A Qualimetric Approach to Work-Life Balance

Abstract

Work-life balance research has employed both qualitative and quantitative methods. Self-reported surveys dominate the field, with interviews and document analysis used to a lesser extent. Whether stated or not, workers in these studies are generally assumed to have two separate lives or roles and are, therefore, implicitly two different people. We adapted a qualimetric socio-economic intervention research approach to study individualized meanings and impacts of work-life balance in a complete academic/administrative unit of a business college, thereby offering the potential for applicability and scalability to an entire college or university. Treating each worker as a single person immersed in extended social networks revealed that while symptoms or superficial effects may differ at home and at work, the root causes of challenges both at work and at home were the same. The qualimetric approach produced findings that differed from previous research in the broader field of work-life balance research, and offered insight into the power relations that reduce work-life balance to a work-only monologue.