Asymmetric and Directional Effects of Work-Family Conflict on Depressive Symptoms Among Married Working Women in South Korea

Background and Purpose:

Balancing work and family is a critical issue for social workers and policymakers who aim to support individuals facing stress from multiple roles—particularly for women, who often bear the dual responsibilities of paid labor and caregiving. Work–family conflict (WFC), which occurs when work and family responsibilities interfere with one another, is a well-known source of psychological distress. Although past studies have shown a link between WFC and depression, many may be biased due to unmeasured confounders such as personality and family background. Moreover, it is often assumed that reducing WFC brings the same level of mental health benefit as the harm caused by increasing WFC. However, people may not experience stress and recovery in symmetric ways. In this study, we use longitudinal data from Korean working women to examine (1) whether changes in WFC are related to changes in depressive symptoms after accounting for time-invariant individual characteristics, and (2) whether increases in WFC have a stronger impact on mental health than decreases.

Methods:

We analyzed five waves (2012–2020) of the Korean Longitudinal Survey of Women and Families (KLoWF), a nationally representative panel study. The analytic sample consisted of currently married, working women under age 60 living with at least one household member (N = 4,366; Obs = 12,656). Depressive symptoms were measured using the 10-item CES-D short form, and WFC was assessed with a validated 7-item scale. To reduce bias from unobserved, time-invariant individual differences, we employed fixed effects (FE) models. To further assess whether increases and decreases in WFC had asymmetric effects on mental health, we applied asymmetric fixed effects (AFE) models that decomposed cumulative WFC changes over time.

Results:

On average, respondents reported moderate levels of work–family conflict (M = 14.30, SD = 2.79, range 7–24) and depressive symptoms (M = 4.59, SD = 4.78, range 0–30). FE models indicated that increases in WFC were significantly associated with higher depressive symptoms (b = 0.24, p < .001). AFE models showed that increases in WFC led to a greater rise in depressive symptoms (b = 0.27, p < .001), while decreases predicted a smaller reduction (b = –0.18, p < .001). A Wald test confirmed that this difference was statistically significant (p = 0.01), providing evidence of asymmetry in the psychological effects of WFC changes.

Conclusions and Implications:

Our findings reveal that the increase in work–family conflict is more harmful to mental health than the relief gained from its reduction. This asymmetry underscores the need for early intervention strategies to prevent conflict escalation. For social work practice, the results highlight the importance of monitoring changes in work–family dynamics, advocating for supportive workplace policies, and designing mental health interventions that reflect gendered responsibilities and the cumulative burden of stress in the lives of working women.