Balancing work and family roles proves to be a rather difficult task for most individuals. The social cognitive career theory (Lent, Brown, and Hackett 1994) states that to reach positive outcomes in the work domain, people need to develop self-efficacy through adequate learning experiences. With this study, we tested the importance of two contexts that can provide valuable learning experiences: family and volunteering. Thus, we verified the relationship between the division of labour in the family of origin, respectively, authentic leadership use in the volunteering organization and anticipated work-family and family-work conflict in a sample of student volunteers. Self-efficacy in dealing with the conflict between the two domains was used as a mediator. One hundred and ten students who were also volunteers at the time of the study participated in this research. A series of mediation models showed significant indirect effects from family and volunteering experiences on the conflict between work and family. Spillover effects were also confirmed. This study provides an understanding of how positive contexts such as equitable division of labour in the family and having an authentic leader in the volunteering organization help students develop their self-efficacy, which also contributes to anticipating lower levels of conflict between the work and family domains.
