Bringing home the bacon: Testing a moderated mediation model of job insecurity, work–family conflict, and parent–child attachment

Abstract

Job insecurity, defined as a perceived loss of continuity in a job situation that can span from the loss of some subjectively important job features to the permanent loss of the job itself, has been associated with a number of adverse outcomes at organizational as well as individual levels. However, how it affects employees’ family life has gained relatively less attention. To examine this, based on role stress theory and boundary theory, this study answers how job insecurity affects parent–child attachment; so far, an ignored phenomenon. Besides, this study also investigates how segmentation preference mitigates the adverse effects of job insecurity. Based on time-lagged, 318 dyadic (including 318 parents and 318 kids) data collected from Chinese individuals, we found support for all the proposed relationships, i.e. job insecurity weakens the parent–child attachment through mediating effect of work–family conflict. The findings also conclude that employees’ segmentation preference restricts the adverse effects of job insecurity and weakens its effect on the family domain. In yielding these findings, this study not only highlights the effect of perceived job insecurity on the family domain, the mechanism through which it occurs, and the moderating effect of a given factor but also provides insights to organizations so they could improve employees’ family life. The broader contribution to theory, practical implications, and suggestions for future research are discussed.