This study was conducted by Lau (2010) to look into the effect that work and family conflicts have on the quality of father-child relationships in Hong Kong. The study was conducted through the survey method in which 556 pairs of working fathers and their school-going children took part. The researcher was motivated by the abundance of literature that exists on the effect of work-family conflicts on mother-child relationships but limited literature on the effects of work-family conflicts on father-child relationships. In conducting this study, the researcher’s aim was to narrow this literature gap. The study had a number of findings.
In general, Lau (2010) found that work-to-family conflicts have a negative effect on the quality of father-child relationships, which in turn affects children’s self-esteem levels. In addition, other factors which negatively affect father-child relationships include low-income levels of fathers, a large number of children in the family, as well as the existence in the family of children who is nearing their adolescent years. On the other hand, the active involvement of the mother in the child’s life as well as the nature of the father’s occupation were found to act as mitigating factors to the quality of the father-child relationship. Lau (2010) concluded that the quality of the father-child relationship can be enhanced by finding a balance between work and parenting.
Critique of the Article
The study by Lau (2010) provides detailed background information about work-family conflicts. The researcher draws on numerous studies that have been conducted concerning work-family conflicts. One of the strengths of this study is that the sources used for review are varied in nature and cover a wide span of the period – from as early as 1955 to as recent as 2009. In addition, the studies used for review were conducted in different societies such as China, Europe, and the United States. Most importantly, the background information of the study covers various aspects of work-family conflicts. These aspects include the growth of work-family conflicts from the Globalization period; the bi-dimensionality of work-family conflicts (work-to-family conflicts versus family-to-work conflicts); the consequences of work-family conflicts; and gender bias in the examination of work-family conflicts’ effects on parenting. Lau’s (2010) ability to draw on such varied sources for review and his wide coverage on the topic enable the readers to understand better the topic of work-family conflicts and their impact on parent-child relationships.
The strength of Lau’s (2010) study lies also in the use of support to back up his findings. This can be found in the discussion section of the article. The researcher not only states his findings but also mentions other prior studies that had similar results. The studies mentioned are not only recent works but also those conducted in the past decades and in different countries in addition to Hong Kong. Supporting the findings using prior studies provides an unbiased point of view in the study. Despite these strengths, the study has a number of limitations.
The study by Lau (2010) is limited in the fact that the results cannot be generalized to other populations. The generalizability of a study requires that the sample used in the study be selected randomly. Unfortunately, this was not the case in this study. The participating classes were not randomly selected by the researcher. Instead, the researcher requested the participating schools to select for him the classes that would participate in the study. This could have created some biases in the selection criterion of the participating classes. For instance, it is a possibility that the participating schools selected only those classes that had a majority of academically gifted students. The use of a biased sample could have a great distortion effect on the results. Most importantly, the samples cannot act as a representative of the target population because they were not randomly selected (Howitt & Cramer, 2007).
The study by Lau (2010) is also limited in the measurement tools used. All the measurement tools used except one are tools that have been used before by researchers in prior studies. The tools are therefore validated. The limitation in this study arises when the researcher made adjustments to the validated tools rather than using the tools as they are. The modifications were done by: excluding some items from the scales/subscales, combining two or more items, and combining two or more subscales. Unfortunately, the researcher did not have the time to test the validity of the modified measurement tools. The use of the modified tools could have a profound effect on the results of the study and the overall quality of the study. To worsen the situation, the researcher also used a self-constructed measurement tool to measure the quality of the father. The use of this non-validated tool could have negatively affected the results of the study further (Kumar, 2005).
The study also has a limitation in the fact that the researcher fails to handle contradictory results in a credible manner. Whereas Lau (2010) found the majority of his results to be supportive of previous results, an unexpected result was found for the effect of fathers’ education level on father-child relationships. The researcher expected that a higher father’s education level would have a positive effect on the father-child relationship but this was not the case. Instead, the researcher found that a higher father’s education level had a negative impact on the father-child relationship. This result contradicts not only the human capital theory of development but also previous studies such as the study conducted by Davies-Kean (2005). To support this contradictory result, the researcher makes his own interpretation that higher education levels may be a source of stress for children (Lau, 2010). This interpretation is pure guesswork that is not founded on any existing theory or study. As a result, readers cannot rely on this interpretation to understand the negative impact found between fathers’ education levels and the father-child relationship.
Lau is a professor in the Department of Social Work at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. The credentials of this researcher give him the authority to address parents, especially fathers, in this study. This he has done well by providing the audience with information about how various aspects of work-family conflicts can affect father-child relationships as well as giving recommendations on how such relationships could be enhanced. Nevertheless, the grave limitations found in this study, particularly those that pertain to the methodology used, make this study inadequate. This is because the methodology has the greatest effect on a study’s results and therefore any defects in this part always translate into unreliable results. Thus said, readers of this study should beware of the study’s results until the study is repeated using representative samples and validated measurement tools.
References
Davis-Kean, P.E. (2005). The influence of parent education and family income on child achievement – The indirect role of parent expectations and home environment. Journal of Family Psychology, 19(2), 294-304.
Howitt, D., & Cramer, D. (2007). Introduction to research methods in Psychology. New York: Prentice Hall.
Kumar, R. (2005). Research methodology: a step-by-step guide for beginners. London: SAGE.
Lau, Y.K. (2010). The impact of fathers’ work and family conflicts on children’s self-esteem: The Hong Kong case. Social Indicators Research, 95, 363-376.