Boundary violations and well-being on teleworkers: recovery’s role and gender differences

Background: This study aimed to explore the role of psychological detachment from work in the relationship of boundary violations and flourishing, as well as gender differences. We developed and tested a moderate mediation model where psychological detachment was the explanatory mechanism of the relationship between boundary violations with flourishing and using gender as the moderating variable. Methods A cross-sectional study was conducted with a sample of 921 teleworking university professors (mean age 44 years) in Brazil in June 2020. Multigroup analysis and moderate mediation were performed using Mplus 7.2. Results Psychological detachment mediates the effects of boundary violations (in both direction) in flourishing and that work-to-family violations are more harmful to women’s recovery instead as family-to-work violations are more harmful to men’s recovery. Conclusion The main contributions of this study are the importance of recovery in the subjective well-being of teleworkers and the relationship between boundary violations and gender.