Don’t Put All Of Your Eggs In Two Baskets: Exploring The Potential Benefits Of Multiple Role Priorities Among Employees in Dual-Earner Partnerships

Traditionally, work-life balance researchers have aligned their studies with the scarcity hypothesis by focusing on work and family roles, the conflict that occurs between them, and how this conflict drains employee resources. More recently, studies have started to move into expansionist theories that look at a variety of roles that characterize "life" more broadly, under the assumption that roles can enrich one another. The current study examines the relationships between work, family, and personal role centrality and enrichment in dual-earner couples. The quantitative evidence supports the expansion hypothesis in finding that employees who prioritize multiple roles perceive higher levels of resources like social support, skills, affect, and capital, than those that do not. Further, mediation analyses found that these resources positively impact employees' perceptions of career satisfaction, life satisfaction, and balance, with social support and positive affect being the most consistent and strongest mediators, respectively.