What about Us? Measuring the Work-Life Balance of People Who Do Not Have Children


  •  Julie A. Waumsley    
  •  Diane M. Houston    
  •  Gillian Marks    

Abstract

To date, the work-family literature has examined conflict between work and family and family and work. In this research the use of the word “family” usually denotes child-care responsibilities. Furthermore, scales developed to measure conflict have concentrated on a family structure defined in this way. Little is known about conflict between work and non-work experienced by people who do not live within a family structure that includes children. The aim of this paper is to examine whether existing work-family and family-work conflict measures might be adapted to measure work-life conflict and life-work conflict for full-time female workers (N = 940) with and without children. Results suggest that a work-family conflict scale may not adequately measure the conflicts experienced by people who do not live within a family structure that involves children. The implications of these findings are further discussed with suggestions concerning the feasibility of using a generic work-life scale to measure work-life balance and a specific work-family scale to measure work-family balance.


This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
  • ISSN(Print): 1918-7173
  • ISSN(Online): 1918-7181
  • Started: 2009
  • Frequency: semiannual

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