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.

Partnership status and satisfaction with work–life balance

Abstract: Does entering a romantic relationship enhance or detract from employees’ work–life balance (WLB)? While different theoretical predictions can be made about how being in a relationship contributes to employees’ satisfaction with WLB, the literature lacks a robust investigation into this question. Using longitudinal data from Germany (n = 609; k = 2,358), this research examined if and how transitions in and out of non-marital relationships over six years relate to employees’ varying levels of satisfaction with WLB. Results showed that employees were less satisfied with WLB when they were romantically partnered (vs. unpartnered), which contrasts previous cross-sectional findings. In an additional study (N = 779) validating the first study’s measures using a similar sample, and comparing partnered vs. unpartnered employees cross-sectionally, we found that partnered individuals feel more, not less, satisfied with WLB. Taken together, these findings suggest caution in interpreting the effects of time-varying variables in cross-sectional studies. When examined longitudinally, taking on a partner role was related to reduced satisfaction with WLB, highlighting the need to attend to the variability in needs and challenges unmarried individuals face in work–life interface research.

Women and their Work: Life Balance in German IT Consulting

Abstract: Germany's current population pyramid -- as well as certain gender aspects -- has led to a call for increasing numbers of working women in many industrial sectors. However, IT consultancies still find it difficult to adequately exploit highly qualified women's potential when recruiting and bonding them. We believe that this originates from deficits in the perceived work--life balance of female consultants. Therefore, on the basis of an empirical study carried out with the aid of online interviews and following expert phone interviews, the current state of work--life balance in German IT consultancies is looked at in this paper. We focus on the situation of female IT consultants and show that the consulting sector can improve the work--life balance of female IT consultants by means of additional efforts, and also by raising the attractiveness of this sector for entrants.