Going beyond work and family: A longitudinal study on the role of leisure in the work–life interplay

Abstract

Going beyond the relation of work and family, the present three-wave longitudinal study spanning one year assessed different forms of conflict and facilitation between leisure and the life domains work and family and their relation to subjective well-being. A sample of N = 277 employed men and women reported their perceived conflict and facilitation between leisure, work, and family and subjective well-being. Results suggest that leisure is a source of facilitation for work and family, and, at the same time, a major recipient of conflict from work and family. Moreover, leisure conflict was negatively correlated and leisure facilitation was positively associated with concurrent subjective well-being. Both conflict and facilitation between all three life domains remained highly stable over the course of one year. Only few and non-systematic lagged effects were found, indicating that the variance of the stability of the constructs and their relations over time leave little room for longitudinal predictions. Taken together, the study demonstrates that, similar to work–family relations, conflict and facilitation with the leisure domain are also associated with subjective well-being and remain highly stable over the course of a year in the lives of young and middle-aged adults.