Work-family conflict and safety participation of high-speed railway drivers: Job satisfaction as a mediator

• Reducing strain-based work-family conflict is an important way to improve safety participation.
• Strain-based WFC might indirectly contribute to safety participation through reduced job satisfaction.
• These findings highlight the importance of reducing employees’ strain-based work-to-family conflict in safety-critical organizations.

Despite the large body of work on the work-family interface, hardly any literature has addressed the work-family interface in safety-critical settings. This study draws from social exchange theory to examine the effect of employees’ strain-based work-to-family conflict on their supervisors’ rating of their safety participation through job satisfaction. The sample consisted of 494 drivers from a major railway company in China. The results of a structural equation model revealed that drivers’ strain-based work-to-family conflict negatively influences safety participation, and the relationship was partially mediated by job satisfaction. These findings highlight the importance of reducing employees’ work-to-family conflict in safety-critical organizations.