Relationship between Job and Family Satisfaction: Causal or Noncausal Covariation?

Prior research supports a positive relationship between job and family satisfaction. Although this relationship has been taken as support for the spillover hypothesis, it is also consistent with an alternate hypothesis that has received little attention. The congruence hypothesis states that job and family satisfaction are positively related because they share a common cause or causes. Thus, the distinction between the spillover and congruence hypotheses reflects the broader distinction between causal and noncausal (i.e., spurious) covariation. The goal of this study was to determine which hypothesis best reflects the relationship between job and family satisfaction. Data were obtained through household interviews with a random sample of 631 individuals. Structural equation modeling techniques were used to estimate simultaneously a reciprocal relationship between job and family satisfaction and a noncausal correlation between their disturbance terms. Results supported the congruence hypothesis, indicating that the relationship between job and family satisfaction is characterized best as noncausal.