There is a growing body of literature concerning Work-Life Balance; however, the different ways in which it has been analysed have created controversial results and difficulties in the comparison of the different studies. Therefore, a critical analysis of the literature has been provided (see Figure 9) in order to summarize the most representative studies concerning WLB in occupational stress literature as well as in nursing literature.
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Indeed, concerning the conceptual frameworks and the analyses carried out in order to examine Work-Life Balance, literature has been divided into three sections:
(i) studies examining WLB as an independent variable; (ii) studies examining WLB as a mediator;
(iii) studies examining WLB as an outcome.
In addition, several names (e.g. Work-Family Conflict, Work-Family Spillover, Work-Family Balance, and Work-Life Balance) have been used in order to describe the same inter-role conflict. Then, for purpose of clarity, in the present research we will adopt the theoretical framework of the Conflict Model (Netemeyer, 1996; Lambert, 1990; Frone et al., 1992; Edwards and Rothbard, 2000; Franche et al., 2006; Michel and Hargis, 2008; Vignoli et al. 2016; Baeriswyl et al., 2016) and we will use the term Work-Life Balance (WLB4) in order to describe processes which are common to both Work-Family Conflict (WFC) and Family-Work Conflict (FWC). Moreover, we will use the names of each construct (WFC and/or FWC) to consider their specific related effects.
Regarding the first set of research, several studies provided evidence for the association between WLB and work-related outcomes (Kinnunen and Mauno, 1998), such as performance (Hanif and Naqvi, 2014), job and life dissatisfaction (Bacharach, et al., 1991; Aryee, 1992; Netermeyer et al., 1996; Kossek and Ozeki, 1998; Allen, 2000; Bruck et al., 2002), turnover, leaving intention (Stroh et al., 1996; Kelloway et al., 1999;Greenhaus et al., 2001; Rode et al., 2007; Blomme et al., 2010; Hatam et al., 2016) and Burnout (Allen, 2000; Sholi et al., 2011; Brauchli et al., 2011; Bagherzadeh et al., 2016).
In addition, considering worker’s health and wellbeing, both WFC and FWC were found to be related to poor mental health (Parasuraman et al., 1992; Frone et al., 1994, 1997; Burke and Greenglass, 1999; Wang et al., 2007; Hanif and Naqvi, 2014; Neto et al., 2016), and in particular
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consistent evidence supported the effects of WFC on anxiety and depression (Frone, 2000; Allen, 2000; Franche et al. 2006).
Concerning physical health conditions, WLB was found to be related to a higher likelihood of reporting physical outcomes (Schmidt et al., 1980; Thomas and Ganster, 1995; Frone et al., 1997), with particular reference to cardiovascular diseases (Frone et al. 1997; Grant-Vallone and Donaldson, 2001; Berkman et al., 2015), musculoskeletal (Hämmig et al., 2011; Jensen and Rundmo, 2015) and sleep disorders (Sekine et. al., 2005; Berkman et al., 2015).
Other studies showed evidence for the association of WLB and both cigarette use and alcohol abuse (Vasse et al., 1998; Frone 1999; Grzywacz and Bass, 2003; Greenhaus et al., 2006; Nelson et al., 2012). Furthermore, it was also supported that psychological disorders mediate the effect of WFC on alcohol assumption (Vasse et al., 1998).
Furthermore, following the second set of studies that have considered WLB as a mediator in the work-related stress process, research has also demonstrated that WLB mediates the relationship between work-related stress (i.e. Occupational Stress, Demand-Control-Support Model and/or Effort-Reward Imbalance dimensions) and Psychological diseases (O’ Driscoll et al., 1992; Major et al., 2002), in particular depression (Franche et al., 2006; DuPrel and Peter, 2015). In addition, Lingard and Francis (2005) demonstrated the mediating role of WFC in the relationship between Job Demands and Burnout.
Also, in the nursing literature, research tested the mediating role of WFC in the relationship between Job Demands, job and life dissatisfaction (Yildirim and Aycan, 2008), as well as nurses’ health conditions (Demerouti et al., 2000; Van Der Hijeden; 2008). Additionally, WFC was found to mediate the relationships between role overload and role conflict with Burnout (Bacharach et al., 1991).
Finally, several studies focused on the antecedents of Work-Life Balance. In fact, the necessity of considering the antecedents of WLB is clearly underlined in the literature (Edwards and Rothbard,
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2000; Allen, 2012). In particular, research focused on work domains variables, such as job characteristics, and non-work domain variables, such as marital conflict, childcare, demographics and personality characteristics (Byron, 2005). In addition, research underlined that work-related factors were more frequently associated with WFC and, conversely, factors such as disposition, socio-demographic characteristics and personality characteristics were more likely to be associated with FWC (Byron, 2005, Amstad et al., 2011).
Considering work domain variables, occupational stress has been recognized as an important predictor of WLB (Benligiray, and Sönmez, 2012). In particular, Job Demands (Allen, 2012) and Effort-Reward Imbalance (Kinman and Jones, 2007) were found to be antecedents of Work-Life Balance. In addition, other studies underlined the significant role played by work flexibility and social support in family duties, to promote a balance between work and child raising, reducing work-related stress and absenteeism (Baltes et al., 1999; Fujimoto et al., 2008).
However, a larger body of literature has considered non-work domain variables; in particular, regarding demographic characteristics, several studies focused on gender differences (see the following chapter, VII). Also the associations between parental status (e.g. high number of children, low support) and marital status (e.g. dual employee couple, troubles between the partners) with higher levels of WLB have been frequently supported (Higgins and Duxbury, 1992; Williams and Alliger, 1994; Carlson, 1999; Fox and Dwyer, 1999; Carlson and Perrewe, 1999; Grzywacz and Marks, 2000; Behson, 2002; Byron, 2005; Allen, 2012).
Moreover, Personality Characteristics in the form of Negative Affectivity was highlighted to represent the strongest antecedent of both WFC and FWC, whereas Type A behavioural pattern was found associated only with WFC (Carlson, 1999; Stoeva et al., 2002; Bruck and Allen, 2003; Byron, 2005; Allen, 2012). Considering the Big-five Personality dimensions, Neuroticism was found positively related to WLB, whereas Extraversion was negatively related only to WFC (Grzywacz and Marks, 2000).
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Figure 9. Summary of studies investigating WLB
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