The Effects of Using ICT on Work-Family Life:an Empirical Study Based on the Work-Family Border Theory

One of the features of ICT use is greater alleviation of time and location restraints in communications. Although positive effects of ICT for improving work-family life have been reported, much of the ICT literature stresses negative effects on work-family life through increased extra work. Sakamoto and Spinks (2011) found that a higher degree of using ICT tools directly related to higher work-family conflict of Japanese workers. This study explores the effective mediating factors that can reduce the negative impact of ICT use, applying work-family border theory to measure the concepts and propose hypotheses.

Data used for this study were derived from a web questionnaire survey conducted in September 2013. The sample is consisted of women having husband and children (under 15 years old), who reside in the Tokyo metropolitan area. In order to correct the potential bias of the registered monitors, we adopted stratified random sampling based on job status and the age of the smallest child. The valid sample size excluding quite short time response and/or inappropriate answers was 483. The average age of these women is 40.5, 59.8% are employed and 40.2 are non-employed.

Multi-group analysis of covariance structure modeling test the effects of using ICT on work-family life focusing on the housework frequency, time use in their daily life and their perception of them. We analyze the mediating effect of domain identification, influence and across-the-border communication. Our findings advance our understanding of how we manage the permeability between work and family life.