There is substantial amount of research investigating work-life balance, but this review will mainly focus on the key repeating themes of work-life balance which are work-life conflict and work-life enrichment. Work-life enrichment is a novel theme within work-life balance and is becoming more important in today’s working society. Although, there is a variety of literature exploring these two concepts, this review will focus on the physical and mental effects of these themes.
Work-life balance is known to affect a person’s health, stress levels and well-being if the person cannot find the right kind of balance between work, personal life, and daily recovery. Most employees would argue that family relationships are one of the most vital aspects in life and what may jeopardise this are long working hours or excessive job demands which not only interferes with family relationships but self-recovery as well (Chmiel, Fraccaroli & Sverke, 2017). If there is a continuous interference this can lead to stress and lower life satisfaction. An EU survey found one fifth of workers reported their working hours does not integrate well with other social and family commitments, according to the European Condition Survey, 2010. This means an increase in work-family conflict which could affect leisure time, recovery needs and personal care.
A poor work-life balance was established by Antai, Oke, Braithwaite & Anthony, (2015) in relation to sickness absence. Employees in four Nordic countries self-reported poor health problems including sickness which resulted in higher absence at work as employees found it difficult to balance work and personal life. Therefore, poor work-life balance influenced sickness absence. An important factor to consider is this research fails to mention what type of sickness the employees suffered from whether it was a cold/flu or virus and this research states work-life conflict produces sickness which is a very general statement. Thus, more research should be conducted into the kinds of sickness the Nordic employees suffered from. Research evidence found a negative relationship with health satisfaction and work-life conflict. A lower health satisfaction resulted in more conflicts between work and personal life, but no clear evidence was found for prolonged work-life conflict with poor health satisfaction (Knecht, Bauer, Gutzwiller & Hämmig, 2011). A negative association was found between work-family conflict and adverse physical health such as weight loss/gain, headaches, backaches and drowsiness. In addition to these findings, a study determined the physical effects to work-life conflict. The findings showed specific physical health issues were impaired such as several musculoskeletal pain complaints and sleeping problems were common among workers who had frequent work and private life conflicts (Vleeshouwers, Knardahl & Christensen, 2018).
A Swiss study on work-life balance and health in men and women found work-life conflict (WLC) is related to physical and mental health problems. Workers with high WLC reported risks to poor health, anxiety, depression, fatigue, headaches, sleep disorders and serious backaches. Comparing gender, overall high WLC is more common in men but associations to WLC to health were stronger in women (Hämmig, Gutzwiller & Bauer, 2009). Another study investigated WLC and mental health in employees working long shifts. Three hundred and six clerical workers doing 8-hour shifts were assessed on mental health with the 28 item General Health Questionnaire. The results indicated workers with long working hours and high work-time control had higher levels of mental health problems such as anxiety compared to workers with low work-time control (Żołnierczyk-Zreda, Bedyńska & Warszewska-Makuch, 2012). One study found high cardiovascular activation is caused by exposure to stressors out of work hours, thus activities to boost recovery should be non-work related and stress free (Geurts & Sonnentag, 2006).
In terms of physical and mental health, there was a negative association between work-life conflict and burnout, depression, substance abuse and life satisfaction (Amstad et al, 2011). A Swedish study studied work-family conflict effects over two years. The results were both women and men had an increase in emotional exhaustion, men had a higher risk of problem drinking while women only had poor health (Leineweber, Baltzer, Magnusson, Hanson & Westerlund, 2013). It was also found that work-life conflict negatively effects employee’s private life with a reduced satisfaction in family or marital life (Geurts & Demerouti, 2003). Another study explores work-life conflict and found increased work-family conflict for a worker increased psychological distress and depression in men and women (Burke, Jones & Vestman, 2013).
Another research investigates shift work on health and work-life conflict and concludes organisational influences such as team identity, worker control and social support diminishes harsh influences of shift work on health and work-life conflict (Pisarski, Lawrence, Bohle & Brook, 2008). Further research argues permanent call centre workers in Australia reported higher work-life conflict due to high intensity, stressful working environment longer working hours and stress and low work control. High work-life conflict was linked to more mental health problems and fatigue (Bohle, Willaby, Quinlan & McNamara, 2011).
Work-life enrichment within workers is a new topic that has developed in occupational psychology, thus there are not many studies available to researchers and most of these studies produced recent findings contributing to work-life balance knowledge. Research by Pedersen and Jeppesen, (2012) found an association between schedule flexibility enhancing work-family enrichment. The findings show flexible working schedules allows employees to have more free-time to engage in family and personal life events producing a positive effect on job involvement. Another study looked into the positive and negative spill-over between family and work life. Data from a US survey on employed adults found certain factors such as family support had a more positive spill-over on work and family life. In contrast, factors like family disagreements and job pressures had a negative effect on work and family spill-over (Grzywacz & Marks, 2000). Spill-over between work and family contributes to work-life enrichment.
Recent research about relaxation in the workplace proved beneficial to employee’s mental state. The research highlights how mindfulness taught through yoga lowered aggression levels in professional workers involved in counterproductive work behaviour, thus improving worker’s mental health and enhancing work-life enrichment. This shows how certain interventions within the workplace can improve mental health (Dwivedi, Kumari, Akhilesh & Nagendra, 2015). However, another study revokes previous study and found mental health deteriorated within workplace. This study reviewed separation with work-life enrichment which highlighted if employee felt no purpose and powerless to role, job commitment and work-life enrichment reduced thus affecting employee’s mental health (G. Tummers & Den Dulk, 2013). It is clear there are fewer studies that investigate in detail about work-life enrichment and how that effects health compared to work-life conflict and health. Hence why current study will explore work-family enrichment alongside with work-life conflict.