Master thesis, MSc Human Resource Management University of Groningen, Faculty of Economics & Business
Madelon Spekman Student number: 2023806 Plutolaan 26 9742 GR Groningen m.spekman@student.rug.nl Supervisor: Dr. Peter van der Meer
Abstract
Having a good balance between work and life seems to be more relevant than ever. This research examines the relationship of work-life balance practices on job satisfaction and any differences between men and women. The research was conducted among 52.458 employees in 28 different countries (mostly European Union Member States). Work life balance entails attaining equilibrium between professional work and other activities, so that it reduces friction between work and family life. It enhances satisfaction, in both the professional and personal lives. The findings of this study reveal that life balance has a positive relationship with job satisfaction, however the two work-life balance practices (working hours and flextime) measured in this research do not have a
significant positive relationship with job satisfaction. Besides that, any gender differences are hardly to find. Only working hours is found to have a different effect size for the job satisfaction of men and women, more working hours increases job satisfaction of men, however not that of women. Women prefer to work fewer hours.
TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION 4 1.1 Research model 5 2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 6 2.1 Job satisfaction 6 2.2 Work-life balance (WLB) 7
2.3 Work-life balance practices 9
2.4 Gender differences 10
3. METHODOLOGY 13
4. RESULTS 16
4.1 Descriptive results 16
4.2 Current work-life balance men and women 17
4.3 Work-life balance positively affects job satisfaction 17 4.4 Work-life balance will give a higher job satisfaction for men than for women 17 4.5 Life-work balance positively affects job satisfaction 18 4.6 Life-work balance will give a higher job satisfaction for women than for men 18 4.7 Work-life balance practices will positively affect job satisfaction 18 4.8 Women that work part-time will positively affect their job satisfaction 18 4.9 Men that use flextime will positively affect their job satisfaction 18
4.10 Control variables 20
4.11 Summary of hypotheses testing 20
5. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION 22
5.1 Limitations and further research 23
5.2 Practical implications 24
1. INTRODUCTION
Work-life balance (WLB) research has increased dramatically over the last 10 years (Budd and Mumford 2005; Greenhaus 2008).
According to the literature, work and family-life interferences provoke a great source of psychological distress for employees, families and organizations (lower commitment, lower satisfaction, higher intentions to leave the firm, lower business results, etc.; Scandura and Lankau 1997; Lourel, Ford, Gamassou, Gueguen and Hartmann 2009). Hence, in order to cope with the employees’ inter-role conflict, companies and official institutions have
promoted the implementation of WLB practices in organizations in recent years to foster employees’ personal balance (Sánchez-Vidal, Cegarra-Leiva and Cegarra-Navarro, 2012).
Academics affirm that the implementation of WLB practices helps to achieve better organizational results and improve employee outcomes such as higher satisfaction and commitment and reduce turnover intentions. Different motives have fostered this challenge such as changes as increased labour market participation of women, the existence of dual career couples and the individuals’ desire to achieve higher levels of quality of life through enjoying free time and leisure activities (Greenhaus 2008). These changing workforce demographics have made it difficult for many individuals to balance the conflicting demands of work and family. WLB practices are popular today, because of their potential value to increase the life satisfaction and general well-being of employees. Besides that, it reduces their work-family conflict (Sánchez-Vidal, Cegarra-Leiva and Cegarra-Navarro, 2012). There are five categories of WLB practices including time reduction, such as part-time work. Women will appreciate less work-hours, as it means they can allocate more time for their spouse, children, or another household matters. Longer work-hours for women also found to make them more vulnerable than to indulge in unhealthy behavior, as there are more pressure experienced (O’Connor & Conner, 2011). Whereas, men want to provide income for their household. Therefore less work-hours will tend to produce less income and that causes lower satisfaction for men according to their role.
particular country found that men saw the flexibility of their working hours as a symbol of the control they had through being their own boss, but tended to use it only occasionally, while women used flexibility as a key resource in trying to achieve a work–life balance. She concluded that women fulfil gender norms when they accommodate work to family life, while men fulfil them when they put their business first. Similarly, Connell’s (2005) study of public sector workers in Australia found that women were accountable both for running the household and for managing the relationship between the home and the workplace. Connell suggested that work–life problems for men and women may be quite different: “Dropping dead from career-driven stress, or shrivelling emotionally from never seeing one’s children, is a different issue from exhaustion because of the double shift, or not getting promotion because of career interruptions” (Connell, 2005, p. 378). In contrast, Hochschild (1997) found in her well-known study of an American corporation that there were increasing similarities in the way in which men and women regarded work and home life. She suggested that, in the past, the home was seen as a haven from which (male) workers could escape from the unpleasant world of paid work to relax and be appreciated. Now, both men and women regard home as an additional place of work, while the workplace is often seen as a haven.
1.1 Research model
The objective of this research is to show the effects of work-life balance practices on job satisfaction of employees with a partner. Besides that, this research will observe the gender differences. This results in the following research question:
Which work-life balance practices increases the job satisfaction of employees taking the gender differences into account?
FIGURE 1
The relationship between work-life balance practices and job satisfaction with gender as the moderating variable.
Work-life balance
2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
2.1 Job satisfaction
Job satisfaction is defined as what employees feel about their work, which may be negative or positive (Spector and Fox, 2003). Research suggests that satisfied employees are time-effective at work, likely to minimize their sick leave and have lower turnover
intentions.
Well-being has been examined by numerous researchers across different disciplines and has multiple definitions, conceptualizations and measurements. An assessment of available literature identifies three categories: (a) psychological well-being (which examines employees’ levels of satisfaction with workplace processes and practices), (b) physical well-being (employees’ health outcomes, for example, from stress and accidents) and (c) social well-being (the quantity and quality of workplace social networks, plus employees’ perceptions of fairness and equity) (Grant, Christianson and Price, 2007). Psychological well-being is defined as employees’ attitudes and feelings about the work context (Diener, 2000). Additionally, researchers have identified a link between well-being and job outcomes, such as job satisfaction (Wright and Cropanzano, 2000).
Other job characteristics that influence job satisfaction are job pressure, fair pay and good benefits (Andresen, Domsch and Cascorbi, 2007). These job characteristics, excluding feedback and good benefits, will be control variables in this research.
2.2 Work-life balance (WLB)
Today, WLB practices are highlighted and research on WLB is gaining importance in the academic world (Fleetwood 2007; Greenhaus 2008; Rigby and O’BrienSmith 2010) due to demographical, societal and cultural changes that have made individuals to face the difficulty of finding balance between their personal lives and their work. Different motives have promoted the implementation of WLB practices in organizations, such as the incorporation of women into the labour market and the existence of double-career couples with children, employees looking for a higher quality of life, problems associated with work– family conflict, the need to take care of elderly people or issues related to gender equality (Hughes and Bozionelos 2007).
On the other hand, gender values are also changing in the era of the equal gender society. Traditionally, men were devoted to career and job, whereas women were in charge of children, elderly care and household commitments (Halrynjo, 2009). However, men are now also focusing on other values such as children and family or other alternative lifestyles with leisure time to devote to cultural projects, voluntary commitments and social relationships (Halrynjo, 2009). In contrast, women today pursue being involved in the professional world in order to achieve higher levels of self-realization (Halrynjo, 2009).
WLB is defined in the literature as the “individuals ability, with independence of age and gender, of finding a life rhythm that allow them to combine their work with other
responsibilities, activities or aspirations” (Feldstead, Jewson, Phizacklea and Walter, 2002). Employees’ work-life balance priorities are considered to fall within three general categories: working time arrangements (total working hours and flexibility); and, for those with parenting or other care responsibilities, parental leave entitlements (maternity, paternity, parental and careers); and childcare (subsidies or direct provision) (McDonald, Brown and Bradley, 2005; Thornthwaite, 2004). Where these needs are met through organizational work–life programmes, employees are found to have increased organizational commitment and job satisfaction (Gregory and Milner, 2009). A greater sense of control over their own work schedules leads to improved mental health (McDonald et al., 2005). Further, work-life programmes that allow employees to have a greater involvement at home appear to be linked to employee well-being (Greenhaus et al., 2003) for men as well as women (Burke, 2000).
When we talk about work-life balance, life-work balance is also worth noting. In the literature, most authors talk about family-work conflict (FWC). Family-work conflict is a form of interrole conflict in which the role demands from families make it more difficult to individuals to perform work roles (Ng and Feldman, 2012). Hence, when there is a family-work conflict, there is a life-family-work imbalance. In this research I will use the term life-family-work balance (LWB) instead of family-work conflict (FWC), taking into account that FWC is negative and LWB is positive. Thus, WLB originates from work demands, and LWB originates from family demands.
that there was no significant relationship between family demands and job satisfaction, whereas results of meta-analyses indicate that there is a significant positive relationship between LWB and job satisfaction (Allen et al., 2000). People who experience a life-work balance tend to be more satisfied with their jobs.
Grandey et al. (2005) argues that the extent to which an individual’s job is appraised as satisfying or unsatisfying may depend on how threatening the job is to other self-reliance roles. Moreover, gender role theory states that women are more likely to see the family role as a part of their social role identity than men. Indeed, Thompson and Cavallaro (2007) state that work–family boundaries are more permeable for women. Compared to men, therefore, they are more likely to view their jobs as a threat to their family roles. This, in turn, might have a negative influence on their appraisal of their jobs. Becker and Moen (1999) also found that women do more adjusting than men where family is concerned, e.g. working part-time and men still prioritize paid work over family.
Hypothesis 1a: Work-life balance positively affects job satisfaction.
Hypothesis 1b: Work-life balance will give a higher job satisfaction for men than for women. Hypothesis 2a: Life-work balance positively affects job satisfaction.
Hypothesis 2b: Life-work balance will give a higher job satisfaction for women than for men.
2.3 Work-life balance practices
These WLB practices allow employees to enhance their autonomy in the process of coordinating and integrating work and non-work aspects of their lives (Feldstead et al., 2002).
The literature also recognizes several negative effects of WLB practices, such as higher work load on co-workers and coordination problems. European surveys suggest that unmet demand for work–life balance (especially a mismatch between desired and actual working hours) is increasing (Gallie, 2005; Green and Tsitsianis 2005), with possible adverse consequences for employees’ well-being and performance at work. For example, flexibility can lead to the difficulty of arrange meetings and co-operate with colleagues. Although, the vast majority of the literature stresses that WLB practices help employees to obtain benefits. These benefits are the reduction of absenteeism, lower stress levels, higher levels of productivity and performance, and greater quality of life, satisfaction and commitment among employees (Scandura and Lankau 1997; Hughes and Bozionelos 2007). Several studies also found that these positive behavioral outcomes on employees occur even when employees do not use these benefits. For instance, Scandura and Lankau (1997) showed that availability of WLB measures increases job satisfaction on employees, irrespective of usage. There are also benefits for the employer. Employees who have a good work-life balance will be more motivated, more productive and less stressed (Byrne, 2005). Absenteeism will reduce, overall productivity will go up and total costs will decrease. Moore (2007) argues that employees with a good work-life balance will not only result in increased productivity, however will also lead to increased loyalty and job satisfaction.
Hypothesis 3: Work-life balance practices positively affects job satisfaction.
2.4 Gender differences
In the literature there are a few studies assessing gender differences in WLB (McElwain, Korabik and Rosin, 2005). According to McElwain et al. (2005), there are no gender effects on the level of job satisfaction, although women were more likely to experience higher levels of WLB than men. Grandey et al. (2005) explains the reason for a gender difference in the WLB–job satisfaction relationship with a gender role theory. This suggests that men and women are expected to behave in accordance with their gender roles, because women are socialized into ‘feminine values’, while men are socialized with ‘masculine values’. Feminine values refer to qualities such as interdependence, cooperation, emotion, receptivity, acceptance, empathy, affection, nurturance and sensitivity; whereas, masculine values involve independence, self-reliance, autonomy, competence, instrumentalism and control (Alimo-Metcalfe, 1995; Park, 1996). Since society places more importance on women’s family roles, working women who perform both family and work roles simultaneously may feel guilty when they cannot perform their family roles appropriately.
Flexible use of time, such as flextime and working at home, is also an important work-life balance practice for employees. Some evidence suggests women working at home may be more likely to use flexibility to accommodate work and family demands, while men may be more likely to use flexibility for additional paid work (Kompast and Wagner, 1998; Sullivan and Lewis, 2001). A survey found that men showed a greater preference for homeworking than women; the authors suggest this may be because they are more likely than women to be uninterrupted at home (Hogarth et al., 2000).
3. METHODOLOGY
The data is derived from the ESS, the European Social Survey. This is an academically-driven social survey designed to chart and explain the interaction between Europe's changing institutions and the attitudes, beliefs and behavior patterns of its diverse populations. The first round was fielded in 2002/2003 and the fifth in 2010/2011, for my research I will use the data of the last survey. After looking at different surveys, I chose the ESS, because it contains the most questions about work-life balance (practices) and job characteristics. Unfortunately, there was not a survey that covered all my topics.
In the fifth round, the survey covers 28 countries (figure 1). The hour-long face-to-face interviews includes questions on a variety of core topics repeated from previous rounds of the survey and also two modules developed for round five covering Trust in the Police and Courts (section D in questionnaire) and Work, Family and Well-being (section G). The latter is of importance for this research. The survey involves a minimum target response rate of 70% and the overall case count is 52.458.
FIGURE 2: ESS Participation
Different job characteristics that lead to job satisfaction will also be measured. The meaningfulness of the job is measured by the following statements: (G26) “There is a lot of variety in my work” and (G27) “My job requires that I keep learning new things”. A four-point scale ranging from 1 (not at all true) to 4 (very true) is used, with also an option to answer “Don’t know”. Autonomy is also an important job characteristic and will be measured with two questions: (F27) “How much allows the management at your work to decide how your own daily work is organized?” and (F28a) “How much allows the management at your work to choose or change your pace of work?”. The answers are measured on an eleven-point scale ranging from 00 (I have no influence) to 10 (I have complete control), with the option to answer “Don’t know” available to respondents as well. Third, the pressure of the job of employees plays a role in job satisfaction. The next two statements were asked: (G34) “My job requires that I work very hard” and (G35) “I never seem to have enough time to get everything done in my job”. A five-point scale ranging from 1 (agree strongly) to 5 (disagree strongly) is used, with also an option to answer “Don’t know”. For the last job characteristic, questions (G15, G16, G17) about the time employees work in the weekend/nights/overtime will be measured on a seven-point scale, which has been recoded, ranging from 01 (every day) to 07 (less than once a month), with also an option to answer “Don’t know”. For the answers of working in the weekend is used a five-point scale, which has also been recoded, because the options “Several times a week” and “Every day” are not applicable. After testing these four job characteristics, the revealed values suggested that the different scales were reliable. Cronbach’s Alpha for the meaningfulness of the job = 0,726, Cronbach’s Alpha for autonomy = 0,851, Cronbach’s Alpha for working in the weekend/nights/overtime = 0,628 and the Cronbach’s Alpha for job pressure was too low, so I will treat the statements separately.
giving the time you should to your job?” and (G52) “How often do you find it difficult to concentrate on work because of your family responsibilities?”. All questions were measured on a five-point scale, which has been recoded, ranging from 1 (always) to 5 (never), with the option to answer “Don’t know” available to respondents as well. After testing these items, the revealed values suggested that the scales were reliable (Cronbach’s Alpha for work-life balance = 0,751 and Cronbach’s Alpha for life-work balance = 0,755).
The independent variable of this research is life balance practices. Two work-life balance practices were measured: “working hours” and “flextime”. The question that has been used for working hours is: (F29) “What are your total ‘basic’ or contracted hours each week (in your main job), excluding any paid and unpaid overtime?”. Respondents could answer in numbers and had the option to answer “888”, which stands for “Don’t know”. For the job characteristic “flextime” I made use of one statement: (G31) “I can decide the time I start and finish work”. A four-point scale ranging from 1 (not at all true) to 4 (very true), with also an option to answer “Don’t know”.
The moderator used in my model is gender. I will make a distinction between men (7756 respondents, 52.7%) and women (6966 respondents, 47.3%) that are employed. People that are unemployed or permanently sick or disabled were excluded from the analyses, as were the retired, fulltime homemaker and people in education. I will also use one question to assess the current work-life balance of men and women, (G54) “And how satisfied are you with the balance between the time you spend on your paid work and the time you spend on other aspects of your life?” The answers are measured on an eleven-point scale ranging from 00 (extremely dissatisfied) to 10 (extremely satisfied), with the option to answer “Don’t know” available to respondents as well. Data analysis was also confined to those respondents between 25 and 65 years old and, on average, they were 44 years old (SD = 10.02). I also included employees that have a partner and at this point the sample consisted of 11.105 people. To account for the possible differences in country variances, I used multi-level modeling.
4. RESULTS
In the following section I present the results of my analyses. I will first give information about general statistic properties such as mean and standard deviation (table 1). Further I will show how satisfied men and women currently are with their work-life balance (table 2), followed by the order of my hypotheses (table 3 and 4). Table 3 shows the results of the relationship of my independent variables on my dependent variable (job satisfaction) and in table 4 is this relation also measured, however here are the gender differences taking into account and includes the control variables. Finally, there will be a short summary of the confirmation of the hypotheses (table 5).
4.1 Descriptive statistics
Table 1 shows the descriptive statistics of job satisfaction, work-life balance, life-work balance and different work-life balance practices, according to gender.
TABLE 1
Descriptive statistics
__________________________________________________________________________________
Men Women Total
__________________________________________________________________________________
Variable Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD
1. Job satisfaction 7.38 1.819 7.40 1.913 7.39 1.867 2. Work-life balance 3.39 0.723 3.39 0.767 3.39 0.746 3. Life-work balance 4.20 0.739 4.19 0.763 4.20 0.751 4. Working hours 41.03 7.287 35.42 9.531 38.20 8.943 5. Flextime 1.93 1.072 1.71 1.004 1.82 1.044 __________________________________________________________________________________ SD = standard deviation.
4.2 Current work-life balance men and women
As can be seen in table 2, women have a higher work-life balance than men. However, the difference is rather small, with their means being 6.49 and 6.38 respectively. To test whether the difference in current work-life balance between men and women is indeed significant, I conducted an independent t-test. Table 2 shows that the men and women differ significantly from each other with t(14) = -3.16, p = .002. Therefore, on average, women have indeed a significantly higher work-life balance than men.
TABLE 2
Current work-life balance men and women
__________________________________________________________________________________
Men Women t-test
__________________________________________________________________________________ Mean 6.38 6.49 SD 2.062 2.103 N 7658 6890 t -3.156 df 14566 p .002 ___________________________________________________________________________ SD = standard deviation, N = number of respondents.
4.3 Work-life balance positively affects job satisfaction
This hypothesis (1a) states that a good balance of work and life has a positive influence on job satisfaction. Table 3 shows a significant (p < .001) and positive relationship (confidence interval is completely positive) between work-life balance and job satisfaction.
4.4 Work-life balance will give a higher job satisfaction for men than for women
4.5 Life-work balance positively affects job satisfaction
Hypothesis 2a states that a good balance between life at home and at work will positively affects job satisfaction. Table 3 shows a significant (p < .001) and positive relationship (confidence interval is completely positive) between life-work balance and job satisfaction.
4.6 Life-work balance will give a higher job satisfaction for women than for men
A good balance between life and work will lead to higher job satisfaction for women than for men, that is what I stated in hypothesis 2b. Table 4 shows that men en women score the same (Estimate = .16) and that makes that there is no difference between women and men regarding work balance. Thus, it is also not significant (p > .05). This indicates that life-work balance does not give a higher job satisfaction for women than for men.
4.7 Work-life balance practices will positively affect job satisfaction
When employees make use of different work-life balance practices, this will positively affect their job satisfaction. This hypothesis (3) exists of two work-life balance practices; working hours and flextime. Table 3 shows not a significant (p > .05) relationship between working hours nor flextime and job satisfaction. This indicates that these two work-life balance practices do not positively affect job satisfaction.
4.8 Women that work part-time will positively affect their job satisfaction
Hypothesis 4a states that women who work part-time will be more satisfied with their job. Table 4 shows that men score higher (Estimate = .007) than women (Estimate = -.002) and the difference between men and women regarding working hours is significant (p < .05). This indicates that more working hours increases job satisfaction of men, however not that of women. Women prefer to work fewer hours.
4.9 Men that use flextime will positively affect their job satisfaction
(p > .05). This indicates that flextime does not give a higher job satisfaction for men than for women.
TABLE 3
Effects of independent variables on job satisfaction
___________________________________________________________________________
Parameter Estimate Std. Error
__________________________________________________________________________________ Work-life balance .366351* .026797 Life-work balance .163147* .024283 Flextime -.016754 .016992 Working hours .000865 .001998 __________________________________________________________________________________ * p < .001 TABLE 4
Effects of independent variables including gender differences on job satisfaction and the control variables
__________________________________________________________________________________
Parameter Estimate Std. Error
__________________________________________________________________________________ Work-life balance .388421 .035286 Life-work balance .162544 .033321 Flextime -.040478 .023216 Working hours -.002797 .002494 [Gender=1]*Work-life balance -.048357 .048896 [Gender=1]*Life-work balance .001436 .047682 [Gender=1]*Flextime .041598 .030589 [Gender=1]*Working hours .010159* .003974 Age .009231** .001657 Education -.000273** .000058 Subjective health .206176** .023132 Subjective income .301594** .023488 Child at home -.167038** .034804
Meaningfulness of the job .552674** .020819
Autonomy .084799** .006102
Jobpressure1 -.004276 .018875
Jobpressure2 .095663** .015887
Working in the evenings/nights .015582 .015604
4.10 Control variables
Table 4 also shows the different control variables that were conducted in this research; the respondent’s age, respondent’s education, respondent’s subjective health, respondent’s subjective income, if the respondent has child(ren) living at home and multiple job characteristics like meaningfulness of the job, autonomy, job pressure, working in the evenings/nights and working overtime.
Most of these control variables, excluding having a child living at home, working in the evenings/nights and working overtime, have a significant positive relationship with job satisfaction (p < .001 or p < .05). Age seems to influence the perceived job satisfaction. It can be stated that when an employee gets older, his/her job satisfaction will increase. Subjective health indicates that a good health positively influences job satisfaction, this also applies to subjective income. The more autonomy and meaning a job has for an employee, the higher his/her job satisfaction will be and the more job pressure an employee experiences, their job satisfaction will decrease. A significant negative relationship (confidence interval is completely negative) is found by working overtime and having child(ren) living at home, which means when employees are working overtime or have to take care of child(ren) living at home, their job satisfaction will decrease. Finally, working in the evenings/nights does not seem to have a significant relation with job satisfaction.
4.11 Summary of hypotheses testing
To make clear whether the hypotheses were confirmed/rejected, table 5 shows a summary.
TABLE 5
Summary of hypotheses testing
__________________________________________________________________________________
Hypothesis Confirmation
__________________________________________________________________________________ Hypothesis 1a: Work-life balance positively affects job satisfaction. Confirmed Hypothesis 1b: Work-life balance will give a higher job satisfaction for men Rejected
than for women.
Hypothesis 2a: Life-work balance positively affects job satisfaction. Confirmed Hypothesis 2b: Life-work balance will give a higher job satisfaction for women Rejected
than for men.
5. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
Having a good balance between work and life is one of the contributors to employee’s job satisfaction. The purpose of this research was to examine the effects of work-life balance practices on job satisfaction with gender as the moderating variable. Do some work-life balance practices lead to a higher job satisfaction for men than for women? And how about the other way around? The answer is that there are no or small differences (not significant) differences between men and women.
In general, men and women are satisfied with their job and a similar result is found by Sousa-Poza and Sousa-Poza (2000) in their study among several countries. They found that people are remarkable satisfied with their job. I found that men and women have different job satisfaction levels, however the difference is rather small. Women have higher job satisfaction than men as found by many scholars (Clark & Oswald, 1994). Similar to job satisfaction, both genders also score high on their current work-life balance. They are pretty satisfied with the balance between the time they spend on their paid work and the time they spend on other aspects of their life. Also here score women higher than men, however the difference is rather small.
likely to indicate they would change jobs to have access to flextime (Galinsky, Bond and Friedman, 1996). In this research, the average age of employees is 44 years old and most of the time they do not have very young children (anymore), so that can be a reason why flextime does not lead to higher job satisfaction. My hypothesis that if women work part-time will me more satisfied with their job is confirmed (hypothesis 4a). There was a significant difference between men and women. Akerlof and Kranton (2000) argued that the satisfaction and the gender division of labor could be powerfully affected by social custom and conditioning. Indeed, society’s prescriptions about appropriate modes of behavior for each gender might result in women and men experiencing a loss of identity should they deviate from the relevant code. If this is the case, men might be more satisfied in full-time work and women in part-time work, since both are then adopting modes of behavior dictated by social custom. Finally, there is no significant difference in gender regarding the effects of flextime on job satisfaction (hypothesis 4b). Presser (1989) also found a slightly higher percentage of men use flextime as compared with women, this is in accordance to my results, however the difference is not significant.
5.1 Limitations and further research
As is the case with any study, this one is subject to limitations. The first limitation is the usefulness of this study outside Europe due to the fact that this is an European study. It can be questioned whether this study would give the same results in non-European countries. Each country may be using different work-life balance practices to enhance job satisfaction due to the amount of women participating in the labor market, the work distribution amongst men and women or the differences in work ethics.
A third limitation is common-source bias. When all data is collected from one source (i.e., a common source), in this case the European Social Survey, results tend to be distorted. The results of this study may be due to the method of data collection. Thus, without supplementary sources of data the results of this research are not easily justifiable (Podsakoff & Organ, 1986).
This research has studied the direct effects of two work-life balance practices (flextime and working hours) on job satisfaction and both do not have a significant relationship with job satisfaction. In this research, a control variable was an employee with home living child(ren). For further research it can be good to not only include respondents that are between 25 and 65 years, have a partner and have paid work, however also select on employees that have a partner and child(ren). Besides that, the ESS included, compared to other surveys, the most questions about work-life balance practices. However, this resulted in only two work-life balance practices. A completion of this research could be to take more work-life balance practices into account that relate to having home living children, like childcare and maternity/paternity leave.
During the execution of the analysis, the importance of the control variables on the dependent variable has been noticed. Age, education, subjective health and subjective income are the control variables that are having a significant positive relationship with job satisfaction. These control variables should future researchers on this topic keep in mind. Likely, other control variables, like family composition, could also influence the dependent variable.
5.2 Practical implications
programs on job satisfaction. Evidence to date suggests that the impact of practice utilization and perceived understanding may vary significantly for employees.
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