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Work–Life Balance: An Overview

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Navigating Work and Life Boundaries

Abstract

Over the last few decades, activities that are formally recognized as “work” have increasingly become important to the sustenance of individuals to an extent that they are seen as encroaching upon other essential aspects of their existence. Much of this encroachment has been due to work being viewed as a virtue in and of itself, the constant introduction of new technologies that have resulted in a blurring of work and life boundaries, and a general trend in which employees are increasingly having to take on a broader set of responsibilities (Poelmans, S., Odle-Dusseau, H., & Beham, B. The Oxford handbook of organizational well-being, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2009).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Some bodies of work use the term “work-family conflict” which we subsume within “work-life conflict.” Life includes not only family, but also friends, personal interests and so on; nevertheless, the two terms are often used interchangeably (Kossek & Lee, 2017).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Lund University, Lund, Sweden

    Saonee Sarker

  2. University of Louisville, Louisville, KY, USA

    Manju Ahuja

  3. University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA

    Suprateek Sarker

  4. University of Louisville, New Albany, IN, USA

    Kirsten M. Bullock

Authors
  1. Saonee Sarker
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  2. Manju Ahuja
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  3. Suprateek Sarker
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  4. Kirsten M. Bullock
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Correspondence to Saonee Sarker .

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Sarker, S., Ahuja, M., Sarker, S., Bullock, K.M. (2021). Work–Life Balance: An Overview. In: Navigating Work and Life Boundaries. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-72759-8_1

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