Expanding on individual resilience in organizational contexts: The case of reconciling the work–eldercare conflict of middle-aged women

As populations age, middle-aged women are still experiencing the work–family conflict, not as working mothers of young children, but as working daughters caring for elderly parents. This study presents a socio-psychological framework to better delineate how resilience in middle-aged women is built at the intersection of paid work and informal eldercare. Challenging the dominant view of resilience as a psychological trait, we conceptualize it as a relational, socially embedded capacity shaped by workplace interactions. This study advances resilience theory by extending Kobasa’s (1979) hardiness framework, introducing Consideration as the fourth dimension that complements the established triad of Challenge, Commitment, and Control. The Consideration component encompasses the informal, relational support from colleagues and supervisors and reflects the organizational and relational dimensions of resilience in organizations. To examine these dynamics, we conducted 22 semi-structured interviews with middle-aged women, which were analyzed through a hermeneutic phenomenology approach. The findings revealed two coping strategies for each of the four components of resilience that demonstrate how women sustain themselves amid an ongoing work–eldercare conflict. The study advances resilience theory and provides practical insights that line managers and human resource managers can harness to deal with the growth of informal caregivers in the labor market.