Measuring work-life balance and its covariates

Abstract

Pressures on work-life balance have grown in modern British society. Concern mounted in the 1990s as more strains arose from job insecurity, work intensification, marital breakdown, a large increase in lone parenting, and demands for parents to be more involved in their children's education (Burchell et al., 2002;Dex, 1999). Employee absence was costed at £4 billion per year by the Department of Trade and Industry, and employee stress and turnover were also recognized as large business and social costs (DTI, 2000). In 1997 the newly elected Labour government started to formulate family policies to cope with these problems, one being encouragement to employers to adopt more flexible working arrangements. The Work-Life Balance Challenge Fund (DfEE, 2000) offered employers money for consultancy costs to cover plans to introduce flexible arrangements. Britain also adopted the EU Working Hours Directive from 1998, limiting weekly hours to 48, although a large proportion of employees were allowed to opt out. However, it is not clear what measures of success for these interventions should be applied. Work-life balance should provide one criterion, indicating in turn a set of appropriate measures.In the next section we summarize the work-life balance literature at the turn of the 21st century. The report of field research that follows it describes a checklist measure for employees' work-life balance, analyses data collected using this instrument from a selection of employees in eight organizations, and draws clear conclusions from the analysis. Work-life balance literatureEmployers' work-life policies have been researched using many methods; for example, (a) large-scale nationally representative sample surveys to document 627 Work, employment and society

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“…Reference [40] developed an instrument in the form of a WLB checklist. Reference [41] presented significant insights into the troubles of combining family aspirations with salaried work in relation to policy relevant agendas with the help of a social survey.…”

Stress and Burnout in Canadian Midwives

“…Some scholars focus on the concept of strict balance (Greenhaus, Collins & Shaw, 2003), others are more interested in reciprocal interference from work to home and from home to work (Peeters, Montgomery, Bakker, & Schaufeli, 2005), some tend to focus on work-family conflict (Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985), and others broaden the concept to include leisure activities (Dex & Bond, 2005;Small & Riley, 1990). Regardless of the perspective, the common thread is the need to reconcile the demands of one's work life with one's expectations for one's non-work life (or home life, or family life).…”

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