ly stressful* (4). These two items were combined in one scale and averaged, with higher scores indicating increased conflict. A reliability assessment shows that the scale is reliable with a Cronbach's alpha of .74. From this measure, a binary variable was created because it was skewed. The value 0 was given to those who experienced no stress (0-1) and the value 1 was given to those who experienced various levels of stress (2-5). While we report on the binary variable, the continuous variable and binary variable resulted in similar findings.

The other mediating variable pertaining to the second set of hypotheses is happiness. Happiness was assessed using a 5-point scale ranging from *not happy* to *very happy*. To account for skewness, a binary variable was created by recoding the first three answer categories in *unhappy* (0) and the last two as *happy* (1). To analyze the robustness of the results, the same models were reestimated with a measure of mental health status, namely the 12-item General Health Questionnaire developed by [@bibr21-0192513X17710773]. We also ran the analyses with happiness as a continuous variable. All these analyses produced virtually similar results.

In examining (a) the association between transnational parent's work and transnational family lives and (b) the role of family-to-work conflict and subjective well-being, various commonly used controls are taken into account to avoid statistical confounds. Controls included age, sex, marital status, education, years in the Netherlands, socioeconomic status, social network, Dutch language proficiency, and whether the respondent has young children (younger than 8 years). Because only three Angolans are undocumented, legal status is not included. Educational attainment was determined using an 11-point scale, ranging from (1) *no schooling* to (11) *finished university*. To capture socioeconomic status a dummy variable is included on house ownership as earnings or other similar measures could lead to problems of endogeneity. House ownership 