Contemporary young families with young children experience tension trying to reconcile family and work requirements. Due to the fact that both institutes of family and work are greedy institutions (Coser, 1974) and tend to require maximum efforts and commitment from working parents. Starting a family with children requires redistribution of time, tasks and commitments for parents seeking to continue their work career that comes at conflict with the family responsibilities. The problem of the research is related to the need for a model for family and work reconciliation. Scientific literature survey has revealed the three major strains that interract in the process of individuals managing their work and family responsibilities: they experience conflict (Parasuraman&Greenhouse, 2002) when trying to meet the requirements of their work-place and family; the experience of both faculties – family and work not only generate conflict, but also facilitation (Crouter,1984; Frone, 2003; Hill, 2005) – being a good professional adds skills for succesful family life and vice versa - being a good mother/father adds skills and qualities for a professional role at work; the different roles that women and men hold and are culturally expected to perform in their family and professional lives (Konrad, Mangel, 2000; Scott, 2001; Hill et al, 2003). The possibilities to reconcile work and family life depend on a number of internal (e.g., number of children in the family, their age, etc.) and external factors (e.g., employers, political aspects, etc.). Therefore,  young families with children need  support on several levels: on individual, institutional and state levels. The mentioned factors may contribute to the theoretical model of family and career reconciliation.

The most theoretical models in literature review contain the following components: (1) a set of work and family domain, (2) a combination of work domain, family domain and life outcomes,  (3) work and family conflict construct, (4) work role/family role construct ( Michael et al, 2009). Agryee at al (1999) emphasize the importance of job and family stressors (work presure, lack of aotonomy, ambiguity of work and family roles, parents‘ workloads, child-care arrangements) and relate them to work and family conflict and role conflict.

The theoretical model was enriched by the data of the three-stage quantitative research (in Lithuania, in 2015): (1) 15 narratives with young families with children, (2) 12 interviews with employers and (3) a focus group interview with career counsellors. Theory analysis and qualitative research data has allowed building a survey questionnaire that finalizes this several-staged research project seeking to prepare a model of family and work reconciliation. The goal of this paper is to test a family and work reconciliation model in a quantitative way. The research question of this paper is what are the main aspects that contribute to the family and work reconciliation model?

The financial support provided by the Research Council of Lithuania for the research is gratefully acknowledged (Project Reg. No. MIP-075/2014).

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