Does gender exacerbate the effect of work-family conflict on employee satisfaction in the hotel industry?

Abstract

Hotel employees, in recent times, put in more effort at work, working for long hours and even on holidays and weekends. As a result, they find it difficult to efficiently meet the demands of both their work and personal life. This study used a cross-sectional research design to examine work-family conflict and its effects on job satisfaction and life satisfaction of hotel staff. The study also sought to examine the moderating effect of gender on the relationships between work-family conflict, job satisfaction and life satisfaction. A diverse sample of 286 respondents, conveniently selected, completed a structured questionnaire. Generally, the results of a PLS-SEM analysis showed that work-family conflict is not significantly related to job satisfaction but with employees’ life satisfaction. Specifically, work-to-family conflict has no significant relationship with job satisfaction whereas work-to-family and family-to-work conflict were uniquely associated with life satisfaction. The interference of family demands with the work of a hotel employee positively affects life satisfaction irrespective of the gender of employees. However, job satisfaction significantly relates to life satisfaction. Gender fully moderated employee work interfering with family and job satisfaction relationship. Theoretical and practical implications as well as directions for future studies were discussed in the paper.