Work-Family Conflict and Burnout for Mothers of Color: Exploring the Role of Microaggressions and Gender Role Beliefs

Within the United States, working mothers of color may have unique work and home/life experiences related to their racial and gender identities that affect their ability to balance work, family, and parenting roles. This exploratory study utilized a work and family interface model to examine how experiences of racial microaggressions and internalized gender beliefs relate to women of color’s work and family conflict as well as parental and work burnout in a sample of 151 working mothers of color. We also examined the moderating effect of institutional support between traditional gender roles beliefs and burnout. We found that experiencing workplace racial microaggressions and holding traditional gender role beliefs predicted greater work to family and family to work conflict; work to family conflict predicted both work and parental burnout yet family to work conflict only predicted work burnout. We also found that institutional support from work organizations mediated the relationship between traditional gender roles beliefs and work burnout, suggesting that supportive workplace environments play an important role in reducing burnout for mothers of color employees.