Abstract

Due to the increase in dual-income families, work-family conflict has become a more prevalent phenomenon in today's society. College students represent individuals who have yet to enter both work and family roles, thus are an important population to examine anticipatory levels of work-family conflict. The present study seeks to examine anticipated levels of three types and two directions of work-family conflict (WFC) within college males and females. Work-family conflict self-efficacy, negative affectivity, and role-salience are also examined, as well as demographic variables. There were 295 undergraduate students who participated in the current study. Results indicate that college students are able to discern between the three types and two directions of the work-family conflict construct, and in a remarkably similar way to that of adults who are currently balancing both work and family roles. Work-family conflict self-efficacy, negative affectivity, and role salience accounted for 14.3% of the variance in total anticipated WFC scores, suggesting that other factors must be examined in relation to anticipated levels of WFC. Research limitations, implications, and future directions are also discussed.