Year of publication: 2022
Author/Organisations involved: Francesco Pace e Giulia Sciotto
Research area: Sustainability
Brief Summary / Analysed data:
Although gender equality is increasingly promoted both in the workplace and in society, and women have fully entered the labour market, the issue of gender differences in relation to career advancement still seems open. Although gender roles no longer clearly define who is responsible for household care and who is responsible for work duties, some research shows that the conflict between family and work life seems to be a greater problem for women than for men. The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between career opportunities, work-life balance and perceived well-being separately in female ( n = 499) and male ( n = 557) respondents to clarify the role of gender. A multigroup analysis showed that the structural pathways of the models differ by gender. For women, the relationships between career opportunities and work-life balance and between career opportunities and perceived general health have significantly lower values compared to the results of the men’s group, while perceived work-life balance affects well-being more significantly compared to the male counterpart. The implications on the importance of the link between career and valuing personal life duties are further discussed.
Keywords: work-life balance ; career opportunities ; well-being ; gender.
Highlights / Importance:
The effect of gender on a variable that includes both work and family life is particularly interesting. Traditionally, men and women have occupied differentiated social roles, in terms of the time devoted to work and family chores; stereotypically, men work full-time outside the home, while women take care of household and family chores. Gender-based divisions of roles are actually part of the collective culture.
Work-life balance occurs when the time spent on the work role does not limit the time dedicated to personal life (for example, involvement in leisure or family activities). It is an important antecedent of work and life satisfaction and a critical feature of work that causes the demands of work to be experienced in a more positive way, for example by creating a work-family climate where workers feel they do not have to sacrifice effectiveness in their family role to perform their jobs. In fact, work-family balance is presumably composed of three elements: (a) time balance, consisting of devoting an equal amount of time to both work and family; (b) involvement balance, consisting of devoting an equal amount of psychological involvement in the said roles; (c) satisfaction balance, consisting of being equally satisfied both at work and in the family
Link to the source: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/1/357
