The Key to Stability is Love? The Mediating Role of Work-Family Conflict in the Impact of Job Stress on Work Alienation and the Moderating Effect of Affective Commitment

The main aim of this research is to examine the mediating role of work-family conflict and the moderating effect of affective commitment in the relationship of job stress and work alienation to work. For this purpose, surveys were applied to health workers in the field such as midwives, nurses, emergency medical technicians and doctors in public hospitals. The universe of the study was composed of 844 employees of a public hospital in Türkiye. Surveys were distributed to 680 employees selected through simple incidental sampling from the universe through human resources department representation, and 427 accurately filled surveys were returned. The analysis of the data obtained was carried out through SPSS 22 and Amos 22 programs. Analyses were conducted using PROCESS Macro, developed by Hayes (2013), to determine the conditionally indirect effects. The findings revealed that work-family conflict has a mediating role in the relationship between job stress and work alienation and that employees’ level of affective commitment has a moderating effect. Thanks to this study, it was concluded that there is a meaningful and positive relationship between work-family conflict and alienation from work and that affective commitment has a moderating effect in this relationship. In addition, employees with low affective commitment compared to employees with high affective commitment to the organization were found to be stronger in the positive relationship. Theoretical and application implications are discussed in relation to “social change theory” and “social gender roles theory”. As a result of the analysis, the majority of the participants were male (58.8%), married (57%), 28-40 age group (46.5%) and undergraduate (49.5%). © The Author(s) 2025.