Work–life balance

About: Work–life balance is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 2252 publications have been published within this topic receiving 36240 citations. The topic is also known as: Work Life balance & work-life balance.

Perspectives on the Study of Work-life Balance

Abstract: This paper reviews aspects of contemporary theory and research on work-life balance. It starts by exploring why work-life balance has become an important topic for research and examines the concept of balance and its implications for the study of the relation between work and the rest of life. There has been a growing body of research in the area of work—family conflict and work—life issues. Finally, the paper offers a critique of recent empirical studies on worklife balance amongst teachers.

Impact of the Covid-19 confinement measures on telework in France - A qualitative survey

Abstract: During the Covid crisis the population in regime of telework jumped from 3% to 25%of the workforce. This study aims at better understanding how the massive shift to telework following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic affected workers’ jobs and lives in France during the first lockdown (March 17th-May 11th 2020). In particular, we shed light on how this exogenous change had an impact on tasks content and work organisation dimensions like teamwork, routine, workers’ autonomy and types and extent of supervisory controls method. Moreover, we dig into both subjective and objective dimensions of job quality such as job satisfaction, motivation, changes in working time and pay, together with issues related to physical and mental health and more generally to work-life balance. The picture that emerges is quite fragmented, largely depending on workers’ occupation and family composition, although some general patterns could be observed. First, the transition to telework did not affected the structural inequality of the occupational structure: respondents accomplishing low skilled and standardised tasks enjoyed, to a certain extent, more freedom from direct control, whereas interviewees on less standardised and more autonomous tasks were more able to carve out some niches of independence in the new situation and were more able to resist management pressures for more control and standardization. Second, most organisations had no specific policies dedicated to teleworking and workers had to adapt to the new situation without any special guideline: horizontal cooperation emerges as driver of adaptation as important as vertical control, if not more. Third, the positive aspect that was noticed by the large majority of respondents was the opportunity that telework gave them to experiment a more flexible management of time, at least for those who could tinker with their working time schedule. Fourth, and especially for that reason, the overwhelming majority of respondents wishes to consolidate the practice of telework also after the end of the lockdown and with more continuity.

Developing ECEC in Romania: between Perceptions and Social Realities

Abstract: One of the key policies that aims to enable parents to achieve a better work–life balance is to increase childcare support. But for many families childcare is no longer a simplistic choice between care provided by a family member (usually the mother) and non-family care (Janta, 2014). There are research studies showing that the majority of mothers prefer to care for their young children themselves - almost invariably up to the age of three, very often up to school age, and in some cases all the way up to school-leaving age (Hakim, 2009). In line with the EU strategies for 2020 and the need for an integrated approach to Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) the article provides a diagnosis of the situation in Romania on the development of ECEC. In addition to a literature review of the Romanian situation in the EU context, the first part of the article analysed the main drivers for ECEC development in Romania. The second part of the article shows the results of quantitative and qualitative research studies developed by the author on the topic of the article as a researcher at the INCSMPS (National Scientific Research Institute for Labour and Social Protection). Results show that ECEC arrangements are related to age of the child, parents’ preferences, and labour market opportunities. Childcare provision cannot be developed in isolation and should be explored in the context of other systems that interact with the care of children and the family unit.

How Perceptions of Work-Life Balance and Technology Use Impact upon Creativity in Collaborative Spaces

Abstract: This paper unpacks creative processes in collaborative spaces (CS). We focus on how the positive resources related to wellbeing and work-life balance derived from working in CS interplay with the use of collaborative technology in affecting individual creativity. We conducted a survey study with individuals working in 27 different CS in Italy. We propose and find a positive relationship between the perceived level of work-life balance satisfaction and individual creativity. Instead we do not find a significant relationship between the frequency of technology mediated interactions with external actors and individual creativity. Furthermore, the relationship between work-life balance and creativity is negatively moderated by technology mediated interactions with external actors. In other words, an intense use of collaborative technology with actors external to the CS can generate perceptions of overload thus making the impact of work-life balance on creativity not significant. We conclude with theoretical and practical implications.