ABSTRACT
A father rushes out of the office to his infant’s day care before it closes at six p.m. A marathon runner finds time to run ten miles before heading off to work. A government employee hurries to catch the shuttle from Washington D.C. to get home on time for his mother’s eightieth birthday. A young executive steals an hour of her lunch break to handle a few last-minute wedding arrangements. A college student juggles employment, a full-time course load, and several extracurricular activities. All of the examples are representative how most of us live and work today. We are seeking to strike a balance between our work and non-work lives. The term “work-life balance” is defined as the ability of an individual to be “equally involved and satisfied” with their work role and family (or other significant non-work) role (Greenhaus & Singh, 2003). The concept of work-life balance was made popular in the United States
during the 1970s when organizations were instituting new government mandates which paved the way for a host of organizational policies to aid working mothers, as societal norms shifted from traditional single-income households to dual-income households (Bianchi & Milkie, 2010; Coontz, 2000; Hochschild, 1989). In addition to societal shifts, a number of other factors led to the work-life conversation, including increasing use of technology, effects of globalization on competition and productivity, company layoffs and the rise of women and minorities in the workplace (Boswell & Olson-Buchanan, 2007; Hall & Hall, 1976; Hammer et al., 1997). In response to these changing demographics and societal shifts, organizations became increasingly pressured to adopt policies and practices to assist workers with their work-life needs. “Work-life balance practices in the workplace are therefore those that, intentionally or otherwise, increase the flexibility and
autonomy of the worker in negotiating their attention (time) and presence in the workplace, while work-life balance policies exist where those practices are intentionally designed and implemented” (Gregory & Milner, 2009, pp. 1-2). Some forty years later, the work-life balance conversation continues to evolve
giving rise to numerous books, research reports and academic articles on the subject. Work-life scholarship has focused largely on the balancing of an individual’s work and life domains, and what organizations can do to facilitate this process. Recently, the terminology has been debated among researchers suggesting that the term “work-life balance” is seemingly outdated, suggesting the term “work-life integration” is more fitting and encouraging (Gregory & Milner, 2009). Balance implies that something has to give on either side or that one “can’t have it all,” while integration implies a mutual and positive support between the two domains (Lewis & Cooper, 2005; Rapoport et al., 2002). Where the two sets of terms converge is on the notion that each sphere impacts the other, for better or worse. We use the term “work-life integration” throughout the chapter. Most of the attention regarding issues of work-life integration has been focused
on the conflict that arises when pressures from work roles are incompatible with pressures from non-work roles (Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985; Parasuraman et al., 1996). However, the spillover effects between work and non-work spheres in both directions are not always negative, as more recent studies have shown. Positive work-to-family or family-to-work spillover (also referred to as enrichment) arises when elements of work roles positively influence elements of non-work roles, and vice versa (Carson et al., 2006; Greenhaus & Powell, 2006, 2010). Rothbard (2001) found instances of both depletion and enrichment among individuals’ work and family domains. Interestingly, some gender differences have been observed in these spillover effects. Women experienced depletion in the work-to-family direction, while men experienced enrichment in this direction. In the family-to-work direction, women experienced enrichment. Much has changed in the dynamics of the workforce since the concept of
work-life balance and integration came into existence. While work-life balance was initially viewed as an issue for parents, demographic and generational shifts, technological advances and the globalization of the workforce have fostered a need for all types of workers to strive for better integration between work and non-work spheres. The drivers of these changes have pushed organizations to make work-life integration a global concern for all workers, in their efforts to support the whole person. For example, the millennial generation desires flexibility-it’s no longer something that only working women with young children request (Schwabel, 2011; MomCorps Study, 2012). Increasingly, employees want to be held accountable not “for where or when they work, but for the results they produce” (The 2012 Guide to Bold New Ideas for Making Work Work, 2012, p. 6). Additionally, working fathers are reporting just as much work-family conflict as ever before, according to a recent study by the Families and Work Institute (Aumann, Galinsky, & Matos, 2011).
