Conflict between Work and Life: The Case of Contract Workers in the German IT and Media Sectors

Abstract

Many studies examine issues of work-life conflict of employees. However, in research on work-life conflict little attention has been given to contract workers to date. This is rather surprising as there are indications that the specific working conditions of contract workers can have consequences for their work-life conflict. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to reduce the existing research gap by presenting a study which analyzes the antecedents of the work-life conflict of contract workers in the IT and media sectors. Results show that the work-life conflict of contract workers is significantly influenced by working hours and income. Furthermore, the number of younger children has a significant impact on their work-life conflict when regarded in interaction with gender. All in all, this study contributes to a differentiated understanding of work-life conflict in the specific case of contract workers.