Work‐home conflict among nurses and engineers: Mediating the impact of role stress on burnout and satisfaction at work

Using structural equation modeling, this paper compares a more traditional, unmediated model of work‐based role stress and its consequences on job satisfaction and burnout to two models in which the role stress‐affective work outcome relationship is mediated (partially and completely) by work‐home conflict across two samples of public sector professionals: engineers and nurses. The findings indicate that a model in which role conflict and overload have both direct and indirect effects—via work‐home conflict—on job burnout and satisfaction (‘Partial Mediation’ model) achieves a better overall ‘fit’ than two alternative models. Furthermore, the findings suggest that while the two groups perceive many aspects of the work‐home relationship differently, for both groups, work‐based role conflict is an important antecedent of work‐home conflict, and increased burnout an important direct consequence of work‐home conflict. Finally, on the basis of the findings, the authors conclude that perspectives which view the work and non‐work realms as independent must be reconsidered, and that the nature of the work‐home relationship may, to a great extent, be contingent upon the way different occupational groups perceive their work situations.