Work-Life Balance

A Psychological Perspective

Fiona Jones, Ronald J Burke, Mina Westman

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781135422189
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychologie
• Subtopic: Histoire et théorie en psychologie

What are the effects of conflict between home and work?
Does work stress affect those who live with you?

In the rapidly changing modern work environment, time pressures seem ever increasing and new technology allows work to be conducted any time and anywhere. These are just two of the factors that make it more and more difficult for working men and women to integrate work and home life. Consequently, there is a need for flexible and innovative solutions to manage the work-home interface.
Work-Life Balance: A Psychological Perspective presents up-to-date information on work-home issues, including the latest research findings. The book's emphasis is strongly psychological, with a focus on practical solutions, and includes chapters which deal with psychological issues such as the conflict between work and family, how work stresses may affect partners, and recovery from work. It also includes sections on legal issues, as well as examples of initiatives being implemented by leading employers. Contributors are drawn from the leading researchers in their fields and reflect the international character of the current challenges facing employers and employees.
Its practical focus and innovative approach make this an essential book for managers, HR professionals and organizational psychologists, as well as students in these disciplines. The theoretical basis and research focus mean the book will also be invaluable for researchers investigating workplace issues.

Part I
Background and context

The two opening chapters together set the scene for the rest of the book and provide background information that should be useful to both practitioners and researchers. In Chapter 1, Debra Major and Lisa Germano examine, in detail, the changing nature of work, addressing the wide range of economic, social and demographic factors that have occurred in recent years. They suggest that these have had major impacts on employment relationships and led to increasingly blurred boundaries between home and work for many people. These offer both threats and opportunities in terms of maintaining a satisfactory work-life balance.

The changes in employment relationships, outlined in Chapter 1, are reflected in a wide range of complex legislation, the nature of which varies greatly between countries. Some understanding of these legal issues is needed by those interested in research or practice in this field. While it is not possible to provide in-depth coverage of legislation worldwide, Richard Block, Martin Malin, Ellen Kossek and Angela Holt, in Chapter 2, provide a useful source of reference for practitioners and researchers in the USA and EU. For alt readers they provide a summary of the diverse approaches taken to legislation, reflecting the differing cultural values in different parts of the world.

1 The changing nature of work and its impact on the work—home interface

Debra A. Major and Lisa M. Germano

The changing nature of work is widely discussed among organizational scholars and in the popular media. In this chapter, we focus on the changes that are especially likely to affect the work-home interface. The chapter is divided into four sections. In the first, we discuss changes in workforce demographics, including the participation of women in the labor force, working mothers and rising eldercare responsibilities. In the second section, factors influencing the changing nature of work are examined, including globalization, the rise of the service industry and advances in information technology. In the third section, we consider major changes in the nature of employment relationships. Finally, we conclude with a discussion linking changes in the nature of work to blurred work-family boundaries and highly individualized work-life management strategies.

Changes in Workforce Demographics

Women’s increasing labor force participation

In industrialized nations around the world, women's labor force participation has increased steadily over the last century. Women now constitute the majority of the American workforce (Fitzgerald and Harmon, 2001) and nearly half the workforce in New Zealand and the UK (Statistics New Zealand, 2001b; National Statistical Coordination Board, 2002). In the USA, the overall participation rate of women reached 60% in 2000 (Toossi, 2002). Canadian women's labor force participation reached a record level of 61.2% in 2003 (Statistics Canada, 2004). In Australia, 64% of women aged 15-64 years were employed in 1999 (Commonwealth Office of the Status of Women, 2001). In Israel, women's labor force participation has risen steadily to 44% in 1998 (Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, 2000).

One influence on women's increased labor force participation is the rising education levels of women in many countries. In Israel, for example, the rate of schooling for Jewish women caught up with that of Jewish men in the 1990s. Between 1988 and 1998, the median years of schooling increased 37% for non-Jewish women but only 16% for men (Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, 2000). In the USA, statistics from the 2002 National Study of the Changing Workforce (NSCW), a project based on interviews with 3052 employees representing a cross-section of the American workforce, show that from 1977 to 2002 women's educational attainment increased more rapidly than men's. In 2002, 31% of women compared to 27% of men had completed four years or more at college (Bond et al., 2002).

In addition to women's rising education levels, the expansion of jobs in traditionally female-dominated fields, including social work, nursing, education, retail trade and personal services, has contributed to women's increased labor force participation in the USA (Appelbaum, 2003). Health and community services and education are the predominant industries of paid employment for women in New Zealand (Statistics New Zealand, 2001b). In Israel, women are more likely than men to work in education and health, welfare and social-work services (Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, 2000). Similarly, in 1999, Australian women held 78% of all health and community services jobs and 67.2% of all jobs in education (Commonwealth Office of the Status of Women, 2001). The highest representation of Canadian women continues to be in clerical personnel (66.7%) and intermediate sales and service personnel (65.3%; Human Resources Development Canada, 2001). In the UK in 2001, a quarter of the female employees held jobs doing administrative or secretarial work (National Statistical Coordination Board, 2002).

Women in managerial positions

Despite other advancements (e.g., educational attainment), women are still less likely to hold managerial positions than men. At the beginning of the 1990s, the number of women at the senior management level of top US corporations had increased less then 2%. White men held 95% of all top managerial positions. Likewise, in the federal government, women held only 6.4% of executive manager positions (Gutek, 1993). More recent findings reveal that the situation has not improved dramatically. While American women (38%) were more likely to work in managerial or professional occupations than men (28%) in 2002, men (42%) were still more likely than women (33%) to supervise other employees as a major part of their jobs (Bond et al., 2002),

The underrepresentation of women in management is not unique to the USA. Canadian statistics indicate that in 2000 only 10.8% of employed women held a management position, and only 19.1% of senior-level managers were women (Human Resources Development Canada, 2001). In New Zealand, only 11% of women in paid employment work as legislators, administrators and managers, compared to 15% of the men. Compared to women in 2001, men in the UK were most likely to be managers, senior officials or work in skilled trades (National Statistical Coordination Board, 2002). Australian statistics reveal that in 1999 only 3.6% of employed women held positions as managers and administrators, compared to 9.5% of employed men (Commonwealth Office of the Status of Women, 2001). In Israel, only 22% of the country's managers are women, and of that number only 8% are CEOs or directors-general. In contrast, 33% of male managers are CEOs/directors-general (Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, 2000).

Part-time employment

In considering women's increased labor force participation, it is important to note that women work part time more often than men. This trend is evident across the globe. In the USA, 19% of women work part time, while only 8% of men work part time. In Canada, 27% of women work part time, while 10% of men work part time (United Nations Statistics Division, 2000). In Israel, twice as many women as men engage in part-time labor (Israel Central Bureau of Statistics, 2000). In Australia, 44% of women work part time compared to only 12% of men (Commonwealth Office of the Status of Women, 2001). In 2001, 36% of women worked part time while only 12% of men worked part time in New Zealand (Statistics New Zealand, 2001b). In 2001, almost half of the jobs held by women in the UK were part time (National Statistical Coordination Board, 2002).

Women with children in the labor force

In most industrialized nations, women with young children are remaining in the workforce and re-entering the workforce soon after childbirth. The labor force participation rate of mothers in the USA with non-adult children was 71.8% in 2002 (US Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2003). For women with children younger than six, workforce participation rates increased from 39% to 64.9% between 1976 and 2000. For those women with infants, the increase was from 31% to 55.2% over the same time period (Bachu and O'Conneli, 2001). In 2002, 49.2% of women in Australia with children younger than five remained in the workforce (Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2003a). For both New Zealand and the UK, the age of a woman's youngest child is a critical factor in determining her participation in the workforce. In 1996, women in New Zealand whose youngest child was less than a year old had a workforce participation rate of 36.5%. However, their workforce participation rate more than doubled (78,1%) when their youngest child was between the ages of 13 and 17 (Statistics New Zealand, 1996). In the UK, 55% of women with children younger than five remained in the workforce in 2003. However, workforce participation rates increased to 73% when the youngest child was between the ages of five and 10 and further increased to K0% when the youngest child was between 10 and 15 years old (National Statistics Online, 2004).

Whether a cause or a consequence of women's increased participation in the labor force, it appears that perceptions regarding mothers' employment are also changing. In Britain, Germany and the USA, the proportion of people who believe that women's employment has negative effects on family and children has declined (Scott et al., 1996). Men's attitudes, in particular, are changing as illustrated in the 2002 NSCW report. In 1977, 74% of men felt that men should support the family financially and that women should stay at home taking care of the children and the housework. In 2002, only 42% of the men supported this view.

Of course, perceptions of working mothers are culturally influenced. Treas and Widmer (2000) examined attitudes toward married women's employment across countries and classified them into three major groups. Work-oriented countries such as Canada, Germany (East), Israel, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and the USA are least likely to recommend that married women stay home, even when they have a preschooler. The family accommodating countries, including Australia, Austria, Germany (West), Great Britain, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Northern Ireland and Russia, place less emphasis on married women's labor force participation and are likely to support part-time rather than full-time employment even once children are grown. Finally, motherhood-centered countries like Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Ireland, Poland, Slovenia and Spain support full-time work before children are born and after they are grown. These countries prefer that women with preschool children stay at home. It is notable that in most industrialized nations there is at least some acceptance of mothers participating in the labor force. Attitudes across countries appear to support full-time employment prior to childbirth and support at least part-time work after children are grown.

Motherhood, in contrast to fatherhood, seems ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction Work—life balance: key issues
• Part I Background and context
• Part II Researching the work—home interface
• Part III Relationships between work and home life
• Part IV Managing the work—home interface
• Conclusion Work and life: the road ahead
• References
• Author index
• Subject index