Work Engagement of Dual-Working Couples: Dissimilarity and Its Relation to Both Partners’ Well-Being

Work engagement is a positive, fulfilling, work-related state of mind that is characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption. Work engaged individuals not only function better at work, but also transfer these benefits to home - research has shown that work engagement crosses over between marital partners. In previous studies on crossover, this phenomenon was evidenced only by significant correlation between self-reports of partners’ work engagement, while measures of dissimilarity between partners were completely ignored. However, work engagement dissimilarity - with one partner being highly enthusiastic and immersed in his/her work and the other one lowly - could be related to some aspects of both partners’ well-being and might improve its prediction. Hence, the goal of this study was to examine work engagement dissimilarity within dual-earning couples. In addition to self-report measures, we collected partners’ ratings of work engagement and its subdimensions as well. The data collected on 178 dual-working Croatian couples showed significant correlation of overall work engagement, vigor, dedication and absorption between various pairs of self- and other-ratings measures (partners’ self-ratings; self-ratings and partner’s ratings; and partner’s self-ratings and his/her ratings of work engagement of the partner). Moreover, difference in self-ratings and ratings of partner’s work engagement showed negative correlation with life satisfaction of both partners, suggesting that work engagement dissimilarity has a potential to be related to some aspects of partners’ well-being.