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The International Journal of Human Resource

Management
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The constraints of a ‘work–life balance’ approach: an

international perspective
Suzan Lewis , Richenda Gambles & Rhona Rapoport
Published online: 12 Mar 2007.

To cite this article: Suzan Lewis , Richenda Gambles & Rhona Rapoport (2007) The constraints of a ‘work–life balance’
approach: an international perspective, The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 18:3, 360-373

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 Int. J. of Human Resource Management 18:3 March 2007 360– 373

The constraints of a ‘work – life balance’

approach: an international perspective

Suzan Lewis, Richenda Gambles and Rhona Rapoport

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Keywords Work –life balance; discourse; flexibility; gender; culture.

Locating work –life balance discourse in time and place

The huge recent growth in attention to ‘work –life balance’(WLB) dilemmas in
academic, political, professional and popular literature might give the impression that
this is, at best, a new area of concern, or at worst, a passing fad. This would, however, be
misleading. The WLB metaphor is a social construct located within a particular period
of time and originating in a Western context, but dilemmas relating to the management of
paid work alongside other parts of life, especially family, have been the focus of research
for several decades (see, e.g., Rapoport and Rapoport, 1965). Research on this topic has
always reflected social, economic and workplace developments and concerns, shifting in
response to new trends. For example, as the numbers of women entering the labour force
grew, from the 1960s, research in certain contexts tended to focus on ‘working mothers’
or dual earner families, while concerns about stress and burnout associated with
workplace changes in the 1980s and 1990s were reflected in research and debate about
work–family conflict (Lewis and Cooper, 1999). The terminology used to refer to these
issues continues to evolve in response to current concerns. In particular, a shift from
‘work– family’ and ‘family-friendly policies’ with their implicit focus on women,
especially mothers, to ‘work –life’, the precursor of the more recent ‘work–life balance’
(WLB) discourse began in the 1990s. This linguistic shift reflected a broader and more
inclusive way of framing the debate to engage men and women with and without children
or other caring commitments and was partly a response to backlash against work–family
policies by those without obvious family obligations.
In this paper we argue that the popularity of the WLB discourse and the exponential
growth in WLB research and practice in recent years also reflects a period of social and
economic development, in which there has been profound changes in the nature of work.
In the context of globalization, organizational reorganization and efficiency drives,
deregulation, increasingly sophisticated technology, the 24/7 workplace and weakened
trade unions in many contexts, constant change became a feature of most organizations
(Marchington et al., 2005; Sennett, 1998). Growing numbers of people report that they

Suzan Lewis, Middlesex University Business School, The Burroughs London NW4 4BT (tel: þ 44
(0)20 8411 4804; e-mail: s.lewis@mdx.ac.uk); Richenda Gambles, University of Oxford, Barnett
House, 32 Wellington Square, Oxford, OX1 2ER, UK (tel: þ 44 (0)1865 270343; e-mail:
richenda.gambles@socres.ox.ac.uk); Rhona Rapoport, 34 Prince Albert Road, London NW8 7LX,
UK (tel: þ 44 (0)20 7586 1931; e-mail: rhona@rhonarapoport.org.uk).
The International Journal of Human Resource Management
ISSN 0958-5192 print/ISSN 1466-4399 online q 2007 Taylor & Francis
http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
DOI: 10.1080/09585190601165577
 Lewis et al.: The constraints of a ‘work –life balance’ 361
experience a fast pace of change resulting in more demanding intensified working
practices and environments (White et al., 2003). This engenders feelings of pressure, lack
of time and general ‘busyness’ (Gambles et al., 2006; Lewis, 2003), sometimes signified
by metaphors about time such as ‘the time squeeze’ or ‘time famine’ (Hewitt, 1993;
Hochschild, 1989). These pressures and associated metaphors have been variously
attributed to new forms of work and working patterns, or the lure of consumerism and
accumulation (Beem, 2005; Bunting, 2004) that engender a feeling of work and non-
work ‘imbalance’ (Guest, 2002). WLB appears to capture a widely felt need to prevent
paid work from invading too much into people’s lives.
As social trends enter collective consciousness and are reflected upon, patterns of
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change are surfaced, constructed and labelled. What were initially experienced
as individual problems become relabelled as shared problems although not necessarily as
social problems requiring social, collective solutions (Caproni, 2004). But language does
not simply reflect reality. It also creates and produces meaning, understanding and
experiences (Wetherell et al., 2001). So while it has become legitimate to talk about
having problems of WLB, the way this is conceptualized is shaped by wider messages
and assumptions within current WLB discourses. We argue that the WLB discourse has
emerged in response to current pressures, but that it fails to focus on the broader systemic
issues that these changes raise. Thus while reflecting particular pressures, the WLB
discourse simultaneously creates and produces particular WLB experiences and
tensions.1
The WLB discourse can be located not only historically but also culturally. The
debates and concerns are experienced differently in various national contexts and at
different times. For example, there was more concern about employed mothers in
countries with traditional gender values and a history of ‘the housewife’ than in countries
where it was the norm for women across the social spectrum to be employed (Lewis et al.,
1992). Similarly, it is no coincidence that the WLB discourse originated in neoliberal
contexts, particularly the USA and UK, with a focus in policy and practice on enhancing
competitiveness through minimal regulation and reliance on market forces and where the
experience of imbalance between paid work and the rest of life were strongest (see
Fleetwood, this issue).

A critical approach to ‘WLB’ discourses and associated practices

A critique of work– life balance discourses is important because language constrains
questions asked and solutions sought. There are currently at least two discernable,
overlapping but distinct, WLB discourses. One focuses on relatively affluent professional
and white collar workers – both men and women – especially in the knowledge
economy, who have difficulty in finding time for personal life because of the all
encompassing nature of many contemporary forms of work. It focuses on choice and
personal, or sometimes household, responsibility for ‘getting the balance right’ (Caproni,
2004; Lewis, 2003). We refer to this as the personal control of time WLB discourse,
which focuses at the individual (or family) level rather than on the need for
organizational or wider socio-economic change. The other discourse focuses on
flexibility in working arrangements and we refer to this as the workplace flexibility WLB
discourse. WLB is often regarded as a characteristic of workplaces, indicated by the
existence of WLB policies (but not necessarily implementation) or by employees’
perceptions of WLB support articulated in terms of policies available. Thus, for example,
Bloom et al. (2006: 5) talk of ‘firms with good WLB’ and a poor or strong ‘WLB
strategy’. Both discourses incorporate a choice dimension and both obscure structural
 362 The International Journal of Human Resource Management
and relational constraints, which we argue is one of the major flaws of the WLB
approach. The personal control of time discourse implies human agency and choice to,
for example, work harder and longer or to prioritize different aspects of life, and personal
responsibility for achieving ‘balance’, overlooking structural, cultural and practical
constraints (Caproni, 2004). Flexibility discourses position WLB as providing choices
for those with non-work (mainly family) commitments, with more focus on workplaces,
but again overlooks constraints of gender, workplace culture, norms and assumptions.
There is a danger that the construct/metaphor of WLB, because it resonates so widely,
becomes reified. The language used to talk about combining paid work with other parts
of life is crucial and oversimplification limits perceived responses, including actual range
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of policy developments and day-to-day practices. This often results in ‘quick fix’
solutions that leave the basic underpinnings of work–personal life problems untouched
(Gambles et al., 2006; Smithson and Stokoe, 2005). It can set a linguistic/conceptual
trap (Nicolini and Mezner, 1995) which limits wider comprehension of the phenomenon
and particularly the origins of the issues, obscuring the potential to open up new visions
or alternative futures.
A number of critiques of the WLB discourse/s and approach, the ‘hype’ surrounding it
and the issues that it obscures have begun to surface (Beem, 2005; Caproni, 2004;
Crompton et al., forthcoming; Gambles et al., 2006; Smithson and Stokoe, 2005),
particularly in European and North American contexts. In the remainder of this paper we
examine discourses of WLB and their implications. A social constructionist approach
encourages questions about the repercussions of this discourse: who gains, who is
damaged, who is silenced, what traditions are sustained and which are undermined and
what futures created (Gergen, 1999). Specifically, we examine: i) taken-for-granted
assumptions that underpin the WLB discourse; ii) the version of reality that it promotes;
iii) the interests that are being served by this version of reality, and iv) begin to reflect on
alternative discourse.
We have argued that the rise of the WLB discourse reflects changes in the nature of work
and workplaces that are related to global competition and trends. This points to the
importance of an international perspective on WLB which has the potential to question
Anglo-centric taken-for-granted assumptions embedded in the WLB discourses and explore
the breadth or limitations of the concept in a range of contexts. Our critique is informed and
illustrated by qualitative data from an international study exploring debates about paid work
and connections with other parts of life in seven countries. We describe this below.

The study
The study, supported by a grant from the Ford Foundation,2 was intended to stimulate a
‘think’ piece about gender equity in relation to challenges of combining paid work with
other parts of life, in various societies, using an exploratory, evolutionary framework.
The seven countries, India, Japan, South Africa, the US, the Netherlands, Norway and the
UK were selected to include different types of welfare provisions, diverse histories and
approaches to work–personal life issues and countries at various stages of economic
development. Country meetings were organized and convened by local colleagues to
explore the experiences, perspectives and reflections of a range of ‘experts’ connected
with issues about combining paid work with other parts of life including: academics and
researchers; politicians and policy makers; people working at various levels in formal
workplace organizations, including public, private and NGOs; external consultants; trade
union officials; and journalists. The meetings generated public accounts and discussions
of work–personal life dilemmas and perspectives on associated debates within national
 Lewis et al.: The constraints of a ‘work –life balance’ 363
contexts. Our participants offered their own grounded insights from their experience,
research and individual understandings of their own countries, workplaces, families and
personal circumstances and collaborated with us in the process of mutual enquiry.
In addition 60 in-depth interviews were conducted across the seven countries to generate
personal stories and engage in deeper level discussions and thinking about paid work and
connections with other parts of life. The participants in this exploratory qualitative
project are, of course, not intended to be in any way representative of workers in their
countries. Rather they offer perspectives of a highly selected group of people involved in
debates and discussions about paid work and personal life, which provide some insights
into the impacts and limitations of the language used in these debates trans-nationally.
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More details of the study are provided elsewhere (Gambles et al., 2006). Here we draw
on the discussions and accounts of participants to illustrate some of the limitations of the
WLB discourse, and the taken for granted assumptions on which it is based, when
considered in a cross-national context. We did not introduce the phrase WLB in the
country meetings and interviews, but rather spoke off integrating, harmonizing or
combining paid work and other parts of life. Nevertheless many of the participants
referred to WLB as shorthand for these issues, particularly in the UK and US, the
Netherlands and India. In the next section we draw on qualitative data from the study to
question some of the assumptions inherent in the WLB discourse.

Assumptions inherent in WLB approaches

Countries experience challenges of combining paid work with other parts of life
differently and factors that have prompted growing attention to these challenges vary.
For example, in India, the opening of the economy in 1991 brought more exposure to
global competitiveness and opportunities for economic growth, but this has been
coupled with increasingly demanding workloads and long working hours for ‘new
economy’ workers.3 In this context, the control of time WLB discourse resonates at the
personal level and the flexibility discourse is also emerging. In contrast, there is a longer
history of WLB discourses in the USA, and in the UK where there is a high profile
government WLB campaign (see Fleetwood, this issue). High levels of sickness absence
and early retirement contributed to government interest in WLB in the Netherlands. The
WLB discourse is used, but less so, in Norway, Japan and South Africa, although the
issues are nevertheless much discussed.
While country experiences and approaches differ (see Gambles et al., 2006) in this
paper we focus on the more generic taken-for-granted assumptions that permeate
the WLB discourse and reflect on some of the implications. While all the limitations of the
WLB metaphor, discussed in the Editor’s Introduction to this issue, limit our thinking about
the issues, we focus here on a critical analysis of three crucial assumptions implicit
in the WLB discourse: assumptions of gender neutrality, individual choice and cultural
neutrality.

Gender neutral assumptions

We have argued that the WLB terminology developed initially to counter the focus on
women, particularly mothers of young children, evident in initial ‘work –family’
research and practice. It is positioned as gender neutral and, therefore, purports to
challenge assumptions about separate, gendered spheres (Bailyn, 1993; Rapoport et al.,
2002) – deeply held convictions that family is a woman’s domain and thus implicitly, the
public sphere of paid work, a man’s domain. However, changing the discourse does not,
in itself, change the reality of gendered spheres. While language creates understanding
 364 The International Journal of Human Resource Management
and experiences, WLB discourses are positioned within wider discursive spaces
constructing particular gender assumptions and dynamics (see, for example, Hall, 1997).
WLB discourses, by claiming gender neutrality and obscuring wider ongoing gendered
discourses and practices serve to reinforce and reproduce gender inequities.
Debates about personal difficulties in managing various life domains in the context of
the growing invasiveness of paid work (the time control dimension of WLB) were
discussed by both men and women in all the countries in our study – although to different
extents and in different ways. For example, in the Netherlands WLB was often
conceptualized at the household level, albeit in terms of individualized and largely
gendered strategies.
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it may be that the balance in the Netherlands is not too bad for instance in relation to England
and the United States ... because women have their own strategies which they pay for themselves
by working less. So it’s not the state taking care of the WLB, but men and women in private
households. (Dutch woman, researcher)

Elsewhere there was often a more individual focus. Although used by both men and
women, however, WLB in the control of time sense is far from gender neutral, as time
continues to be experienced differently by men and women. Despite the growth in
women’s participation in paid work over the past half century in all seven
countries, women retain a much closer tie with family care and domestic responsibilities,
linked to current manifestations of the ‘gender order’ (Connell, 1987). Care and domestic
responsibilities can limit the time that women allocate to paid work (OECD, 2001; Sook-
Yeon, 2005) and also, to leisure (Kay, 2000). The prevailing gender order similarly limits
the extent to which men are able to change the allocation of their everyday activities by
becoming more involved with care and domestic roles (Brandth and Kvande, 2001).
Although the flexibility WLB discourse is positioned as gender neutral, and inclusive,
in practice it still tends to be interpreted as largely for women. It is, in effect, in many
contexts, the old, deeply gendered debate about managing work-and family, dressed up in
new terminology but nevertheless largely constructed as a woman’s issue. In South
Africa, for example, despite crises in care due to the HIV/AIDS epidemic, affecting both
men and women, it was reported that: ‘It is assumed men are not involved with caring and
they often get left out when it comes to opportunities to change their working practices’
(South African man, country meeting).
In Japan, where there is growing attention to ‘WLB’ challenges, particularly in the
context of very low birth rates, there are emerging government discussions about the
need to get men more active in domestic and care work. Yet we heard:
There is a two-tier workforce in Japan. One, which is very highly career orientated, which is
described as full-time work and is largely dominated by men. The second is part-time work,
which lacks any of the benefits associated with full time work, and is largely dominated by
women. [Men] are seen as the breadwinners and they are desperate to get jobs that enable them
to provide economically for current or future families. (Japanese woman, researcher)

The same neglect of men’s family needs is true in workplaces in other contexts. Thus
most men remain unable or reluctant to make significant changes in paid work and other
parts of their life, and many women who take up ‘WLB’ policies continue to be
marginalized (Brandth and Kvande, 2001; Butler and Skattebo, 2004; De Cierei, 2005).
Framing the issues in a gender neutral way can potentially enhance men’s sense
of entitlement to modify working patterns (Lewis and Smithson, 2001; Smithson
and Stokoe, 2005). However, the gender neutral discourse of WLB in terms of
flexibility and implied choice equates care with other activities, and again obscures
 Lewis et al.: The constraints of a ‘work –life balance’ 365
gender differences in non (paid) work demands and the need for changes in workplaces
to accommodate care. For example, in the Netherlands we heard:
I think the discussion on free choice leaves women with the care for children. If you say its your
free choice to have a child and to care for it, and it’s the same for you as for the people without
children who want to leave their work for 3 months to go to India, in my ears it’s a strange
discussion and the one choice has consequences for society and a meaning for society, the other
doesn’t. (Dutch woman, Civil servant)

Moreover, the gender neutrality of the WLB discourse obscures the gendered
assumptions, values and practices that persist and are exacerbated in many contemporary
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workplaces. The ideal worker has long been assumed to be one who can prioritize
paid work above all other activities (Brandth and Kvande, 2001; Rapoport et al., 2002)
and as workloads are intensified and boundaries increasingly blurred in the contemporary
context, expectations of the ideal worker correspondingly expand. Transformations in
and speeding up of paid work in the face of global competition can exacerbate
assumptions about separate spheres and the difficulties of ‘balancing’ or harmonizing
different domains in more gender equitable ways, undermining progress towards more
gender equitable workplaces.
These changes in the nature of paid work can jeopardize the fragile progress that has
been made in evolving relationships between men and women in some contexts, forcing
a retreat to more traditional gender roles. This is the case, even in Norway, with the most
progressive gender ideology and policies.
I have friends in the Oslo area ... they have big jobs, big salaries, everything in order but they are
stressed and their life is not so good. They want equality in the family but they can’t keep it
up. There are so many pressures at work ... downsizing to keep up with world competition, you
know... their wives decide to stop working for a while to care for the children and this is a good
idea ... but it should also be the husband of course. (Norwegian man, entrepreneur)

The retreat into ‘traditional’ patterns of working and caring, even among relatively
egalitarian couples, in the context of ever intensified workloads, then reinforces the
gendered beliefs of some employers. Again this emerged even in Norway.
Some industries see work and family as incompatible, which fuels gender inequities. There is a
suggestion that some couples like to arrange themselves in more ‘traditional’ gender roles; but to
what extent is this real choice and a real desire or simple pragmatism to certain situations
deemed out of your control. (Norwegian woman, designer)
Thus assumptions about separate spheres of ‘work’ and ‘life’, far from declining, are
exacerbated in contemporary workplaces, reinforcing gendered constraints. The
discourse of WLB does little to challenge this but rather sustains and perpetuates this
assumption and related practices. For example, in Sweden, where social policy
encourages fathers to take parental leave and managers are often sympathetic with this in
principle, workplace strategies to actually facilitate and encourage men to take leave are
often lacking (Back-Wicklund and Plantin, forthcoming).

Assumptions of individual choice in the WLB discourse

A highly related assumption is that WLB is a ‘choice’ and a personal responsibility
(Caproni, 2004; Lewis, 2003; see also Gardiner, this issue). In the workplace it is often
assumed that HR policies can provide flexibility and enhance ‘choice’ thereby solving
WLB issues, without need for systemic change to cultures, structures and practices.
 366 The International Journal of Human Resource Management
The discourse of personal choice and individual responsibility, was voiced by
participants in all the countries in our study, whether about perceived choices to take
up flexible working policies, or ‘decisions’ to allow work to dominate over other aspects
of life. In many respects, contemporary forms of work, especially ‘knowledge work’, are
becoming more compelling, and a major source of status and identity (Lewis, 2003).
Hence, some people say they are happy with the ‘choice’ to work long and hard, but
many blame themselves for not being able to ‘get the balance right’ or to manage what, in
the context of contemporary work and technology, are increasingly blurred boundaries
between work and other areas of life.
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We always make that space for work being the most important thing and everything else which
is non –work gets pushed or relegated to the back. (Indian woman, country meeting)

I have desperately been trying to learn to relearn to play the piano for the last year... and I need to
spend half an hour a day but, whenever given a choice, work will predominate, and I let that
happen. (British woman, working in a NGO)
However, choices are always socially embedded (Lewis and Giullari, 2005). The
‘choice’ assumption implicit in the WLB discourse neglects not only the gendered
contexts in which individual and household ‘choices’ are produced and the profound
effects of persistent gendered assumptions at workplaces, but also the changing nature of
work, workloads and employer/manager practices and strategies that constrain ‘choice’.
There are numerous constraints on individual choice in contemporary contexts. Some
stem from assumptions about ideal workers, discussed above. Many white collar
workers, especially in professional or managerial roles feel they need to demonstrate
‘commitment’ by being seen to put in long hours of what, in the US is called ‘face time’,
but is also evident elsewhere in the context of the ‘new economy’. For example,
You work long hours, and then you are seen as really making a difference. (South Africa country
meeting)

it has become so entrenched... especially in the new economy... we’ve got to work hard and...
literally give up our personal lives. (India, management consultant)
This is exacerbated in the context of the intensification of work, increasingly
documented across several contexts and occupations (e.g. Das Dores Guerreiro et al.,
2004; White et al., 2003). ‘Choices’ are further constrained and manipulated by certain
contemporary management practices such as ‘high commitment’ management
approaches (Appelbaum and Berg, 2001; White et al., 2003). These approaches involve
practices that can be experienced very positively, contributing to job satisfaction and also
potentially enhancing opportunities for harmonizing paid work and other parts of life.
However, many are also double edged. They can increase demands and intensity of work,
by encouraging and manipulating employees to put in extra ‘discretionary’ or voluntary
effort and to internalize the need to work harder to improve performance, which, in turn,
reinforces the sense of personal responsibility and choice. For example, a South Africa
participant in our study talked about team working and performance related pay in the
gold mines, which produced financial rewards but also peer pressure to work long and
intensively. In these contexts, assumptions about individual ‘choice’ within the WLB
discourse become more problematic and detract attention from the roots of the problems.
It is in this context that many employers introduce WLB or flexible working policies,
to enable those who cannot conform to the norm of inflexible and often extensive
working hours (implicitly mainly women) to be able to work. These policies do not
challenge deeply held convictions about how work should be carried out, the nature of
 Lewis et al.: The constraints of a ‘work –life balance’ 367
ideal workers or the inevitability of rather demanding and unquestioned working hours.
Often such policies enable employees to work more rather than fewer hours and/ or
penalize those who use them (Lewis, 2003). Thus, the discourse of choice is often used as
a rhetorical device to encourage the acceptance of procedures that are in practice double-
edged (see also Fleetwood, this issue).
Thus, although many government and/or workplace policy initiatives are in place to
address ‘WLB’ in diverse contexts, the notion of ‘choice’ and an emphasis on individual
action found within WLB discourses – and policies and practices that are developed
within this paradigm – mask persisting organizational and societal controls and
constraints. Many of the participants in our study voiced concern about this.
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My concern is that people are working so much and so intensively that everything else gets lost.
And people think this is a personal choice. (British woman, researcher)

Assumptions that WLB is culture free

The WLB discourse originated in the USA and UK, spread quickly to other English
speaking countries and later to parts of Europe (Smithson et al., 2005). It is also
spreading further afield. The use of the WLB discourse in diverse cultures masks an
assumption that this is culture free and obscures its Anglo-American origins. Experiences
in the new economy in India serve as a case study to illustrate how WLB discourses and
the working practices that they symbolize are permeating certain sectors of society in a
non-Western culture. WLB is much discussed among new economy workers in India
(although it is not discussed in relation to the rest of the population), along with concerns
about the impacts of ‘imbalance’ on families, communities and traditions. The
terminology is seeping in to organizations largely because of globalization and
the presence of multinationals who are introducing the concept in, for example,
employee surveys:
I belonged to GE for about 14 years I worked for that company, and they do an annual employee
satisfaction survey across the globe which is driven by the US corporate in Fairfield ... the results
of that survey when they came, the single most important issue [in India] was WLB. (Indian
man, manager and former call centre worker)
The terminology contributes to the production of the problem (feelings of
‘imbalance’) and proposed ‘solutions’ (policies for flexibility and ‘choice’).
However, WLB does not pick up on and can even obscure the more fundamental
conflicts that are being experienced in India, for example between new ways of working
in the new, developing economy and aspects of traditional culture. There is recognition
of the need to accept change in India tinged with concern about some of the cultural and
societal costs. ‘We have to accept the need for change in countries like India, but we also
have to retain the good things. This, however, is easier said than done’ (Indian man,
managing director).
There is an inherent conflict between an acceptance of the ideology and values behind
the WLB discourse on the one hand and a grappling with issues over how to retain good
things from their own culture and take good things from Western culture. The first view
is manifested in recognition of the benefits as well as the costs of new ways of working
and a widely expressed view that social factors and needs must take second place to the
need for economic development.
The change has been positive from the consumer point of view, the customer point of view,
because you have now more choices, more competition, prices rather than increasing have gone
 368 The International Journal of Human Resource Management
down because of competition and organizations have really become enterprises which are more
efficient and more productive and are caring for the customer ... but all this on the reverse side
has caused an imbalance in the personal life. (Indian man, manager)

We have to be seen as being as smart and competitive as the West and we will have to keep on
developing and thinking less of the social until we reach this. (Indian man, consultant)
Yet these views are counterbalanced with an underlying resistance to Western values
and concern to sustain aspects of Indian heritage, which many perceive to be in conflict
with Western values.
Indian Society is in a state of flux ... society is basically at cross roads ... [We] are basically faced
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with this globalization, by this challenge that is coming in from the West at the same time ... [we are]
very much in conflict with our heritage with the kind of mental baggage that has come down to us.
(Indian woman, government official)

Everyone in India is grappling with the issue of how to retain good things in their culture while
taking good things from Western culture – and there are good things. (Indian man, managing
director)

our value system [is] being eroded, so it’s not just economic development, there is a need to hold
on to the values which are fast disappearing ... a sense of belongingness, about keeping the
family together ... the fact that you care about your parents, you take care of them when they
grow old ... These kind of values, these are more threatened and ... the family breaks down.
(Indian man, entrepreneur)
The WLB discourse ignores and obscures these cultural dilemmas. In this context it is
not surprising that while WLB policies are appreciated by many of those working in
global companies, there is resistance from other employers.
A lot of multinationals have come in and people have begun working in non-Indian
organizations, I have been hearing more and more about work-life issues, the other day
somebody was talking about flexi hours and how she can convert an assignment into man hours
and it doesn’t matter if she does it from home ... but I’m not sure how many Indian organizations
would do that. I tried to do the same with the organization I worked with and I wasn’t successful
... it wasn’t okay with them. (Indian woman, manager)
The WLB terminology that has infiltrated from the West has failed to address the
nature of current conflict and tension that is being felt in India. The flexible working
solutions that emerge from WLB debates and policies do not begin to address these issues
because globalization challenges diverse traditions and tends to perpetuate assumptions
that Westernization, choice and consumerism are universal goals to be achieved in
homogenous ways (Bauman, 1998).

Version of reality promoted and interests served

The WLB discourse and associated assumptions about individual responsibility to make
changes in a supposedly gender neutral context, across national contexts, construct a
version of reality that accepts uncritically the values of dominant neoliberal forms of
capitalism, in which workers are, in effect, ‘willing slaves’ (Bunting, 2004), regardless
of individual and societal costs. It ignores structural, cultural and gendered constraints
and assumptions and thus obscures bigger challenges.
WLB policies aim for quick fixes – tilting the scales just a little to achieve the
mythical balance, but rarely seeking more fundamental change. Because WLB
in the personal control of time sense resonates so widely, quick fixes can be appreciated
 Lewis et al.: The constraints of a ‘work –life balance’ 369
in the short term, for example to enable parents, especially mothers of young children to
fit in multiple demands. It may thus appear that the interest of workers are served by
enhancing ‘choice’ but the double-edged impact of working practices that provide
‘flexibility’ in the context of gendered assumptions, ever intensifying workloads and the
prevailing ideologies of personal responsibility for WLB, ultimately serve the interests of
employers at least in the short term. Long-term sustainability remains in question. Unless
basic workplace practices, structures and cultures are re-examined and challenged, other
versions of reality, including equitable and diverse working practices within and across
organizations and national cultures, contributing in diverse ways to a global economy
will not be envisaged as possibilities nor pursued.
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Alternative versions of reality require a questioning of the assumptions underpinning

the WLB discourse and fundamental mindset changes. At the most basic this will
include: a focus on workplace change, implementation and practice rather than just WLB
policies or individual/household WLB strategies. More fundamentally it will involve a
focus on the global context in which ‘WLB’ has become such a pressing issue.

An alternative discourse to draw attention to more fundamental issues?

We have argued that the WLB approach to framing current debates has led to quick-fix
solutions, such as flexible working policies that are often of limited effectiveness because
they do not question assumptions about the gendered nature of work or the constraints to
individual choices. This approach is being exported to ‘developing’ countries without
consideration of cultural issues. These assumptions obscure more fundamental issues, a
view that some of our participants also touched upon: ‘The WLB debate is actually on the
edge of a much bigger problem. It all comes down to questioning and thinking about the
ways in which capitalism has encouraged us to live our lives in particular ways’ (British
woman, NGO).
Thus, the very language that has helped to raise awareness about some paid work and
personal life issues now constitutes a barrier to thinking more widely about how things
might change. A number of alternative discourses has emerged, such as work–life
articulation (Crompton et al., forthcoming), work–life integration (e.g. Kossek and
Lambert, 2006) or the harmonization of paid work and personal life (Gambles et al.,
2006) to try to move away from a metaphor implying that simply redressing the ‘balance’
for individual workers will resolve more complex issues.
A focus on the implications of the changing nature of paid work in the global context
and the neglect of social factors may help to move beyond the individualistic, gender and
culture blind nature of current debates and policies. An emerging concept in Europe
which may be useful in this respect is that of socially sustainable work (Brewster, 2004;
Webster, 2004). As Webster (2004: 62 –3) argues, ‘we now have to broaden our concerns
to consider the impact of the organisation of work on the wider sphere of life beyond paid
employment – for the individual, for communities, for society at large. In other words,
our concern must now be with enhancing the broader social sustainability of working
life.’
The sustainability of current forms of paid work is in question in many contexts for a
number of reasons. First, birth rates are declining throughout much of the industrialized
world, notably in Japan and Europe. This raises issues of population sustainability and
related concerns about a crisis of caring as populations age. Fertility changes in Europe
have been linked with persistent gendered employment experiences, exacerbated
by current forms of work (Fagnani, forthcoming; Hašková, forthcoming) which
underestimate the importance of social reproduction for national economies as well as
 370 The International Journal of Human Resource Management
quality of life. In Japan, too, there is explicit concern about sustaining a future workforce
as well as future consumers: ‘The birth rate is a huge issue. In 1,500 years there will be no
Japanese left. We will be extinct ... family and work are not compatible’ (Japanese
women, government advisor).
Second, rising levels of stress and sickness absence in many contexts (Back-Wiklund
and Plantin, forthcoming; Geurts et al., 2000) also question the sustainability of current
values and ways of working. Threats to cultural traditions, some of which may be vital to
sustain working families also encourage new ways of thinking about sustainability.
It is possible that shifting the discussion – and language used – to the sustainability of
current models of paid work and their social impacts might encourage a questioning
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of prevailing values and practices and lead to more long-term thinking. The discourse of
socially sustainable work has the potential to encourage a movement away from quick-
fix policy solutions that help people to adapt to, rather than challenge, current ways of
working. It might also encourage a shift beyond short-term thinking about profits to
longer-term considerations of broader societal and economic issues including personal,
family and community well-being (Bunting, 2004; Webster, 2004). If language creates
understanding and experiences, an alternative discourse of this nature is important.
Raising awareness of the bigger issues involved in the current ‘work–life’ dilemma
may be one strategy for shifting thinking about these issues, just as awareness-raising
campaigns are targeting the way people think about the sustainability of the environment.
Such a shift in emphasis at the workplace is likely to require the setting of new
boundaries by government policy-makers – for example, restrictions on the length of the
working week, and other limits on the demands that employers make on full-time,
‘standard’ workers. This would, however, be just a start. There is evidence, for example,
that the 35-hour week regulation in France is not without problems and can be
circumvented by those ‘choosing’ to work longer within current constraints (Fagnani and
Letablier, 2004). Systemic changes at the workplace level will also be necessary.
The WLB discourse encourages HR solutions in terms of policies, which rarely lead to
changes in workplace structures, cultures and practices because underlying and outdated
assumptions about ideal workers and the way that paid work should be carried out are not
challenged. A discourse of sustainability has the potential to generate different questions
and shift attention to the need for more systemic change in workplaces. Currently WLB
in the organizational flexibility sense is often regarded as a (short-term) cost, even if it is
recognized that there may be long-term benefits. The main concern often remains short-
term profit. For example Bloom et al. (2006: 25) argue that ‘even if productivity does not
fall, WLB is costly to implement and maintain, and may result in significantly lower
profitability’. This contrasts with a ‘dual agenda’ approach (Rapoport et al., 2002), which
addresses both workplace effectiveness and opportunities for equitable strategies for
combining paid work and personal life, where both are accorded equal importance.
A dual agenda approach to change involves a collaborative process for surfacing
prevailing assumptions about how work is done, considering the impact of these
assumptions on both effectiveness and employees’ work and personal lives and
developing innovations to meet this dual agenda. There is mounting evidence that this
approach, for example using action research, can be successful in meeting a dual agenda
in a range of contexts (Lewis and Cooper, 2005; Rapoport et al., 2002).
An alternative discourse has implications for research, which needs to problematize
taken-for-granted meanings and assumptions about WLB and to focus on the nature of
work more than individual dilemmas. It could have important implications for HRM.
A move away from a focus on policy to a process approach would involve looking at the
 Lewis et al.: The constraints of a ‘work –life balance’ 371
nature of paid work and underlying assumptions and seeking innovative ways of
changing these to benefit organizations, workers and societies more generally.
More controversially, a social sustainability approach may also involve questioning
some of the assumptions of current forms of competitive capitalism which value
economic growth for its own sake regardless of social factors and quality of life.4

Notes
1 WLB also becomes linked to certain policies (e.g. relating to flexible working) but at the same
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time obscures other policies and practices such as those associated with the spread of
neoliberalism as we discuss later, and Fleetwood (this issue) also notes.
2 This study was funded by the Ford Foundation with a grant to the Institute of Family and
Environmental Research, directed by Rhona Rapoport.
3 There is less discussion of these issues as they affect the majority of the population, in the rural
economy).
4 See, e.g., Layard (2005) who shows that beyond a certain threshold of economic development,
more money is not reflected in higher levels of happiness.

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