Work–family conflict and strain: Revisiting theory, direction of causality, and longitudinal dynamism.

Does work-family conflict (WFC) cause psychological strain or vice versa? How long do these effects take to unfold? What is the role of persistent WFC (or strain) levels in these processes? Prior research has left some of these questions open: Our systematic review reveals that WFC-strain studies have primarily used short (e.g., hours) or long (e.g., years) measurement lags, leaving mid-long lags underexplored. Moreover, while many work-family theories imply long-term effects, prior longitudinal research has often relied on cross-lagged panel models that assume effects to be solely within-person, not considering persistent between-person differences. We tested this assumption in five three-wave survey studies (