| Summary: | Over the last few years, the phenomena of dual-earner commuter couples had gain the
attention of the world including Malaysia. The changing of demographic in the
workplace had lead some couples to adopt commuting lifestyle in order to remain
employed and had given impact towards their psychological well-being. However, a
little effort has been given to studying on dual-earner commuter couples psychological
well-being and the factors contribute to it, especially in Malaysian context. Various
literatures also stated that commuting challenge has negative impacts towards commuter
couples. As manifested, the present study was primarily conducted to determine the
relationship between job satisfaction, family functioning and psychological well-being
of dual-earner commuter couples in Malaysia. A total sample of 180 respondents which
consisting of 90 pairs of commuting couples with age range between 23 to 57 years old
have been identified using the purposive sampling method. Furthermore, respondents
provided data through a structured self-administered questionnaire. The instruments
used in this study were the Minnesota Satisfaction Questionnaire Short Form (MSQ-SF)
(Weiss, Dawis, England, and Loifquist, 1967), Family Adaptability and Cohesion Evaluation Scale III (FACE-III) (Olson, 1993) and General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-
12) (Goldberg & William, 1998). In addition, the results of this study were analyzed using the Statistical Package for
Social Science (SPSS) based on hypotheses that have been constructed to identify a
direct correlation between job satisfaction (intrinsic and extrinsic), family functioning
(cohesion and adaptability) and psychological well-being. The findings from the analysis
of Pearson Product-Moment showed that there were significant negative relationships
between job satisfaction (intrinsic and extrinsic) and family functioning (cohesion) with
psychological well-being. In contrast, there was also significant positive relationship
found between adaptations with psychological well-being of dual- earner commuter
couples. In addition, the finding of t-test analysis showed that there were no significant mean differences between husband and wife in work satisfaction (intrinsic and extrinsic),
family functioning (cohesion) and psychological well-being. The study also found that
only family functioning (adaptation) (β = .20, p < .05) was made a unique contribution
to psychological wellbeing. In other word, this association must be interpreted within
the commuting context in which that couple’s effort to highly adapt with commuter
challenging lifes were more likely effecting their psychological well-being. To sum up,
the contribution of the functioning in a family plays an important key factor in shaping
and defining the psychological well-being of dual-earner commuter couples.
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