Your career gain, my work strain: a chain mediation model on vocational delay of gratification and spouse’s work engagement

The present study examined how an employee’s vocational delay of gratification (VDG) affects her/his spouse’s work engagement. Drawing upon the JD-R perspective and the spillover-crossover model, we proposed that job incumbents’ limited resources are taken up by VDG, resulting in decreased fulfillment of family roles and increased work-family conflict, which creates a spousal stressor of ego-depletion that in turn, hinders spousal work engagement. Using a multi-source and multi-wave approach, the current study tested a serial mediation model in which employee work-family conflict, spousal stress, and spouse ego-depletion mediated the relationship between employee VDG behavior and spouse work engagement. An employee’s VDG influenced spousal stress experienced in a dyadic relationship via work-family conflict, and the depletion of the spouse’s resources generated a spillover to her/his work domain, leading to failure of work engagement. The findings of this research extend the literature on work-family dynamics, delay of gratification, and the Job Demands-Resources model, while highlighting the broader societal implications of job incumbents’ career development strategies beyond organizational boundaries.