Establishing a Work-Life Balance:
Working in the European Union
Influences on the Work-Life Balance of European Workers
Master Thesis, MSc Human Resource Management University of Groningen, Faculty of Economics and Business
Final Version June 20th, 2012
FRANK VAN DER LEEDEN Student number: 1904884
Padangstraat 25 9715 CL Groningen f.h.van.der.leeden@student.rug.nl
First supervisor / university Second supervisor / university
Establishing a Work-Life Balance:
Working in the European Union
ABSTRACT
Keeping balance between the work and life domain seems to be more relevant than ever. This research examined the relationship of total working hours, flexible working hours, work autonomy, work pressure and relationship status on the work-life balance of European workers. Based on a survey amongst 35,372 respondents of all European Union Member States, this study showed that a normal work week of 40 hours (total working hours) and work autonomy positively influence the individual’s work-life balance. For flexible working hours, work pressure and being in a relationship/marriage, a negative relationship was found with the individual’s work-life balance.
TABLE OF CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION ... 3 1.1 Research Focus ... 4 1.2 Research Question ... 5 2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND ... 6 2.1 Work-life Balance ... 6 2.2 Work Hours ... 9 2.3 Quality of Work ... 11 2.4 Relationship Status ... 12 2.5 Theory in a Nutshell ... 14 2.6 Conceptual Model... 14 3. METHODOLOGY ... 15 3.1 Data Collection ... 15 3.2 Main Variables ... 15 3.3 Control variables... 17 3.4 Data Analysis ... 18 4. RESULTS ... 19
4.1 Descriptives and Correlations ... 19
4.2 Hypotheses Testing... 20
5. CONCLUSIONS & DISCUSSION ... 25
5.1 Suggestions for Further Research ... 27
5.2 Limitations ... 28
5.3 Practical Implications ... 29
6. REFERENCES ... 30
1. INTRODUCTION
The European Union (EU) has been prioritising economic growth and employment for a long time. In March 2000, the leaders of the European Union launched the “Lisbon Strategy for growth and jobs” (High Level Group, 2004). The aim of the Lisbon Strategy was to make the “European Union the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustainable economic growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion” (European Commission, 2010: p3).
Ten years after the launch (and failure) of the Lisbon Strategy, the European Commission launched the next initiative in 2010: the Europe 2020 Strategy. This strategy was focused on overcoming the crisis and achieve sustainable economic growth and employment (European Commission, 2011). If it is up to the European Commission, 75% of all EU citizens between the age of 20 and 64 will be employed in 2020. A rather ambitious target compared to the outcome of the Lisbon Strategy: which revealed that in 2010, the 27 EU Member states had a combined employment rate of 64.1% (Eurostat, 2012). Even though this seems to go into the right direction, a closer look tells that except for Finland (69.5%), the northern EU Member States all show an employment rate above 70%. The southern Member States, except for Portugal (65.6%), showed an employment rate below 60% in 2010. With the current uncertain economic outlook and an aging European population, it will be hard to achieve the overall European goal of an employment rate of 75%. Especially for the southern countries the 75%-objective will be difficult.
So, what does this ambitious employment goal mean for the lives of working Europeans? Byrne (2005: p54) claims that “without realizing it, at a minimum we are probably juggling five aspects of our lives at any one point in time”. She refers to ‘work’, ‘family’, ‘friends’, ’personal health’ and ‘spirit (personal well-being)’. All these five aspects are very important. Drop one of them and the damage could be irreversible (Byrne, 2005).
An European study has revealed that single-parent households face most difficulties in achieving a satisfying work-life balance (Chapman & De Keulenaer, 2009). This could indicate that family-composition and relationship status affects the ability to achieve a good work-life balance. As Greenhaus and colleagues (1985) argued, spending time to one role will make it harder to fulfil requirements of another role. Since time and energy needs to be divided over the five aspects of life, the shift in work and family roles resulted in an increase of so called work-family conflicts.
A good work-life balance implies that individuals are able to pursue a working life “without sacrificing their personal lives” (Parris, Vickers & Wilkes, 2008: p101). Therefore, a good work-life balance has been defined 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” (Sánchez-Vidal et al., 2012: p646; Feldstead, Jewson, Phizacklea & Walter, 2002). However, devoting time to work will make it difficult to fulfil requirements of the family-role, and vice versa (Greenhaus, Beutell & Nicholas, 1985). Simply because time can only be spend once. Byrne (2005) therefore claims that the time that must be spend to work roles should be as flexible as possible. This enables the employee to harmonize work roles with non-work roles.
1.1 Research Focus
With executing the Europe 2020 Strategy, the European Union is aiming for increasing the labour participation of European citizens of all EU Member States. A higher labour participation makes it more likely that the situation of ‘work-family conflicts’ will occur more often. This makes the work-life balance of the working European an interesting topic to study.
The workers’ household also affects the ability to achieve a harmonised work-life balance. As parenting status has already been studied within this context (Chapman & De Keulenaer, 2009; Eurostat, 2012), this research will also focus on the relationship status of the European worker. Does the fact that individuals are single or not affect their ability to achieve a good work-life balance?
As mentioned, the flexibility of work hours is expected to influence the work-life balance. Being able to arrange own working times contributes to harmonising work and non-work activities and responsibilities. Additionally, the workers autonomy and work pressure will be taken into account. These two elements will also be measured in order to find out what variables influence one’s work-life balance. Obviously, this research will focus on all EU Member States.
1.2 Research Question
This research will study several influencing factors on the work-life balance of European workers. As the research focus already indicated, the European strategy to improve employment raised the interest for this topic. This research will aim for answering the following central research question:
2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
Chapter two will elaborate on all the important aspects of this research from a theoretical perspective. First, the concept of work-life balance will be explored. The process of defining this concept will involve the perspectives of both the employee and the employer. The second paragraph will continue on the topic of work hours, in which the totality of working hours and the flexibility of working hours will be discussed. The third paragraph will elaborate on the quality of work, involving the elements ‘work autonomy’ and ‘work pressure’. The fourth paragraph will discuss the topic of relationship status in relation to work-life balance.
All theory discussed in this chapter will be summarized in a ‘nutshell’ in paragraph five. The conceptual model will be presented in paragraph six. Let’s start with the central theme of this research: the work-life balance.
2.1 Work-life Balance
In order to define this concept as simply as possible: imagine a balance. Logically, if one side is up, the other side is down. The term ‘work-life balance’ therefore seems to be a zero-sum game. Devoting more time to one of these two aspects will have a negative result on the other aspect.
However, according to Byrne (2005), the work-life balance is slightly more complicated. She argued that each individual has to deal with five aspects of life at the same moment. These five aspects are ‘work’, ‘family’, ‘friends’, ‘personal health’, and ‘spirit’ (personal well-being). Each person should ensure a right balance between all five aspects.
Issues like more women participating in the labour market, double-career couples with children, and the search for a higher quality of life, have contributed to the implementation of ‘work-life balance practices’ in organisations (Fullerton, 1995; Sánchez-Vidal et al., 2012). Even though it seems rather fair to recognize all aspects of life, literature holds on to the distinction between ‘work’ and ‘non-work’ activities and responsibilities (Parris et al., 2008). It still perceives work and family as the two institutions most important for individuals (Mortimer, Lorence, & Kumka, 1986; Clark, 2001). Therefore the definition of Feldstead and colleagues (2002; Sánchez-Vidal et al., 2012: p646) will be used as guiding through this research. They have defined work-life balance 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”. Clearly, this definition separates work and non-work. But why is establishing a work-life balance so essential for employer and employee? Let’s start with the last group: the employee.
As mentioned earlier, ‘work’ and ‘life’ are not perceived as two separate domains anymore. Nowadays it is accepted that activities and responsibilities of work cross into the life domain (Emslie & Hunt, 2009). This could cause trouble for the employee. Increased responsibilities in the ‘life’ aspect could result in the so called ‘work-family conflict’ (Greenhaus et al., 1985). Meaning that spending time to work related issues will make it harder to fulfil the responsibilities of the family, or any other, role. Additionally, the value of time has changed. People now earn more per hour than a hundred years ago, which makes an hour not spend working more expensive. According to De Beer (2004), this has led to the idea that if an hour is not spend to work, the spare time responsibilities and activities should be good enough to compensate for the loss of income. As one could imagine, this results in some kind of pressure not to spill these free hours. Therefore it should be noted that establishing a work-life balance also means balancing income and non-income hours.
They argue that it is essentially about the level of control over where, when, and how people work and have a ‘life’ (Smith et al., 2011).
This also benefits the employer. Workers who have a good work-life balance will be more motivated, more productive and less stressed (Byrne, 2005). Obviously, this is beneficial for the employer. 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 but will also lead to increased loyalty and job satisfaction. These two aspects are, especially for the long term, important for an organisation’s sustainable competitiveness.
So, literature argues that a good work-life balance of the employee is of great importance for both employee and employer. Changes in family-roles have increased the need for establishing a work-life balance. Luckily, most organisations recognize this need and anticipate on this. However, facilitating a good work-life balance has proofed to be anything but simple. A study by Tang and Cousins (2005) showed that despite Sweden has the most family-friendly and gender-equal policies and procedures, Swedish employees have difficulties in maintaining their work-life balance compared to other countries. However, it must be noted that in comparison to other countries, in Sweden both adult members of the household work fulltime (Tang & Cousins, 2005).
2.2 Work Hours
As paragraph 2.1 indicated, flexible work hours seems to be a key issue in enabling employees to establish a good work-life balance. Those who can determine their own work hours should be able to fit commitments outside work into their daily schedule. Nevertheless, as Greenhaus and colleagues (1985) argued, spending time to work role will make it harder to fulfil requirements to other responsibilities and activities outside work. Simply because time can only be spend once. Therefore, not only the flexibility of the work hours are important in establishing a good work-life balance, the total work hours matters as well.
In 1935 the International Labour Organisation (ILO) set the standard workweek back to 40 hours (ILO, 1935). This social standard was reinforced by the ILO convention in 1962, where additionally the maximum limit of normal work hours was agreed on 48 (ILO, 1962). Working more than 48 hours per week would result in an imbalance between work and life, and will reduce the employee’s productivity (Crosbie & Moore, 2004).
Nevertheless, current labour roles demands that the workforce is committed to their job on such a level that employers expect that employees work long hours and prioritise work over their personal life (Hyman, Baldry, Scholarios & Bunzel, 2003). The question is if these expectations result in employees crossing the 48-hour limit.
Hypothesis 1: If the Total Working Hours is neither high or low, but considered as ‘normal’, it has a positive relationship with Work-Life Balance.
As said, flexibility of the work hours could also contribute to the ability to establish a good work-life balance. Already in 1980, Pierce and Newstrom (1980: p118) stated that flexible working hours are among “one of the most popular discretionary time systems.” This time system offered two types of work schedules (Pierce & Newstrom, 1980).
The first type is flexitime. This time system enables the employee to determine on a daily basis his or hers working times. By giving employees the choice to determine their working hours, employers tried to reduce absenteeism (Eldridge & Nisar, 2011). Additionally, Russell, O’Connell and McGinnity (2009) have found that part-time work and flexitime reduce the worker’s work pressure, which results in an improved work-life balance. So it is not very surprising that flexitime is seen as an important element in offering the employee a work-life balance ‘package’.
The second is the variable working hours. This type removes the core-time component (Pierce & Newstrom, 1980). Meaning that employees are free to decide when they will work. As long as they work the total among of hours per week or month as agreed in advance. So, flexible working hours comprises the workers ability to arrange his or her own working hours on a daily basis and how they divide their total working hours over a given period of time. These are, according to Higgins, Duxbury and Irving (1992), essential elements in reducing work-family conflicts. As Van der Meer and Wielers (2013) state, flexibility of working hours improve the worker’s work-life balance.
Consequently, besides the total amount of working hours an employee spends to work related responsibilities and activities, literature underline that the flexibility of these work hours are important in establishing a good work-life balance.
2.3 Quality of Work
As paragraph 2.1 highlighted, work-life balance is not simply a matter of dividing time over the elements of work and life. Sure, in essence the worker must be able to allocate his or her time in such a what that allows him or her to “combine their work with other responsibilities, activities, or aspirations” (Sánchez-Vidal et al., 2012: p646). But in order to be able to do so, he must also have some control on the work itself. This has been defined as ‘quality of work’. Even though the term ‘quality of work’ has not one generally accepted definition, it is regarded as the opportunity of employees to influence their work and work place (Stephen & Dhanapal, 2011). Obviously, this is a rather broad spectrum of work life. Therefore ‘quality of work’ will be distinguished by two specific topics: ‘Work Autonomy’ and ‘Work Pressure’. Work Autonomy is defined as “the degree to which workers feel personal responsibility for their work” (Sekhar, 2011: p26). It also covers the ability to which workers can schedule their work and the procedure to be followed (Hackman and Lawler, 1971). According to Van der Meer and Wielers (2013), a high level of work autonomy makes workers happy and will increase job satisfaction. Consequently, it could be stated that a high level of work autonomy contributes to a higher quality of work. Even though a direct connection between work autonomy and a good work-life balance has yet been researched, work autonomy is an interesting factor to investigate. Since a high level of work autonomy is believed to increase the worker’s happiness and job satisfaction, it is likely that it does influence the perceived work-life balance of the employee.
Hypothesis 3: a high level of Work Autonomy has a positive relationship with Work-Life Balance.
The second element of quality of work that will be discussed is ‘Work Pressure’. This topic has already been linked to relationship status and work-life balance. Russell, O’Connell and McGinnity (2009) argue that reducing work pressure will result in an improved work-life balance. However, they also state that working from home leads to increased work pressure and could create work-life conflicts.
Ransford and colleagues (2008) found that when employees would be exposed to high work pressure combined with low managerial support, they would experience more relationship conflicts and less intimacy in relation with their children. With this knowledge, it might not be very surprising that a high level of work high work pressure is considered to make the employee unhappy (Van der Meer & Wielers, 2013).
Hypothesis 4: a high level of Work Pressure has a negative relationship with Work-Life Balance.
2.4 Relationship Status
The previous paragraphs have clearly indicated that the increasing need for flexible work hours in order to establish a good work life balance is mainly due to role changes. More women participate in the labour market, there are increasingly more double-career couples with children, and fathers are more closely involved in raising the children (Fullerton, 1995). At least the last two issues have two elements in common: couples. Fathers are taking more responsibility for raising the kids due to the fact that they are no longer the only one working. According to Lombard (1999), the employment rate of married women increased from 44% in 1975 to 64% in 1991. Therefore, according to Rogers and May (2003), work and marital roles are one of the most noticeable roles in life. This resulted in a new situation in which the “distribution of family-related tasks is one of the most critical issues most couples face” (Morinaga & Sakata, 1992: p163). Fairness of dividing family-related tasks, such as child care, became important indicators for happiness and satisfaction in a relationship and/or marriage.
This would indicate that a high quality marriage would contribute to better performance at work. Additionally, it could be argued that this would mean that being in a relationship helps the employee to cope with, for example, work-stress (Rogers & May, 2003).
So, even though a lot of research have studied the effects of marriage or being a parent on work-life, research is lacking when it comes to the effects of relationship status on the perceived work-life balance. As far theory on marital roles has shown, it could be expected to have a positive relationship on one’s work-life balance.
2.5 Theory in a Nutshell
Work-life balance has been defined 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”. Changes in family-roles have increased the need for establishing a work-life balance. This need has been acknowledged by organisations which anticipate on this by enabling their workers to divided their own work hours. This flexibility of work hours can be distinguished in two categories: flexitime and variable working hours. The totality of work hours also influences the work-life balance of the employee. Work and family are considered to be the most important institutions for individuals. This is why a 40-hour work week is perceived as enabling the employee to spend enough time to work, without compromising non-work roles.
Additionally, the quality of the work itself also influences the perceived work-life balance. A high work pressure will likely influence both the worker’s work-life balance as his relationship/marriage negatively. A high degree of work autonomy on the other hand is likely to influence work-life balance positively since workers can schedule their work and the procedure to be followed.
A factor that seems to be inherent with an individual’s work-life balance is relationship status. Even though research is lacking regarding the effects of relationship status on the employee’s work-life balance, one could argue that being in a relationship results a distribution of tasks and responsibilities in the household, and more spare time activities in the life-domain. This would indicate that a high quality marriage would contribute to better performance at work.
2.6 Conceptual Model
3. METHODOLOGY
This research is a quantitative research of which the data has been derived from an European wide survey by Eurofound. Paragraph 3.1 will elaborate on the data collection. In paragraph 3.4 the analysis will be discussed.
3.1 Data Collection
All data will be derived from the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound). This European Union body was established by the European Council in May 1975 with the aim to “contribute to the planning and design of better living and working conditions in Europe” (Eurofound, 2012a).
This research will be based on Eurofound’s cross-nation ‘European Working Conditions Survey’ (EWCS) of 2010. This specific survey was conducted in all 27 European Union Member States as well as Turkey, Croatia, Norway, Macedonia, Montenegro, Albania and Kosovo (Eurofound, 2012b). In the light of Europe’s 2020 Strategy, only the 27 EU Member States will be involved in this particular research. Therefore, the total number of respondents of Eurofound’s EWCS is 35,372. Of this group, 50.6% is female and 49.4% is male.
More on the specific methods of Eurofound’s EWCS 2010 research can be found on the website of Eurofound (http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/surveys/ewcs/2010/index.htm). The entire dataset can be either derived directly from Eurofound or via the Economic and Social Data Service (www.esds.ac.uk).
3.2 Main Variables
Work-Life Balance
The Work-Life Balance of the respondents will be measured by survey question q41 (how
well do your working hours fit in with family or social commitments outside work?). On a four
The EWCS holds in total three questions which are related to Work-Life Balance. However, a Cronbach Alpha analysis gave an extreme low score of .044, with no ability to improve the internal consistency. Therefore the choice has been made to use only question 41 since it is most in line with how the concept of Work-Life Balance has been defined in chapter 2.
Total Working Hours
In order to measure the total working hours of the respondents, survey question q18 will be used. This question is formulated as follow: how many hours do you usually work per week in
your main paid job? Respondents could give the exact number of hours they work per week.
Since hypothesis 1 is expecting a curvilinear relationship, the square number of the total working hours has been calculated. This has been done by dividing the work hours per respondent by 10, followed by calculating the square number. This variable will be named ‘(Total Working Hours)2’ and will be included in the multilevel regression analysis.
Flexible Working Hours
Four survey items of Eurofound’s European survey will be used to measure the flexibility of working hours of the respondents. These four questions are: q37a (do you work the same
number of hours every day?), q37b (do you work the same number of days every week?), q37c
(do you work the same number of hours every week?), q37d (do you work with fixed starting
and finishing times?). The respondent could answer these four questions with either ‘yes’
(value: 1) or ‘no’ (value: 2). These four survey questions showed to be highly internal consistent (Cronbach’s
α
= 0.811). Therefore an average summated scale has been calculated by using the four survey items.Work Autonomy
Three survey items will be used to measure the perceived work autonomy by the respondents. These questions are: q50a (are you able to choose or change your order of tasks?), q50b (are
you able to choose or change your methods of work?), q50c (are you able to choose or change your speed or rate of work?). The respondent could answer these three questions with
Work Pressure
The survey contains some questions regarding the perceived work pressure by the respondent. Questions q45a (does your job involve working at very high speed?) and q45b (does your job
involve working to tight deadlines?) are used to measure work pressure. On a seven point
scale (1: never, 2: almost never, 3: around ¼ of the time, 4: around ½ of the time, 5: around ¾ of the time, 6: almost all of the time, 7: all of the time) respondents could give their opinion regarding these survey items. These two survey questions showed to be internal consistent (Cronbach’s
α
= 0.770). An average summated scale has been calculated by using the two survey items.Relationship Status
The survey does not contain the question if the respondent is in a relationship. However, the survey does contain the question ‘how many people live in this household’ (HH1). Assuming that couples live together, this question can help in make a distinction between those who have a partner and those who have not. Question HH3_2C asks the respondent to typify the relationship with the second member of the household.
The respondent has the ability to typify the relationship with maximum 10 members of his or her household. ‘1’ corresponds to ‘spouse/partner’, which means that the respondents in a relationship. The other options indicate that the respondent is not in a relationship with that specific member of the household. Therefore, being in a relationship/marriage has been set to ‘1’. All other options have been given the value ‘0’.
3.3 Control variables
Gender
This control variable is retrieved by survey question hh2a (Sex Respondent), whereas 0 represents female and 1 represents male.
Age
Personal Health
Question q68 contains a question regarding the personal health of the respondent. Respondents could answer the question “How is your health in general? Would you say it
is...” on a five point scale (1: very bad, 2: bad, 3: fair, 4: good, 5: very good).
Employment Contract
Question q7 asks the respondent what type of contract he or she currently has. For this research the respondents have been separated in two groups. The first group are those who, as an employee, have an employment contract with the employer (value: 1). This includes employees with an indefinite contract, a fixed term contract, and a temporary employment agency contract. The second group are those who are in an apprenticeship or training scheme, have no contract, or have another labour agreement (value: 0).
Household (number of people)
This control variable is retrieved by survey question hh1 (How many people live in this
household?). The respondents could answer by giving the actual number of people.
Household Income
Question Ef6 asks whether the respondents think that the household’s income is sufficient to make ends meet (“Thinking of your household’s total monthly income, is your household able
to make ends meet…?”). Respondents could answer on a six point scale (1: with great
difficulty, 2: with difficulty, 3: with some difficulty, 4: fairly easily, 5: easily, 6: very easily).
3.4 Data Analysis
The data that will be derived from the 2010 EWCS of Eurofound will be analysed by using PASW Statistics. First a descriptive and correlations test will be conducted. Secondly, a multilevel regression analysis will be executed, followed by a collinearity calculation to ensure that that the variance inflation factor does not shown any impact of multicollinearity among the variables in the regression model.
4. RESULTS
Chapter four presents the outcomes of this research. The first paragraph will describe the descriptives and correlations among all variables. This will be followed by the regression analyses results in paragraph 2.
4.1 Descriptives and Correlations
Before the relationships between the variables can be studied, a descriptive and intercorrelation test has been conducted, involving all six variables. The results are shown in table 1.
TABLE 1.
Descriptives and Correlations
Variable Mean SD 1 2 3 4 5 6
1. Work-Life Balance 3.09 .775 -.284** -.144** .106** -.169** -.018**
2. Total Working Hours 37.80 12.469 .049** .031** .144** .059**
3. Flexible Working Hours 1.34 .374 .110** .059** -.005
4. Work Autonomy 1.69 .386 -.096** .046**
5. Work Pressure 3.50 1.85 -.001
6. Relationship Status .63 .482
N = 35,372 **. Parameter is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).
Since the variables are factorised items, correlations should not be .70 or higher. This could result in problems due to multicollinearity (Anderson et al., 2008). As can be derived from table 1, none of the variables need to be factorised any further.
It should also be said that with a standard deviation of 12.5, there are workers throughout the European Union that work more than 50 hours a week. Regarding the flexibility of the work hours, a mean of 1.34 indicates that the majority of the respondents does not have flexible working hours. Table 1 also reveals that the majority does not feel autonomous at work and does not perceive a very high work pressure.
Last but not least, the relationship status of the respondents shows that the majority of the respondents is in a relationship at the moment the survey was conducted. As mentioned earlier, in a relationship means that the respondent has either a partner or is married.
The two tailed correlation test in table 1 also reveals that the dependent variable ‘Work-Life Balance’ shows a significant negative relationship with ‘Total Working Hours’ (r = -.284, p = .01). It seems that ‘Work Life Balance’ is also negatively and significantly related with ‘Flexible Working Hours’ (r = -.144, p = .01). ‘Work Autonomy’ is positively and significantly related (r = .106, p = .01). A significant negative relationship is visible between ‘Work-Life Balance’ and ‘Work Pressure’ (r = -.169, p = .01). Finally, ‘Work-Life Balance’ also seems to be significant and negatively related to ‘Relationship Status’ (r = -.018, p = .01).
4.2 Hypotheses Testing
Table 2 and table 3 depict the results from the multilevel regression analysis. A collinearity calculation has indicated that the variance inflation factor does not show any impact of multicollinearity among the variables in the regression model.
TABLE 2.
Multilevel Regression Results for Work-Life Balance
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5
B SE B SE B SE B SE B SE
Main Variable
Total Work Hours -.011* .001 (Total Work Hours)2 -.008* .001
Flexible Work Hours -.443* .012
Work Autonomy .161* .011 Work Pressure -.063* .002 Relationship Status -.053* .010 Control Variables Gender -.021 .009 -.082* .009 -.100* .009 -.091* .009 -.104* .009 Age .006* .001 .005* .001 .006* .001 .005* .001 .006* .001 Personal Health .154* .006 .154* .006 .159* .006 .145* .006 .163* .006 Employment Contract .009 .018 -.114* .018 -.069* .018 -.058* .018 -.064* .018 Household Income .075* .004 .071* .004 .059* .004 .063* .004 .068* .004 Household (Number of People) -.022* .003 -.022* .003 -.023* .003 -.022* .003 -.015* .004 -2 Log Likelihood 59824.8 61358.2 62273.3 61804.1 62383.5 Residual Covariance .494115 .504575 .523403 .514600 .526812
Hypothesis 1 suggests that when the Total Working Hours is neither high or low, but considered as ‘normal’, it has a positive influence on the Work-Life Balance of the European Worker. The analysis results of Total Work Hours reveals that there is a slightly negative significant relationship (b = -.012, t = -10.6, p < .01). This indicates that as the working hours increase, the perception of a good work-life balance will decrease. In order to be able to analyse whether a curvilinear relationship is visible regarding Total Working Hours and Work-Life balance, the square number of the Total Working Hours has been included in the multilevel regression analysis (model 1 and model 6). This revealed that there is indeed a significant curvilinear relationship. However, this relationship is very little. Based on the parameters it could be said that working hardly any hours should result in the best work-life balance possible.
This is acknowledged by graph 1. The less employees work, the better they perceive their work-life balance. A closer look on the exact slope of graph 1 shows that it is indeed the average of 40 hours per week that separates the perception of a good work-life balance and poor work-life balance. So, an average work week of 40 hours still has a positive influence on the employee’s work-life balance. At 40 hours or lower, the respondents perceive their work-life balance as ‘well’ or ‘very wel’. If the workweek exceeds 40 hours it will have a negative impact on the employee’s work-life balance. Since the 40 hour workweek still has a positive influence on the individual’s work-life balance, and there is a curvilinear relationship, it can be concluded that hypothesis 1 is accepted. However, it must be noted that the 40-hour line is definitely not the best fit.
TABLE 3.
Multilevel Regression Results for Work-Life Balance
Model 6
B SE
Main Variable
Total Work Hours -.012* .001 (Total Work Hours)2 -.005* .001 Flexible Work Hours -.402* .012
GRAPH 1. Total Working Hours
The second hypothesis claims that Flexible Working Hours has a positive relationship with Life Balance. The regression results show that Flexible Work Hours influence Work-Life Balance negatively (b = -.402, t = -32.5, p < .01). The second hypothesis is therefore rejected. Additionally, the independent variable ‘Flexible Working Hours’ showed to be the most influencing factor on the measured variance of Work-Life Balance.
Hypothesis 3 suggested that a high level of Work Autonomy has a positive relationship with Work-Life Balance. This suggestion is supported by the analysis results (b = .156, t = 14.3, p < .01). It can be concluded that a high level of work autonomy does influence the work-life balance of European workers positively. Hypothesis 3 is accepted.
The fifth and final hypothesis suggests that being in a relationship or marriage has a positive relationship with Work-Life Balance. This statement, however, is not supported by the research results (b = -.047, t = -5.0, p < .01). The analysis showed that there is no such positive relationship. Since there is a significant negative relationship between Relationship Status and Work-Life Balance, hypothesis 5 is rejected.
The control variables have also provided some insights. The analyses have shown that there only is a statistical significant relationship with gender if the total working hours is excluded. This reveals that gender differences are the result of the total work hours of the employee. Age does also seem to influence the perceived work-life balance of the European worker slightly. It can be stated than when an European worker gets older, his/her perception of a good work and life balance will decrease. Personal health indicates that a good health positively influences the work-life balance. Employment contract does not seem to have a significant positive relation.
The household’s income does reveals a positive significant relationship. A higher income will positively contribute to the individual’s work-life balance. The number of people in a household will not. This seems to be significant negatively related to work-life balance.
TABLE 3.
Overview of the Hypotheses Testing
H1. If the Total Working Time is neither high or
low, but considered as ‘normal’, it has a positive relationship with Work-life Balance.
Accepted: a normal work week positively influences
the employee’s work-life balance.
H2. Flexible Working Hour has a positive
relationship with Work-life Balance.
Rejected: working flexible hours has a negative
effect on the employee’s work-life balance.
H3. A high level of Work Autonomy has a positive
relationship with Work-Life Balance.
Accepted: work autonomy positively influences the
employee’s work-life balance.
H4. A high level of Work Pressure has a negative
relationship with Work-Life Balance.
Accepted: work pressure will negatively influence
the work-life balance of the employee.
H5. Being in a relationship or marriage has a
positive relationship with Work-life Balance.
Rejected: there is a negative relation between being
5. CONCLUSIONS & DISCUSSION
This research aimed for finding out which factors influence the work-life balance of workers in the European Union. This final chapter will discuss the outcomes of the research while connecting it to literature. Moreover, the limitations of this study will be discussed and suggestions for further research will be made. Since this research started with questioning how the ambitious employment goal of the European Union’s “2020 Strategy” will influence the lives of working Europeans, practical implications of this research will be discussed as well.
This research showed that the concept of work-life balance is not one that is easy to catch. Many articles have been written about it, but none of them are able to cover this subject completely. Neither can this research. Simply because many factors influence an employee’s work-life balance. This study has examined five factors in order to find out whether or not these, in an European context, influence the worker’s work-life balance.
The research results showed that there is a very small curvilinear relationship between the total work hours and work-life balance. However, the results also revealed that the ideal work-life balance is not achieved when the individual works 40 hours per week. Nevertheless, a normal work week of more or less 40 hours is considered to have a positive impact on the work-life balance of the European worker. But since the perception of a good work-life balance increases when an employee works less than 40 hours, work and life are not perfectly balanced at 40 hours per week. It could therefore be concluded that an employee’s work-life balance will be better balanced when the total working hours is below 40 hours per week. Or actually, far below 40 hours per week.
Different explanations could be given in an attempt to clarify this unexpected result. First of all, it could be the case that when an employee perceives his or her work-life balance as poor, he/she will adapt flexible working hours. This particular group could still perceive a poor work-life balance while being in the process of improving it. In order to find out if this is a valid explanation, a longitudinal research should be executed to measure whether flexible working hours does indeed improve the work-life balance of this particular group.
Another explanation could be that flexibility leads to confusion. If for example an employee does not know if he or she will be able to go home early, responsibilities and activities in the life-domain cannot take place. The employee will not be able to plan activities because he or she does not know for sure that he/she will not be working. Even the hours not spend working are heavily influenced by work due to the expected flexibility in working hours. This, obviously, does not improve the employee’s work-life balance. It does raise the suspicion whether flexible working hours are created for business reasons rather than individual worker interests (Zeytinoglu, Cooke, & Mann, 2009).
It could be argued that the two types of work schedules discussed in chapter two could only be of value when, in advance, the employee is in control of the flexibility. If this is not the case, the flexibility of working hours will negatively affect the individual’s work-life balance. Regarding the flexibility of working hours, a popular topic currently is the concept of the New World of Work. This concept offers the employee the possibility to work at any time at any place. This should enables him or her to create a better fit between work and their personal life (Baane et al., 2011). However, Russell and O’Connell (2009) argue that the flexibility that this concept offers is a major intrusion of someone’s personal life. It might be clear that flexible working hours is far from being agreed upon amongst researchers.
A factor that was expected to negatively influence the work-life balance of European workers is work pressure. This study showed that a high level of work pressure has indeed a negative influence on the work-life balance. This is pretty much in line with literature, which uses both the concepts ‘work-life balance’ and ‘work-life conflict’ to emphasize the damaging effects of work pressure on the worker’s life (Harris, Marett, & Harris, 2011; Russell, O'Connell, & McGinnity, 2009). It is interesting that literature, as mentioned in chapter two, sees work pressure only as a damaging factor for the life-domain when it comes to work-life balance. As mentioned earlier, work-life balance needs to be balanced on both sides. While some authors claim that the causes of work pressure are only to be found in the work-domain (Russell, O'Connell, & McGinnity, 2009), others argue that the effort to combine work and life causes work pressure (Gallie, 2005). Nevertheless, one way or the other, work pressure is proofed to negatively influence the work-life balance.
An unexpected outcome is related to the expected positive effect of relationship status on work-life balance. This relationship has proofed to be negative. So, regarding the discussion whether a relationship or marriage positively influences the work-life balance of an individual or not, this study revealed that this is not the case. Apparently the benefits of sharing a household does also cause troubles in dividing time between work and life. According to Sowan and Goodwin (2009), separating work and life is an important factor in protecting the marriage. It could be argued that nowadays the line between work and life is becoming more vague. Since the concept of teleworking has been introduced in 1985 as the ‘next workplace revolution’ (Kelly, 1985), workers are able to work for example at home. As already mentioned, concepts like the New World of Work almost erase the line between work and life in facilitating to work “anywhere at any time”. This could be devastating for the quality of relationships and marriages, and harm the work-life balance of European workers.
5.1 Suggestions for Further Research
A topic not mentioned in this research, but worthwhile to study in the context of this research, is culture. This research involves all 27 EU Member States. A long (and bloody) history that led to the European Union, still has not resulted in an integrated European superpower (Simms, 2012). This raises the question whether cultural differences influence the perception of work-life balance among the different EU Member States. A more focused research on the concept of work-life balance, and the factors that influence it, could reveal interesting insights. Additionally, instead of focusing on the different member states, a similar research could also be done for nations outside the European Union. It might be interesting to find whether the same outcomes can be found in for example the United States of America.
5.2 Limitations
Due to the fact that this is solely an European study, two major limitations rise. The first is the usefulness of these research outside Europe. It can be doubted whether this research would give the same results in non-European countries. Differences in work ethics, percentage of women participating in the labour market, work distribution amongst men and women, all determine if there is an increasing need for actively guarding the work-life balance of employees. As mentioned, many factors influence work-life balance. These factors might not always be equally relevant in different parts of the world. This could be the case regarding the five factors that have been studied in this research.
Secondly, the outcomes of this research might not always perfectly reflect a specific EU Member State. Since this research involves all 27 EU Member States, it could be argued that the outcomes can also be valid for European, but non-EU Member States, such as Norway or Croatia. However, the generalisation of all 27 EU Member States might have described a situation that might not perfectly reflect a specific EU Member State.
5.3 Practical Implications
This final paragraph brings this study to the final discussion: how will the Europe 2020 Strategy impact the work-life balance of the EU citizens? Let’s recall that the European Commission’s aim is to employ 75% of all EU citizens between the age of 20 and 64 in 2020. This research has emphasized the importance of establishing a good work-life balance and five important factors that influence it. Workers who have a good work-life balance will be more motivated, more productive and less stressed (Byrne, 2005). So employers should be well aware of the impact of a poor work-life balance of its employees.
Regarding this specific research, especially employers that operate cross-border within the European Union should safeguard their employees not to exceed the 40 hour work week. The European Commission should actual encourage part-time labour participation. Working less is good for one’s work-life balance.
6. REFERENCES
Anderson, D. R., Sweeney, J., & Williams, A. T. (2008). Fundamentals of Business Statistics, Cengage Learning, 5th ed.
Baane, R., Houtkamp, P. & Knotter, M. 2011, Het Nieuwe Werken Ontrafeld: over Bricks,
Bytes & Behavior, 2nd edn, Van Gorcum, Assen.
Beer, P. T. (2004). Op zoek naar de verloren tijd. In Sep, P. and Verheije, M. (Eds. ), Groot
en klein verzet. Temporele ordening in Nederland.
Byrne, U. (2005). Work-life balance: Why are we talking about it at all? Business Information
Review, 22(1), 53-59.
Chapman, J., & De Keulenaer, F. (2009). EU work-life balance tilts against women, single parents. Gallup Poll Briefing, , 3-3.
Clark, S. C. (2001). Work cultures and Work/Family balance. Journal of Vocational
Behavior, 58(3), 348-365.
Crosbie, T., & Moore, J. (2004). Work–life balance and working from home. Social Policy &
Society, 3(3), 223–233.
Eldridge, D., & Nisar, T. N. (2011). Employee and organizational impacts of flexitime work arrangements. Relations Industrielles / Industrial Relations, 66(2), 213-234.
Emslie, C., & Hunt, K. (2009). ‘Live to work’ or ‘Work to live’? A qualitative study of gender and Work–life balance among men and women in mid-life. Gender, Work &
Organization, 16(1), 151-172.
European Commission. (2011). EU-wide headline targets for economic growth. Retrieved 12/26, 2011, from http://ec.europa.eu/europe2020/reaching-the-goals/targets/index_en.htm
Eurostat. (2012). Employment rate by gender, age group 15-64. Retrieved 02/28, 2012, from http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/tgm/table.do?tab=table&language=en&pcode=tsiem010&tabl eSelection=1&footnotes=yes&labeling=labels&plugin=1
Feldstead, A., Jewson, N., Phizacklea, A., & Walter, S. (2002). Opportunities to work at home in the context of Work–Life balance. Human Resource Management Journal, 12, 54– 76.
Frame, P., & Hartog, M. (2003). From rhetoric to reality. into the swamp of ethical practice: Implementing work-life balance. Business Ethics: A European Review, 12(4), 358-368.
Fullerton Jr., H. N. (1995). The 2005 labor force: Older and larger. Monthly Labor Review,
118(11), 29-44.
Gallie, D. (2005). Work pressure in europe 1996–2001: Trends and determinants. British
Journal of Industrial Relations, 43(3), 351-375.
Greenhaus, J. H., & Beutell, N. J. (1985). Sources of conflict between work and family roles.
Academy of Management Review, 10(1), 76-88.
Hackman, J. R., & Lawler III, E. E. (1971). Employee reactions to job characteristics. Journal
of Applied Psychology, 55(3), 259-286.
Harris, K. J., Marett, K., & Harris, R. B. (2011). Technology-related pressure and work-family conflict: Main effects and an examination of moderating variables. Journal of Applied
Social Psychology, 41(9), 2077-2103.
Higgins, C. A., Duxbury, L. E., & Irving, R. H. (1992). Work-family conflict in the dual-career family. Organizational Behavior & Human Decision Processes, 51(1), 51-75.
High Level Group. (2004). Facing the challenge: The lisbon strategy for growth and
employment. Brussels
Hughes, J., & Bozionelos, N. (2007). Work life balance as source of job dissatisfaction and withdrawal attitudes. an exploratory study on the views of male workers. Personnel Review,
36(1), 145–154.
Hyman, J., Baldry, C., Scholarios, D., & Bunzel, D. (2003). Work–Life imbalance in call centres and software development. British Journal of Industrial Relations, 41(2), 215-239.
ILO. (1935). Forty-hour week convention. Convention Concerning the Reduction of Hours of
Work to Forty a Week, Geneva. , 47.
ILO. (1962). Reduction of hours of work recommendation. Recommendation Concerning
Reduction of Hours of Work, Geneva. , 116.
Kelly, M.M. (1985). The next workplace revolution: telecommuting. Supervisory
Management, vol. 30, no. 10, pp. 2-7.
Lombard, K. V. (1999). Women's rising market opportunities and increased labor force participation. Economic Inquiry, 37(2), 195.
Moore, F. (2007). Work-life balance: Contrasting managers and workers in an MNC.
Employee Relations, 29(4), 385-399.
Morinaga, Y., & Sakata, K. (1992). Marital satisfaction and division of family-related tasks among japanese married couples. Psychological Reports, 70(1), 163.
Mortimer, J. T., Lorence, J., & Kumka, D. S. (1986). Work, family, and personality:
Parris, M., Vickers, M., & Wilkes, L. (2008). Caught in the middle: Organizational impediments to middle managers’ work-life balance. Employee Responsibilities & Rights
Journal, 20(2), 101-117.
Pierce, J. L., & Newstrom, J. W. (1980). Toward A conceptual clarification of employee responses to flexible working hours: A work adjustment approach. Journal of Management,
6(2), 117-134.
Rogers, S. J., & May, D. C. (2003). Spillover between marital quality and job satisfaction: Long-term patterns and gender differences. Journal of Marriage and Family, 65(2), 482-495.
Russell, H., O'Connell, P. J., & McGinnity, F. (2009). The impact of flexible working arrangements on Work–life conflict and work pressure in ireland. Gender, Work &
Organization, 16(1), 73-97.
Sánchez-Vidal, ,M.a Eugenia, Cegarra-Leiva, D., & Cegarra-Navarro, J. (2012). Gaps between managers' and employees' perceptions of work–life balance. International Journal of
Human Resource Management, 23(4), 645-661.
Sekhar, S. F. C. (2011). Correlates of work autonomy. IUP Journal of Organizational
Behavior, 10(3), 26-40.
Simms, B. (2012). Towards a mighty union: How to create a democratic european superpower. International Affairs, 88(1), 49-62.
Smith, F., Wainwright, E., Buckingham, S., & Marandet, E. (2011). Women, work-life
balance and quality of life: Case studies from the united kingdom and republic of Ireland
Stephen, A., & Dhanapal, D. (2011). Quality of work life and its impact on organisational excellence in small scale industrial units: Employers perspectives. Journal of Contemporary
Management Research, 5(2), 55-67.
Tang, N., & Cousins, C. (2005). Working time, gender and family: An east-west european comparison. Gender, Work & Organization, 12(6), 527-550.
Van der Meer, P.H., & Wielers, R. (2013). What makes workers happy?. Applied Economics, 45(3), 357-368.
Zeytinoglu, I. U., Cooke, G. B., & Mann, S. L. (2009). Whose Choice Is It Anyway?.
+ - + + +
APPENDIX 1. CONCEPTUAL MODEL
Figure 1. Conceptual Model
Flexible Working Hours Total Working Hours
