ABSTRACT
The last two decades has seen a blossoming of scholarly interest in work–family relationships, but thus far the definition of work and family as a distinct research domain has proceeded largely as a search for the causal effects of specific working conditions on family life. The emotional interface between parents’ work experiences and qualities of parent–child relationships has been a particularly intriguing subject, leading some researchers to explore the ways in which a parent’s work-related stresses (deriving from work overload, for example, or from lack of job autonomy) “spill over” into the family domain. Most research has emphasized the negative consequences of job spillover, as evidenced by parents’ emotional withdrawal or by their controlling, punitive behavior toward their children (Kohn, 1969; Lambert, 1990; Menaghan, 1991; Piotrkowski, Rapoport & Rapoport, 1987).
