When Domains Spill Over: The Relationships of Affective and Continuance Commitment With Work–Family Conflict Among Correctional Staff

Life is filled with the demands of work and family. When conflict exists in one domain, research indicates it can spill over and affect the other. In corrections, many workplace factors have been shown to affect the organizational commitment of staff. As staff are the most valuable resource in this labor intensive field, this study focused on the effects of two types of organizational commitment (affective and continuance) on three work–family conflict variables (time based, strain based, and behavior based). Using ordinary least squares regression analysis of survey data from 160 correctional staff at a Midwest private prison, the results indicated that as affective commitment rises, all three work-on-family conflict variables decreased. Conversely, when continuance commitment rose, all three work-on-family conflict variables increased as well. Surprisingly, both forms of commitment had nonsignificant associations with family-on-work conflict. The only significant control variable was age, which revealed that older staff had less conflict between work and family.