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variable and quality of work life to further define
and support a theoretical framework
assumed that men are primarily responsible for fam-
ily financial support by working, while women are
primarily responsible for childcare and household
duties (Loscocco, 2000). In his research, Ballout
(2008) indicated that parental demand can affect
work-family conflict and subsequently success in
careers. Due to the increased demands of spending
a great amount of time at home taking care of their
children, investing the required time and energy
at work to support their career advancement and
success, employed parents tend to experience more
family interfere work conflict and work interfere
family conflict than employed non-parents. On the
other hand, non-parents often have more flexibility
in managing their time and personal life, and fewer
familial responsibilities, which less likely to experi-
ence family-to-work conflict.
2.1
Work Variable (WV)
Anderson and Ungemah (1999) mentioned that var-
iable work hour's programs are becoming more and
more popular with companies both large and small,
as employers realize they are good for employee
morale and good for business. They explained that
due to some reason such as the increase in two-
career families, the rise in single-parent families
and the huge number of working women including
mothers of school-age children have forced compa-
nies to reconsider their work schedules. Employers
have been pleasantly surprised to find the variable
work hours have many benefits. Companies are
realizing that everyone wins by providing the flex-
ibility to accommodate family needs, leisure activi-
ties and other obligations. According to Kim and
Ling (2001), work variables are number of hours
worked, work schedule inflexibility and work stres-
sor. They explained that time pressure can be meas-
ured by the number of hours worked and schedule
flexibility. They also discovered that past research
studies have shown that long hours worked and
work schedule inflexibility are related to high
work-family conflict. On the other hand, job char-
acteristics and work role pressure have a positive
relationship with work-family conflict (Kim and
Ling (2001). Work stressors can produce strain
symptoms such as anxiety, frustration, tension and
irritability (Greenhaus and Beutell, 1985). Ballout
(2008) noted that job involvement is one potential
work-related variable that may cause work-family
conflict. Moreover, individuals who are highly
involved in their jobs or careers may devote more
time and effort to the work role than to family role.
According to Adams et al. (1996), job involvement
has got to do with the degree of importance people
assign to work involvement. Another work-related
variable that relates to work-family conflict is job
social support (Ballout, 2008). Adams et al. (1996)
and Bernas and Major (2000) pointed out that
social support from the non-work domain, such as
the partners or family members is of great impor-
tance in reducing work-family conflict.
2.3
Quality of Work Life (QWL)
Sirgy et al. (2001) mentioned that a new measure
of QWL was developed based on need satisfaction
and spillover theories. The measure was designed to
meet the needs of an employee to capture the extent
to which the work environment, job requirements,
supervisory behavior, and ancillary programs in an
organization. They further explained that QWL dif-
fers from job satisfaction whereby job satisfaction is
construed as one of many outcomes of QWL. Abo-
Znadh and Carty (1999) noted that QWL efforts not
only on how people can do work better, but also on
how work may cause people to be better. Moreover,
QWL in an organization also concerns about partic-
ipation of workers regarding problem solving and
decision making. Higher quality of work life would
then correlate with lower work-to-family interfer-
ence (Cheung and Tang, 2009 & Aziz et al. 2011).
2.4
Relationship between work variable
and quality of work life
Time pressure which can be measured by the number
of hours worked and schedule flexibility is one of
the work characteristics that lead to work-family
conflict. As time is a limited resource, the more time
a women entrepreneur spends on her business, the
less time she will have with her family (Kim and
Ling, 2001). Jones and Fletcher (1996) confirmed in
their research that work stressors affect family life in
the form of unpleasant moods that have spilled over
from work to family. Job involvement may lead to
work interfering with family, which in turn leads to
less time and energy devoted to family roles, thereby
making it more difficult to comply with pressures
associated with family roles (Ballout, 2008). Ballout
(2008) also mentioned that supervisor and perceived
organizational support could cause employees to
report less spillover from work to family and to show
2.2
Non-Work Variable (NWV)
The non-work variables are gender, parental
demands, and working spouse. Gender is perhaps
the socio-demographic characteristic most often
included in studies of work-family conflict and
career success (Ballout, 2008). The evidence suggests
that there are gender differences in work-family con-
flict due to social role differences between working
men and working women. Traditional gender roles
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