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Job quality, Life satisfaction, Quality of life, Europe, Cross-national comparison,

Purpose -The paper seeks to examine the relationships between various work demands and resources and satisfaction with work-family balance in a sample of German office workers. Work-to-family conflict is expected to mediate several relationships between dependent and independent variables. Design/methodology/approach -A sample of 716 office workers from two service sector organizations in Germany participated in a comprehensive online survey. Hierarchical multivariate regressions were used to test the predicted relationships. Findings -Perceived high organizational time expectations, psychological job demands and job insecurity were found to be negatively related to employees' satisfaction with work-family balance. Work-to-family conflict partially mediated those relationships. Social support at work and job control revealed positive relationships with satisfaction with work-family balance, but contrary to predictions this association persisted after controlling for work-to-family conflict.Research limitations/implications -The study used a cross-sectional design and employees' self reports which may be problematic in drawing causal conclusions. Originality/value -The majority of studies in work-family research look at either work-family conflict, or more recently, at work-family facilitation/enrichment, but little research has been conducted on employees' overall assessment of satisfaction with work-family balance. By investigating relationships between various work demands and resources and the mediating role of work-to-family conflict in a sample of German office workers, the study extends previous research and contributes to the work-family literature by clarifying the relationship between work-to-family conflict and satisfaction with work-family balance.

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Working part-time is frequently considered a viable strategy for employees to better combine work and non-work responsibilities. The present study examines differences in satisfaction with the work-family balance (SWFB) among professional and non-professional part-time service sector employees in five western European countries. Part-time employees were found to be more SWFB than full-time employees even after taking varying demands and resources into account. However, there are important differences among the part-timers. Employees in marginal part-time employment with considerably reduced working hours were the most satisfied. Professionals were found to profit less from reduced working hours and experienced lower levels of SWFB than non-professionals. No significant differences in SWFB were found between male and female part-time workers.

The present study tested an extended version of Voydanoff's (2004) 'differential salience vs. comparable salience' model in a sample of German service workers. Our findings partially support the model in a different national/cultural context but also yielded some divergent findings with respect to within-domain resources and boundary-spanning demands. In line with the theoretical framework, work-to-home interference (WHI) mainly occurred because of high work demands and not because of a lack of work resources. Boundary-spanning resources yielded comparable potential to reduce WHI and enhance work-to-home enrichment (WHE). WHE was expected to more likely occur due to the activation of work resources rather than the absence of work demands. However, control over one's work did not have a significant impact on WHE. In addition and contrary to the theoretical model, boundary-spanning demands were found to be differentially rather than comparably salient to the workfamily interface.consequences of conflict between the work and family domains (see Eby et al., 2005, for an overview). However, the processes through which characteristics associated with the work and family domains influence each other, are not necessarily uni-directional and uni-dimensional. Recently, the research focus has shifted to include a more positive view of the work-family interface by investigating the beneficial aspects of multiple role engagement such as work-family enrichment or facilitation (e.g. Barnett and Hyde, 2001;Beham et al., 2010;Drobnič et al., 2010;Greenhaus and Powell, 2006;Grzywacz and Butler, 2005;Voydanoff, 2005a).Studying both perspectives provides a richer picture of the work-family interface. In this line of research, negative and positive work-to-home interference consists of cognitive appraisals of the effects of the work domain on the family domain, and vice versa. The perception of work-family conflict or enrichment derives from assessing the extent to which demands hinder, or resources enhance, the performance of work and family roles. However, the patterns of association between resources and demands on the one hand, and enrichment and conflict on the other are complex and not immediately evident. For example, can high resources in the work domain compensate for job demands to prevent conflict at the work-family interface? Voydanoff (2004) provides a comprehensive model in which within-domain work demands and resources are expected to have differential salience for work-family conflict and facilitation, whereas boundary-spanning resources are expected to show comparable relationships to conflict and facilitation. We build upon Voydanoff's (2004) 'differential salience vs. comparable salience' model to examine an integrated model of work demands and resources and the work-family interface.Our study extends the existing literature in several ways. First, Voydanoff's (2004) model has only been tested using a sample of employees in the United States. By analyzing German service sector employees, this study contributes to t...

in full-time work are more satisfied than women working full-time. Further, the societal context plays an important role: substantial part-time work (21-34 hours/week) is more conducive to satisfaction with work-life balance in more gender-egalitarian countries than in countries with low gender equality. Hence, a supportive gender climate and institutional support may entice workers to reduce working hours moderately, which results in markedly increased levels of SWLB.