The association between day-to-day stress experiences and work–life interference among office workers in academia: an ecological momentary assessment study

Purpose We investigated relations between day-to-day job demands, job control, job strain, social support at work, and day-to-day work–life interference among office workers in academia. Methods This study is based on a 15-working day data collection period using an Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) implemented in our self-developed STRAW smartphone application. We recruited office workers from two academic settings in Belgium and Slovenia. Participants were repeatedly asked to complete EMAs including work stressors and work interfering with personal life (WIPL) as well as personal life interfering with work (PLIW). We applied fixed-effect model testing with random intercepts to investigate within- and between-participant levels. Results We included 55 participants with 2261 analyzed observations in this study. Our data showed that researchers with a PhD reported higher WIPL compared to administrative and technical staff (β = 0.37, p < 0.05). We found significant positive associations between job demands (β = 0.53, p < 0.001), job control (β = 0.19, p < 0.01), and job strain (β = 0.61, p < 0.001) and WIPL. Furthermore, there was a significant interaction effect between job control and social support at work on WIPL (β = − 0.24, p < 0.05). Additionally, a significant negative association was found between job control and PLIW (β = − 0.20, p < 0.05). Conclusion Based on our EMA study, higher job demands and job strain were correlated with higher WIPL. Furthermore, we found associations going in opposite directions; higher job control was correlated with higher WIPL and lower PLIW. Higher job control leading to higher imbalance stands out as a novel result.