Work/Life Balance
“Work/life balance” has become a frequently used term in the last few years.
Underlying the desire for balance is a need for integration and harmony.
As people in an advanced and complex civilization, we lead multi-faceted lives. We have needs for shelter, security, companionship, and personal fulfillment, among others. To a very large extent, these needs are - or can - be met through holding a job. This is especially true of “knowledge workers” who add value by working with information and ideas. While many needs can be met by work, some needs, say for family relations or for relaxation, can’t be met by work. In fact they get harder to meet the more time that’s given to work.
Which raises another point…work is occupying a larger part of most peoples’ weeks (at least here in the United States). The average work week has increased significantly for many people in the last two decades, especially for managerial and professional employees. In the commercial world, increased competitive pressures and a more money-focused management style have resulted in downsizing and workload increases. In government and other sectors, similar cost pressures and productivity demands have caused many people to feel increased work pressures. In society as a whole, two-working parent families have become the norm, which can exert more time pressure through creating “family work” that must be done, somehow, some time.
In addition to these increased demands, the need for increased integration and harmony has felt like more of a need for two other reasons. First, the Baby Boomer generation (born 1945-1964) has begun entering middle age. Its older members are less than a decade away from retirement. Like other generations at this time of life, this large part of the U.S. workforce has started questioning its earlier, intense commitment to “success” and all the term implied. More and more, people feel a need to integrate and harmonize other parts of life. The age-cohort following the Boomers, the Generation X group (born 1965-1990), has made a priority of life/work balance from its entry into the workplace.
In response to the pressures and changing perspectives just described, organizations have created various policies and practices that enable more balance, including flex time, parental leave, flexible benefits and telecommuting. While these have been welcomed, the tension of work demands and the need for integration remains. To a large extent, the dilemma arises from unresolved conflict among our individual needs. For instance, the need for economic security and income versus the need for a work week that allows significant family time.
It should be noted that people have widely different combinations of needs and wants. A 24 year old single person with a newly earned Ph.D. in astrophysics will have a different equation for “balance” than a 47 year old married person with a working spouse, three pre-college children, and a mortgage. Work-life balance remains a very individual matter that really has to be addressed at an individual level.
