A longitudinal study on the impact of working from home during the COVID 19 pandemic: Self-rated general health, stress, and work-family and family-work conflict-are there gender and parental status differences?

Abstract Objective Examine the impact of working from home (WFH) during the COVID-19 pandemic on general health, stress, work–family and family–work conflict over-time and identify differences by gender and parental status. Methods Trajectory analyses described outcomes over-time. Multinomial logistic regression relates the effects of gender, children, and the interaction between them, on group membership based on the Latent Class Growth Analyses. Results Not all trajectories followed the expected cubic pattern. Females had less family–work conflict (high/low: OR 0.29 95%CI 0.17-0.66; moderate/low OR 0.37 95%CI 0.20-0.67). Children increased the odds of family–work conflict (high/low: OR 8.48 95%CI 3.38-21.25; moderate/low OR 2.98 95%CI 1.63-5.43). Work–family conflict was worse for those with children (high-to-moderate decline/low-stable: OR 2.59 95%CI 1.25-5.41). Conclusions WFH has implications for health and wellbeing of employees with differences based on gender and parental status for stress, work–family and family–work conflict.