Materialism and Postmaterialism as Antecedents of Work-Life Conflict: Assessing the Predictive Worth of Two Life Values

Abstract

Conflict between work and home continues to be a source of distress for many working people. This research had two major aims: one was to explore whether one's life values are associated with perceived conflict between work and non-work roles. Specifically, postmaterialism and materialism were examined to assess their relationship to work interference with family, and family interference with work. As hypothesized, materialism was positively associated with both directions of work-life conflict. Contrary to predictions, postmaterialism was not associated with work-life conflict. The second aim was to assess the predictive value of three different conceptualizations of materialism-postmaterialism for work-life conflict. Using a strong inference method (Platt, 1964), Inglehart's (1990) unidimensional measure was compared to bidimensional (Bean & Papadakis, 1994) and interactional (Giacalone & Jurkiewicz, 2004) conceptualizations. Results showed that the bidimensional model explained significantly more variance in work-life conflict than the unidimensional model, while the interactional model explained little additional variance. This study adds to research demonstrating links between materialism and various forms of negative well-being (Kasser, 2002). Suggestions are given regarding future research and how companies may be able to reduce employees' work-life conflict by de-emphasizing materialistic values.