple), quitting something, reducing hours, reducing credits, sharing household tasks, arranging focused times in each domain, working with spouse, arranging schedule for spousal child care, carpool as a couple, having intentional family time and socializing with fellow students. For example, a student who is employed and involved in dancing competitions explained his strategy of planning:
“I calculate a lot… How many hours do I need to work to get this much money? How many hours of practice do I need to win this next competition? What do I have to do in this class in order to pass this test but not lower my overall grade in the class? And every week I’d re-evaluate everything like that.”
For research question 3 (the perception of future work-family-school conflict), the study revealed that uncertainty about the future is a salient topic for students, describing future plans as “kind of up in the air, just because it’s so far in the future” or “It’ll depend on what kind of work load that’ll bring upon me and what it would entail.” Some anticipated travel in their future, some hoped for flexible work schedules and others anticipated even more work-family conflict than they currently experience, but many were ambivalent about which direction their life would take. A few participants noted their career choice was because of their desired work-family lifestyle. Others when exploring their plans for the future referred to the work-family conflict in their own family of origin, whether it was a positive experience they desire to emulate, or a negative experience they wish to avoid.
Discussion and Application
While conflicts between work, school and family cannot be eliminated, the strategies that students use to manage work, family and school could be made known to other students for their use as well. For example, as a part of this project, a workshop was held for graduate students on the topic of managing the demands of work school and family. Five couples participated in a single session, two-hour workshop exploring the topics of priorities, spillover, and strategies for managing these demands as a couple. The participants indicated that the workshop was helpful. Workshops such as this could be offered from the university to encourage the healthy management of the strains of managing work, school and family and thereby strengthen the developing families of students.
References
- Byron, K. (2005). A meta-analytic review of work-family conflict and its antecedents. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 67, 169-198.
- Dundes, L. & Marx, J. (2006). Balancing work and academics in college: Why do students working 10 to 19 hours per week excel? Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory and Practice, 8(1), 107-120.
- Voydanoff, P. (2007). Work, family, and community: Exploring interconnections. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.