Work±family con ̄icts of women in the Air Force: their in ̄uence on mental health and functioning

This paper examined the e€ects of work and family stressors and con ̄icts on Air Force women's mental health and functioning. We analyzed data from a 1993 survey of representative strati®ed samples of 525 Air Force women from the active duty reserve and guard forces. The analyses of the data are guided by the comprehensive model of work±family con ̄ict that has been tested by Frone, Russell, and Cooper (1992) using a large representative community sample. Structural equation modeling analyses provided support for the work±family con ̄ict model. The analyses also provided support for an extension of the model, which included the separate e€ects of marital and parental roles on mental health. The extended model demonstrated that job and parental stresses had direct e€ects on work±family con ̄icts and that job and marital distress and family± work con ̄ict had an independent adverse e€ect on mental health. Whereas job and parental involvement had a bene®cial e€ect on distress, they had an adverse e€ect on work±family con ̄icts. Copyright # 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.