ABSTRACT
Work—family interference is a widely discussed phenomenon (Frone, 2003; Geurts and Demeouti, 2003; Greenhaus and Allen, 2011). But we know rather little about specific mechanisms involved. How does work interfere with family life in everyday situations? Are there specific family situations that have a negative impact on work life? What, specifically, does it look like when work negatively affects family life, or family negatively affects work? This chapter focuses on specific events in the work and family domains and the mechanisms linking these discrete events. We focus on how specific events in one domain trigger further events in the other domain, leading to (more or less typical) event-chains. We introduce a particular study design, the case-crossover design, which is well suited for identifying the triggers for specific outcomes. Finally, we present a study that tries to identify prototypical chains of events.
