Work–life balance and firms: A matter of women?☆
Section snippets
Introduction and relevance of the topic
Scholars' interest in the use of work–life balance (WLB) as a human resources management tool is growing. Early studies on the topic focus on the conflict between family duties and professional demands (Frone et al., 1992, Goff et al., 1990, Greenhaus and Beutell, 1985, Netemeyer et al., 1996). According to these studies, this conflict arises because some aspects of work and family roles are incompatible. Recent studies (from 2000 onwards) focus more on business. Research establishes the best
Theoretical framework and research propositions
Two major groups of environmental factors draw scholars' attention to the topic of WLB. The first group relates to a series of sociocultural changes (i.e., new household profiles or more women with higher education) that lead to an increase in individual's responsibilities within and outside the home. Second, legislation on equal opportunities proliferates. In Spain, the Law for a Work–Life Balance among Workers (November 5, 1999: BOE 266 of 6/11/99) and the Organic Law 3/2007 of March 22 for
Method
A study using self-report questionnaires to human resources managers or general managers of Spanish SMEs with at least one female worker provided data to test the propositions in Section 2. The survey yielded 87 valid questionnaires. In addition to exploring other issues, the questionnaire collected data on variables, as Table 1 shows.
All scales came from the literature, particularly from Chinchilla and Poelmans (2002); Chinchilla et al. (2003, Chinchilla et al., 2005, Chinchilla et al., 2006).
Key findings
The first step to analyze whether the data support the propositions is to check whether the causal conditions are necessary conditions for the outcome to occur. For the outcome variable r_p12, the consistency and coverage values for each of the eight causal conditions are less than the minimum values that Ragin (2006) sets. This finding implies that no variable is a necessary condition for the implementation of WLB policies. Despite this finding, calculating the truth table allows for the
Conclusions and recommendations
The abundant WLB literature reflects the recent notable growth in scholars' and firms' interest in WLB. Women are central to this issue because, even now, women still play the role of the main caregiver in terms of domestic responsibilities (Cross, 2010). Women retain a disproportionate responsibility for domestic work and childcare, even in situations where both partners are working (Gunter and Stambach, 2005, Rees, 1992). The roles of mother and worker seem incompatible and conflicting, which
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Cited by (0)
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The authors thank James W. Taylor, California State University (USA), and Enrique Bigne, University of Valencia (Spain) for their careful reading and suggestions. The authors alone are responsible for any limitations and errors in the study and the paper.