Bidirectional Associations Between Parental Work-Family Conflict and Early Adolescents’ Academic Adjustment: A Four-Wave Dyadic Longitudinal Study in China

Work-family conflict (WFC) not only affects parents’ mental and physical health but may also directly or indirectly influence adolescents’ academic adjustment. Importantly, this relationship may be bidirectional: while parental WFC can disrupt adolescents’ academic adjustment, adolescents’ characteristics, such as behavioral problems and difficulties in academic functioning, may in turn undermine parents’ ability to manage work-family demands. To date, however, longitudinal research examining the dynamic, reciprocal relationship between parents’ WFC and adolescent academic adjustment, as well as the underlying mechanisms, remains limited. Therefore, the present study aims to investigate the bidirectional and developmental associations between parents’ WFC and early adolescents’ academic adjustment. Using a longitudinal dyadic design, this study followed 329 seventh-grade students and their dual-earner parents across four waves of data collection: the first and second semesters of seventh grade (T1, T2) and the first and second semesters of eighth grade (T3, T4). Self-report questionnaires were administered to assess fathers’ and mothers’ WFC and early adolescents’ academic adjustment. Structural equation modeling and cross-lagged panel models were employed to examine the bidirectional predictive effects between parental WFC and adolescent academic adjustment. In addition, parallel latent growth modeling was conducted to explore their synchronous developmental trajectories over time. The results indicated that adolescents’ academic adjustment exhibited a linear downward trend from seventh to eighth grade. A significant synchronous developmental relationship was observed between fathers’ WFC and adolescents’ academic adjustment during this transition period. Specifically, the initial level of fathers’ WFC predicted both the initial level and the rate of change in adolescents’ academic adjustment: higher initial levels of fathers’ WFC were associated with poorer academic adjustment and slower growth in adjustment over time, and vice versa. Conversely, adolescents’ academic adjustment also predicted fathers’ WFC. Higher levels of academic adjustment were associated with lower initial levels of fathers’ WFC and a slower rate of change in WFC, while improvements in adolescents’ academic adjustment occurred more rapidly, thereby contributing to a slower increase in fathers’ WFC over time. Overall, the findings provide robust evidence for a significant bidirectional relationship between parents’ WFC and early adolescents’ academic adjustment. On the one hand, parents’ experiences of WFC tend to accumulate over time and negatively affect adolescents’ academic adjustment. On the other hand, adolescents’ academic adjustment difficulties can, in turn, exacerbate parents’ WFC. This study highlights the influence of distal environmental factors, such as parents’ work experiences, on adolescent development and suggests that interventions aimed at improving parents’ work environments may play an important role in promoting adolescents’ academic adjustment.