Work-Family Interaction in Brazilian university professors

Abstract

The mutual interaction between work and family is an important issue of concern to labor organizations and workers, as demands in both contexts have increased in modern times. In higher education, the expansion of teaching functions in recent years has required a greater balance between professional and family demands. This cross-cutting study aimed to identify sociodemographic, labor and psychosocial predictors of work-family and family-work interactions in a random sample of 522 Brazilian university professors. A sociodemographic and labor data questionnaire, the Work-Home Interaction-Nijmegen Survey and the Copenhagen Psychosocial Questionnaire were used. The results obtained through the linear regression analysis revealed that the variables quantitative demand, meaning of work, commitment to work, job satisfaction, freedom at work, number of disciplines, remuneration and women's gender functioned as predictors of the dimensions of Work-Family and Family-Work Interaction. Thus, a cultural change is suggested in university contexts, being replaced by one that privileges and encourages a healthy balance between work and family life and that resizes the quantitative demands of work.