Purpose: This study tested a moderated mediation model examining the mediating role of financial anxiety and the moderating role of family life satisfaction in the relationship between pay satisfaction and psychological distress among employees of a knowledge-based company.

Method: This was a cross-sectional study. Out of 3,000 employees of a knowledge-based company, 277 were selected via stratified random sampling. Data were collected over eight weeks (Dey to Bahman 1404) using the Pay Satisfaction Questionnaire (Heneman & Schwab, 1985), Financial Anxiety Scale (Archuleta et al., 2013), Family Life Satisfaction Scale (Zabriskie & Ward, 2013), DASS-21 (Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995), achieving a 100% response rate, and analyzed using the PROCESS 5 macro with bootstrapping in SPSS 26.

Findings: Pay satisfaction indirectly reduced distress via reduced financial anxiety (indirect effect = -0.1746). The direct effect of pay satisfaction on distress was moderated by family life satisfaction, such that it was non-significant at low levels (P>0.05), but positive and significant at moderate (β=0.1018, P<0.05) and high (β=0.1690, P<0.05) levels. The index of moderated mediation was non-significant, indicating the independence of the indirect effect from family life satisfaction.

Conclusion: Financial anxiety as a mediating mechanism explains how pay satisfaction influences employees' mental health. Conversely, high family satisfaction, instead of buffering, may intensify distress through dual role strain. The dual-path pattern shows that the effect of organizational variables on mental health is conditional and nonlinear depending on the family context. However, definitive confirmation of this explanation requires direct measurement of role strain mechanisms in future research