WORK-LIFE BALANCE

How Does Work Structure People's Lives?

How Does Work Structure People's Lives?

Introduction

The phrase “Work-Family Balance” is relatively new to the research and corporate-policy lexicons and reflects issues raised by changes in work-force demographics, family patterns, women's employment, attitudes toward work and family, and changes in the traditional employee-employer contract. In contrast to most other areas of empirical research in the social sciences, this area is distinguished by having two major sources of research-basic, academic research and practice-driven applied research-each operating within different and often conflicting theoretical paradigms. In the view of some interviews, this paper discusses how work structures people's lives.

Discussion

Work-life balance (WLB) refers to the ability of individuals to pursue their work and non-work lives, without undue pressures from one undermining the satisfactory experience of the other. It is evident that what comprises a satisfactory work-life balance will vary from person to person, reflecting individual circumstances and preferences. Thus, a central component of achieving a work-life balance is the degree of choice that individuals experience in their work and non-work lives to enable them to create and maintain their desired level of work and non-work activity. (Warren, 2004)

The basic research question concerns the costs and benefits of combining work and family roles. The dominant (but certainly not the only) theoretical perspective is that human energy is expansive (i.e., the expansion hypothesis) and multiple roles are, therefore, beneficial, conferring both mental- and physical-health benefits to those who occupy more rather than fewer roles. The practice-driven applied research question concerns the policies and practices that permit employees to combine work and family roles most successfully from their perspective as well as that of the employing organization. The dominant theoretical perspective is that human energy is limited (i.e., the scarcity hypothesis) and each additional role, therefore, drains energy from a fixed supply. Thus, expending energy in one arena by necessity diminishes the energy available to other arenas, hence multiple-role occupancy leads inevitably to role conflict and to increased likelihood of negative mental- and physical-health outcomes. Although the existence of two such different hypotheses might be expected to generate a wealth of studies evaluating their relative predictive power, few such studies have been done. In contrast, researchers within the basic and applied domains tend to work separately and in parallel, reporting their results in different journals reaching different audiences: academic researchers and practitioners. Although recent efforts at bridging these approaches are beginning to appear, their relative isolation has contributed to a conceptual divide, limiting needed cross-fertilization and theoretical advances. (Bailyn, 2003)

Results of the Survey

Contrary to the dire situation reported by others, employees are in general quite happy with their work-life balance and instead rate other aspects of their work environment as less than ideal. The interview outcomes propose that most companies are offering an atmosphere which maintains adequate work-life balance. Of the rated results, work-life balance is placed as the main performing environment issue. That is, most of employees consented that they could meet both their work and family tasks and uphold ...