This article has been accepted for publication and undergone full peer review but has not been through the copyediting, typesetting, pagination and proofreading process which may lead to differences between this version and the Version of Record. Please cite this article as an ‘Accepted Article’, doi:10.2188/jea.JE20210338 Copyright © 2022 Ehab S. Eshak et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Received July 21, 2021; accepted January 5, 2022; released online February 12, 2022 Accepted Version Original article Work and Family Conflicts, Depression, and “Ikigai”: A Mediation Analysis in a Cross- Cultural Study Between Japanese and Egyptian Civil Workers Ehab S. Eshak a,b* , Sachiko Baba c , Hiroshi Yatsuya d , Hiroyasu Iso b , Yoshihisa Hirakawa d , Eman M. Mahfouz a , Chiang Chifa d , Ryoto Sakaniwa b , and Ayman S. El-khateeb a a Public Health Department, Faculty of Medicine, Minia University, Mainroad, Shalabyland, El- Minia, 61511 Egypt. b Public Health, Department of Social Medicine, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University, 2-2 Yamadaoka, Suita, Osaka, 567-0871 Japan. c Bioethics and Public Policy, Department of Social Medicine, Osaka University Graduate School of Medicine, 2-2 Yamadaoka, Suita, Osaka, 567-0871 Japan. d Department of Public Health and Health System, Graduate School of Medicine, Nagoya University, 65 Tsuruma-Cho, Showa-Ku, Nagoya, 466-8550 Japan. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Ehab S Eshak, Public Health, Department of Social Medicine, Graduate School of Medicine, Osaka University, Osaka, Japan. Phone: +81-6-6879-3763; Fax: +81-6-6879-3919; E-mail: ehab@pbhel.med.osaka-u.ac.jp, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3564-1938 Short title: Ikigai mediates associations between work-family conflicts and depression. Number of Tables (3), figures (0), and supplementary materials (3).