Purpose – Drawing on proactive coping theory, the authors aimed to test the mitigating effects of proactive personality on the relationships between work-to-family conflict and both work-related outcomes (i.e. career satisfaction and social network) and nonwork-related outcomes (i.e. life satisfaction and personal growth).

Design/methodology/approach – To increase the heterogeneity of sample, undergraduate students in a private university were randomly invited and then requested to invite any one of their parents, who had a full time job currently, to participate in the study. Sample size was 204, with a response rate of 75.56 percent.

Findings – As predicted, results showed that, for those who had a high level of proactive personality, the influences of work-to-family conflict on both work- and nonwork-related outcomes were all significantly mitigated, as compared with those who had a low level of proactive personality.

Originality/value – In this paper, the authors initiated a new insight into work-family interface research by advocating that individuals may “transfer” or reallocate their resources across the work and family domains. They labeled this phenomenon as work-family reallocation, which was supposedly to be differentiated from the prevailing concepts of either work-family conflict or work-family facilitation.