The relationship between job stress and work-family conflict: A study on working women in Social Welfare Department, Kuching / Esa Nawong

Work-family conflict can induce negative consequences such as turnover, absentees. decrease job performance, anxiety, and emotional exhaustion. Despite the robust of literature on work-family conflict experiences among Western families, there is a lack of empirical study on Malaysian working women experiences in managing work and family roles. Drawing from work-family conflict model as this model does not account for occupation-specific situations, therefore, this study reports the characteristics of job stress (role ambiguity, role conflict, role overload) that lead to work-family conflict among working women in Social Welfare Department, Kuching. This research is based on data obtained from a survey questionnaire that polled 70 working women regarding the relationship between job stress and work-family conflict. The results of this study identified that work-family conflict is divided into three dimension namely time-based conflict, strain-based conflict and behavior-based conflict. Job stress is divided into three dimensions namely role ambiguity, role conflict and role overload. The study shows that respondents experience higher level of work-family conflict compare to the level of job stress among the working women. This research has contributed to the body of knowledge in terms of dimension of work-family conflict as well as dimensions of job stress. It is the greatest hope that this research can contribute to the improvement of work-life balance not only among working women at Social Welfare Department, Kuching but in others public organization as well.