“This is happening without my buy-in”: De-agentic boundary management through a multi-domain work–life shock event

Abstract

When working parents face a sudden external shock, they must quickly renegotiate how they manage the boundaries between their work and family lives—yet we know little about how parents navigate events that destabilize both domains at once. This study examines how individual work–family boundary management evolved through and after a multi-domain work–life shock event that simultaneously disrupted both work and family roles. We draw from interviews and qualitative survey responses collected at two time points from 54 working mothers. Through the lens of boundary management and role theories, we develop a model of de-agentic boundary management, which is a state where the selection and enactment of boundary management tactics is shaped by external constraints that reduce control, rather than driven by agentic individual preference. This state renders some tactics unavoidable (used out of necessity) and others unavailable (no longer accessible even when they would have been preferred). Our findings reveal how parents experience mixed outcomes, including unexpected longer term positive benefits following the shock. We contribute to boundary management and work–family scholarship by expanding our understanding of how boundary management transpires under conditions of role disruption, in a way that foregrounds how parental agency over work–family boundaries can be constrained and transformed by shock events.