Which statement about the work-family conflict among IBM employees is supported by the material?

• A. Conflicts were highest among employees with preschool and school-age children
• B. Conflicts were highest among employees with no children
• C. Conflicts were uniformly low across all groups
• D. Conflicts were highest among employees with adult children

Answer: (A)

The main idea here is how work-family conflict tends to vary by family life stage, specifically how caregiving demands from young children press against work responsibilities. When children are preschool or school age, parents juggle multiple time-consuming tasks—getting kids to and from school, attending activities, daycare needs, doctors’ appointments, and supervising homework. These demands create frequent schedule constraints and energy drain, making it harder to meet work commitments without spillover into family time or vice versa. In the IBM material, this combination of time pressure and role strain led to the highest level of work-family conflict for employees with preschool and school-age children, so the statement is the one that aligns with the observed data.

Why the other possibilities don’t fit as well: having no children generally means fewer caregiving responsibilities, so conflicts would be expected to be lower rather than highest. Adult children often require less day-to-day care, and while they may bring other concerns, they typically don’t generate the same level of immediate, time-bound demands as young children. Saying conflicts were uniformly low across all groups would ignore the clear variation seen in the data.