Work–life balance: One size fits all? An exploratory analysis of the differential effects of career stage

Colette Darcy, Alma McCarthy, Jimmy Hill and Geraldine Grady

European Management Journal, 2012, vol. 30, issue 2, 111-120

Abstract: This paper explores the antecedents of work–life balance for employees as they progress through different career stages denoted by age. To date, research has failed to adequately explore how work–life balance issues develop over the course of an employee’s working life. As a consequence, much of the work–life balance policy and practice research examines WLB issues from a relatively static and unchanging perspective resulting in praxis which is undifferentiated. Such a ‘one size fits all’ approach to the design and development of work–life balance initiatives is not only costly but likely to be ineffective in terms of meeting the real needs of different categories of employees. This paper challenges the static approaches and instead seeks to examine if and how WLB is affected and shaped by different antecedents as they impact on differing career stages as defined by distinct age categorisations.

Keywords: Work life balance; Career stage; Life-cycle approach (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2012
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (21)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0263237311000983
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:eurman:v:30:y:2012:i:2:p:111-120

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/115/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... me/115/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.emj.2011.11.001

Access Statistics for this article

European Management Journal is currently edited by Michael Haenlein

More articles in European Management Journal from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().