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In this paper the relationship of various types of work-home interaction (i.e. negative and positive influence from work to home, and the other way around) with demographic, family, and (perceived) work characteristics as well as with experienced health was explored in a sample of 751 postal employees. By using cluster analysis, we tried to uncover whether specific combinations of the various dimensions of work-home interaction (WHI) were more prevalent than others. Our results showed that employees did not simply experience negative work-home interaction or not, but that participants should be classified in five distinct clusters: (1) 239 employees experienced no interaction at all; (2) 74 employees experienced primarily negative interaction between both domains; (3) 113 employees experienced primarily positive influence from work; (4) 195 employees experienced primarily positive influence from home; and (5) 122 employees experienced negative and positive interaction simultaneously. Results further showed that the emerging WHI-clusters appeared to have distinct profiles with respect to demographic and family characteristics, perceived working conditions, and reported health and well-being. It was convincingly shown that workers who experienced negative interaction between work and home, perceived their working conditions as least favourable and experienced most psychological health complaints, while those with primarily positive influence from work had the most favourable perceptions of their working conditions and experienced better health than the other clusters. Employees who experienced virtually no interaction between both domains did not seem to enjoy a better quality of life than the other clusters. Implications of this exploratory study are discussed.
Demerouti et al. (Wed,) studied this question.