Research That Matters (January 17 - 20, 2008)

Purpose: This study examined the workplace experiences of African American women in 16 Fortune 1000 companies nationwide. Despite evidence that work constitutes a major life domain among African American women, researchers know relatively little about their work experiences (Cox and Nkomo, 1990). There is very little research on how these women integrate employment and family life (Blair-Loy and DeHart, 2003). The competing demands of employment commitments and family responsibilities may result in work-family conflict stress. In addition, African American women may be part of a workplace culture with an inconsistent message regarding diversity. We use the Structural Contexts of Work and Mental Health model (Tausig, 1999) to test our hypothesis that perceived racial bias would have stronger predictive power in explaining levels of work-family conflict stress than job demands and workplace culture in this population. Demographic projections indicate increasing numbers of African American women participants in the American labor force over the next several years. An understanding of contextual factors associated with work-family conflict stress in this population is warranted.

Method: Using data from The National Women of Color Work/Life Survey (NWCWL), 698 African American women completed a twelve page, 38 item survey. Work-family conflict stress was measured by a single item “Stress in the last three months with balancing work and family responsibilities.” Job demands was measured on a scale composed of factors such as “amount of work” and “lack of control over work schedule” and negative impact of demands on balance of work-family life responsibilities. Workplace culture was assessed on a scale composed of 8 items such as “When it comes to valuing diversity, actions of senior management are consistent with their words”, “I would feel comfortable telling my supervisor that my family/personal needs are the reason I need some flexibility.” Racial bias was measured on a scale composed of 5 items such as “I have heard people tell racial and ethnic jokes at work”, “My manager makes assumptions about what kinds of work/life needs I have based on race/ethnicity.”

Results: Hierarchical multiple regression was conducted to examine the influence of demographic and family related variables on marital status, responsibility for dependents and age of child; work related variables of job demands, workplace culture, supervisory responsibilities, job type; and a variable measuring perceived racial bias. Our model explained about (32%) of the variance in work-family conflict stress in this sample of employed African American women. Most of the variance (28%) is explained by workplace related variables, 5% by age and number of dependents and a small (<1%) by perceived racial bias.

Conclusions and Implications: Contrary to previous research findings, our results suggest that perceived racial bias may not be as salient and that African American women value job autonomy, organizational commitment to diversity, and ability to control important aspects of their lives. Future research should be targeted toward the design of organizational interventions that reduce risk of poor mental and physical health outcomes due to work-family conflict stress.