WORK–FAMILY BALANCE AND CAREERS

WORK–FAMILY BALANCE AND CAREERS

Although a broad distinction can be made between work life and nonwork life, the boundaries between work and home have become increasingly blurred. Two reasons for this trend are that married women have entered the workforce and communication technology has advanced. 

Dual-earning couples today face the challenge of balancing their work and home lives. Cell phones, the Internet, and portable computers allow individuals to work when they are at home or on vacation. Thus, technological advances have made it difficult for individuals to maintain boundaries between work and home.

Two perspectives, scarcity and expansion enhancement, attempt to explain the interactions between work and family. The scarcity perspective assumes that multiple roles at work and at home compete for an individual’s psychological and physiological resources. Generally, work-to-family conflict is linked to outcomes such as marital dissatisfaction and family distress. Family-to-work conflict is associated with poor work performance, low job satisfaction, and work-related absenteeism. In contrast, the expansion enhancement perspective emphasizes the benefits of multiple roles in life, which may outweigh the cost of

additional stress.