A predictive model of women's work engagement

With increasing numbers of women at work, we explored daily fluctuations and individual patterns of change for commonly held constructs, said to be supportive of women's work engagement, for 60 employed, diverse women between the ages of 24 to 55, in South Africa. Online diary entries were completed for 10 consecutive working days. The study finds that women's daily work engagement is predominantly predicted by psychological availability (.63 unit change), followed by daily positive home-work interaction (.20 unit change) and daily positive work-home interaction (.18 unit change). No significant fit ( p > .05) was found for work-family culture (support). A shortitudinal multilevel design, utilising an online daily diary, modelled their experience of work-family culture, work-home interaction and psychological availability, in relationship to work engagement. The findings indicate that support through a work-family culture which is provided by organisations, does not predict women's daily work engagement. Instead, constructs within the realm of the individual woman have predictive power.