Occupational and Individual Determinants of Work-life Balance among Office Workers with Flexible Work Arrangements

Sofie Bjärntoft, David M. Hallman, Svend Erik Mathiassen, Johan Larsson and Helena Jahncke
Additional contact information
Sofie Bjärntoft: Department of Occupational Health Sciences and Psychology, University of Gävle, 801 76 Gävle, Sweden
David M. Hallman: Department of Occupational Health Sciences and Psychology, University of Gävle, 801 76 Gävle, Sweden
Svend Erik Mathiassen: Department of Occupational Health Sciences and Psychology, University of Gävle, 801 76 Gävle, Sweden
Johan Larsson: Department of Occupational Health Sciences and Psychology, University of Gävle, 801 76 Gävle, Sweden
Helena Jahncke: Department of Occupational Health Sciences and Psychology, University of Gävle, 801 76 Gävle, Sweden

IJERPH, 2020, vol. 17, issue 4, 1-15

Abstract: Flexible work arrangements permitting workers to work anytime and anywhere are increasingly common. This flexibility can introduce both challenges and opportunities for the organisation, as well as for worker work-life balance (WLB). This cross-sectional study aimed to examine the extent to which occupational factors (organizational, leadership and psychosocial) and individual work-related behaviours (over-commitment, overtime work and boundary management) are associated with WLB, and whether these associations are modified by the perceived level of flexibility at work (i.e., control over when, where, and how to do the work). In total, 2960 full-time office workers with flexible work arrangements at the Swedish Transport Administration participated. Associations were determined using linear regression analyses with adjustment for covariates. The strongest negative associations with WLB were found for over-commitment, quantitative job demands, expectations of availability, and overtime work. Strongest positive associations were found for boundary management, information about organizing work, social support, and relation-oriented leadership. Perceived flexibility was positively associated with WLB, and interacted with several of the examined factors, buffering their negative associations with WLB. Results suggest that WLB can be promoted by organizational initiatives focusing on minimizing excessive job demands, increasing psychosocial resources, supporting boundary management, and enhancing perceived flexibility.

Keywords: work-life balance; autonomy; job resources; job demands; work control (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/4/1418/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/17/4/1418/ (text/html)

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:gam:jijerp:v:17:y:2020:i:4:p:1418-:d:323872

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().