Work‐life balance – the sources of the contemporary problem and the probable outcomes. A review and interpretation of the evidence
| Date | 13 July 2007 |
| Pages | 334-351 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/01425450710759181 |
| Published date | 13 July 2007 |
| Author | Ken Roberts |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour |
Work-life balance – the sources
of the contemporary problem and
the probable outcomes
A review and interpretation of the evidence
Ken Roberts
University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this article is to consider why work-life balance has become a major issue,
and the likely outcomes of the widespread dissatisfaction with current work schedules.
Design/methodology/approach – The article reviews international evidence on hours of work and
time use, and the academic literature on employees’ attitudes towards their hours of work, and
perceptions and complaints about work-life imbalances.
Findings – Working time has not lengthened and complaints about time pressure are unrelated to
hours actually worked. The sources of the widespread dissatisfaction with current work schedules will
lie in a combination of other trends – increased labour market participation by women, work
intensification, the spread of feelings of job insecurity, more work being done at odd hours, the spread
of new information and communication technologies, free time increasing more slowly than spending
power and aspirations, and relatively long hours becoming most common among employees (and the
self-employed) in higher status jobs. An outcome is unlikely to be a general downward trend in hours
worked on account of the substantial opportunity costs that would often be incurred by employees,
and because some (mainly middle class) employees have access to a number of effective coping
strategies.
Research limitations/implications – Nearly all the evidence considered (and available) is from
Western countries.
Practical implications – Regulation of working time with the aim of delivering more acceptable
work-life balances needs to deliver flexibility (at employees’ discretion) rather than any standard
solution.
Originality/value – The article offers a synthesis of evidence from sources that are rarely drawn
together – mainly labour market research, and leisure studies.
Keywords Job satisfaction,Hours of work, Lifestyles
Paper type Literature review
Introduction
How and why have work-life balance and the encroachment of paid work into
employees’ own time become major public issues? This ongoing debate may not be
entirely due to, but it has been substantially ignited and shaped by, the publicatio n in
1991 of Juliet Schor’s The Overworked American. This book became an academic best
seller in the USA. It seemed to be telling Americans things that they like to hear – that
they are working too long and too hard for their own good, and that they ought to ease
up. Rather than actually easing up, it appears that Americans prefer to congratulate
themselves on their selfless sacrifice. As Schor’s thesis became known internationally,
overwork was identified as a problem throughout the modern world (for example see
Garhammer, 1998; Zuzanek et al., 1998), and overwork has become established as the
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Employee Relations
Vol. 29 No. 4, 2007
pp. 334-351
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
0142-5455
DOI 10.1108/01425450710759181
virtually uncontested source of work-life balance problems. The work-life balance
terminology has been adopted only during the last 20 years, but the issue is much
older. How married women workers balance their “two roles” has been an issue since
their labour market participation began to rise following the Second World War. The
problems of workers on shifts, or unsocial hours as these schedules came to be
described, have been recognised and investigated since the 1950s. However, since the
publication of Schor’s book, work-life balance has been presented as a general problem
affecting men as well as women, and irrespective of whether their normal hours of
work are particularly unsocial.
Schor offered two principal explanations of why Americans were overworking. She
was critical of how workers had become victims of a work-and-spend culture, but her
main strictures were reserved for employers who were accused of abusing their labour
market power to over-ride workers’ interests. An implication of Schor’s diagnosis is
that workers need protection either through collective bargaining and agreements, or
by law – statutory ceilings on working time, as in the EU’s 48-hour directive.
Regulation, it is claimed by some, is the route to an optimal work-life balance.
This approach seems plausible. It certainly seems to be the case that labour market
regulation leads to aggregate reductions in paid working time. “Less work” has been a
consistent trade union demand throughout the history of collective bargaining and in
the enlarged (post-2004) EU mean reported hours of work are longest in those countries
(the UK plus the new post-2004 member states) where labour market regulation is
weakest (see Table I). However, is regulation really the key to achieving an optimal
work-life balance? Or, contrary to the current conventional wisdom, are the least
regulated economies and labour markets (as in the USA) producing the optimal
outcomes? Certainly, the “knowledge” developed by economists about how market
forces are the best mechanism for taking different interests into account and achieving
optimal outcomes has tended to be disregarded. Another possibility, more consistent
with the evidence and analysis that follow, is that presenting the options along a
continuum from tight to zero regulation has become outdated, and that the issue today
is not whether to regulate but exactly what the regulations should be.
This article proceeds by considering whether working time has lengthened and
finds that there has been no such general trend in any country. It then considers
whether complaints about time pressure are associated with especially long hours of
work and finds that this is not the case. The following sections introduce alternative
explanations for the spread of dissatisfaction with work schedules, then the coping
strategies that are available to some sections of the workforce. Likely outcomes, and
the kinds of regulation (if any) by trade unions and governments that would lead to
more acceptable work-life balances are then discussed.
Working time
It is important to return to basics and ask why work-life balance has become a public
issue. It cannot be a straightforward consequence of either Schor’s book or the
lengthening of hours of paid work because, except possibly in North America (see
Schor, 1991; Zuzanek et al., 1998; but see the powerful reservations of Robinson and
Godbey, 1999), there is simply no evidence of a recent upward trend. There are many
people in a number of countries claiming to be working longer than in the past (see for
example Heisz and LaRochelle-Cote, 2003; Swan and Cooper, 2005). It is doubtless the
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