Socio-demographic differences of work-life interaction among South African employees

Abstract

South Africa, being a multicultural society, is faced with unique and unusual circumstances that can influence the interaction between their work and personal lives. However, countries can vary noticeably in cultural norms, values and gender-role beliefs, which can lead to the different experience of work-life interaction. Because of these differences, South African workers could experience the interaction between work and home in different ways, and this interaction may manifest differently in various socio-demographic groups. This makes it difficult to develop strategies and intervention programmes that will help workers integrate their work and personal lives more effectively. The general objective of this study was to investigate the relationship between socio-demographic characteristics and four dimensions of work-home interaction and to establish which socio-demographic characteristics best predict work-home interaction amongst South African employees. A sample (n = 2040) was taken from four industries in South Africa (i.e. police service, the earth moving equipment industry, mining and nursing). A socio-demographic questionnaire and the 'Survey Work-Home Interaction - Nijmegen' (SWING) were used. Descriptive statistics, Cronbach alpha coefficients, Pearson product-moment correlation and multiple regression analyses were used to analyse the data. The results indicated that robust predictors included occupation, gender and language for negative work-home interference (WHI), occupation, language and age for positive WHI, language and occupation for negative home-work interference (HWI) and language, occupation, age and education for positive HWI. Recommendations were made for organisations and for future research.