Work–life interface

About: Work–life interface is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 71 publications have been published within this topic receiving 13964 citations.

The role of religion in work-life interface

Abstract: Although religion is central to the lives of many people, little attempt has been made to understand its role within work–life conflict, work–life facilitation and more broadly, work–life balance. This study advances current knowledge by examining the role of religion within these concepts, and exploring its moderator influence. This is achieved through investigating the experiences of Australian Muslim men and the religion of Islam, which encourages multiple roles for its followers and involves well-defined physical acts of worship. To test various hypotheses, data were collected in the form of survey questionnaires, either face-to-face or online, from 301 Australian Muslim men. The findings support the proposition that religiosity can be beneficial for work–life balance, rather than competing with work and other non-work roles for time and energy. Furthermore, religiosity can moderate the relationships between job demands and work-to-life conflict, and work hours and work-to-life conflict, but not between work flexibility and work/life facilitation, and family demands and life-to-work conflict. The findings suggest that religiosity can be important for work–life balance and stress the need for a change in research direction in this area, one that is broadened to include other roles besides work and family, including religion.

Prioritising identity : a grounded theory of employees' evaluation of the work-life interface in multinational corporations

Abstract: Are we working to live or living to work? The interface between work and personal life is often viewed as a source of irreconcilable conflict and the predominant worklife metaphors of 'balance' and 'conflict' reinforce this view. Much research in this area assumes that time and resource allocation is at the heart of managing the worklife interface; faced with the work-life conundrum‘, many employers respond by implementing time and resource-focused initiatives such as flexible working hours and access to special leave provisions. Increasingly, organisations are devoting significant resources to establishing and promoting effective work-life balance policies. But are these responses based on valid assumptions that accurately reflect employees‘ perceptions of the work-life interface? Anecdotal evidence suggests that, despite the many and varied work-life strategies being implemented in organisations, increasing numbers of employees are engaging with support services outside the workplace to help them manage the intersection between paid employment and family commitments. Many of those seeking support from organisations such as Relationships Australia are male, blue-collar employees in large organisations who have access to, but apparently find unsuitable, the proffered time and resource oriented work-life initiatives. There appears then to be a 'disconnect' between employers‘ work-life initiatives and employees‘ experiences and perceptions of the work-life interface.

Does work-life balance have a cultural face? : understanding the work-life interface of Nigerian working mothers

Abstract: With the increase in the number of women working in the formal economy, there has been a growing literature on women handling multiple roles arising from work and the home. Currently there is a gap in the literature about the activities of working mothers in emerging economies, with theories and most findings concentrated on studies in advanced economies. This study therefore intends to fill part of the gap in the literature by investigating the lives of working mothers in the oil and gas sector in Nigeria, with a view of understanding their challenges, pains and gains as they navigate between the home and work spheres. This research adopted a qualitative approach through the administration of semi-structured interviews to working mothers, supervisors and Human Resources practitioners. Using the Greenhaus and Beutell’s (1985) sources of conflict model, this study explored the work and family lives of working mothers in Nigeria, thereby giving a detailed view of the time, strain and behaviour-based conflict they experience, as well as appropriate coping strategies that have been put in place to mitigate the effects of such conflicts. Findings complement earlier studies on work and family in Africa focusing on the experience of strain by working mothers in Nigeria. However, analysis from this study suggests that some of these stress-related conflicts were caused by the prevalent work culture of presenteeism. In comparing evidence of a more equal sharing of domestic tasks between couples in advanced economies, the embrace of equal sharing of housework by men and a demand for such by women in Nigeria is rather limited and slow. A striking difference on the strategies employed by working mothers in the west and in Nigeria is that what working mothers in Nigeria lose by way of government support, they gain in the form of family support.

A Review of the Literature on the School-Work-Life Interface:

Abstract: As term-time employment for college students has rapidly increased worldwide, the topic of multiple role engagement among employed students has attracted much research attention. Nevertheless, how ...

Fit for self-employment? An extended Person–Environment Fit approach to understand the work–life interface of self-employed workers

Abstract: The recent growth in self-employment has sparked scholarly interest in why individuals choose and remain in self-employment. Yet, relatively little is known about how self-employed workers enact their daily lives and what this means for their work–life interface. Self-employment is often presented as a means to enhance life choice and as enabling work and nonwork activities to be combined more satisfactorily. However, extant evidence on how self-employment is experienced is mixed, with some studies reporting long and irregular working hours and high levels of stress. Furthermore, the way in which self-employment is experienced may be influenced by national context – economic, institutional and cultural factors. In this paper, we develop a multi-level model which extends existing work on the Person–Environment Fit by incorporating factors relevant to self-employment. The model assists us to understand how contextual factors create both opportunities and tensions which impact the work–life interface of self-employed workers.