scholarly journals Balancing between professional and private life

Family Forum ◽  
2022 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 15-34
Author(s):  
Monika Joanna Kornaszewska-Polak

Abstract The idea of reconciling work with personal life was in its heyday at the turn of the 20th century when people realised that it was impossible to completely separate these inextricably linked spheres of human existence. Neglecting either of them, and not only in the scientific discourse but also in everyday life, is in many aspects detrimental to close relationships and to the performance at work. Nevertheless, a perfect combination of these two dimensions of human activity seems almost unattainable, as a growing number of contemporary studies show. Becoming involved in one entails some negligence in the other. The family context represents a relevant example of the attempts to reach the work-life balance. It is increasingly frequent that the contemporary young adults’ generation prioritise work, individual career, and personal development in their hierarchy of values. They delay their decisions on starting a family, having children, or simply settling down until they have achieved an adequate status and prosperity. Seeking to satisfy the need for close bonds, many young adults engage in only temporary relationships (cohabitation, swingers), but also create substitutes thereof. This generation succumbs to a growing sense of loneliness, despite the fulfilling careers or satisfying material and social statuses.

Employee retention among millennials has been garnering attention of many organizations especially the growing numbers of this generation in the workforce. Interestingly, this generation is observed to have unique characteristics that are different from the other generations, which one of them includes their habit of frequently switching jobs. This unique habit of them poses a threat to the organizations as there are costs involved during recruitment, hiring and training. Some identified factors that influences their retention are namely: 1) work-life balance, 2) awards, 3) opportunity for personal development, 4) career achievement and 5) company’s concern on the employee’s ability. This research aims to examine millennials’ expectation surrounding their current working activity and the degree of preferences among the five factors mentioned. Results of our study shows that in general, all above mentioned factors are present in the organization where they are working at. Whereas for their preferences, opportunity for personal development ranks first followed by work-life balance, career achievements, awards and lastly, the company’s concern on the employee’s ability.


2019 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 110-129
Author(s):  
Matteo Avogaro

In recent years, the increasing process of digitization has gradually blurred the boundaries between work and private life. Therefore, new issues concerning workers’ protection arose. One of the main topics on this matter is related to employees’ tendency to utilize technological devices, as smartphones and tablets, to remain “connected” to their job outside ordinary business hours. In relation to this aspect, the paper addresses the debate and juridical solutions proposed and developed in France, through the Loi El Khomri, and in Italy, with the law No. 81/2017 recently approved by Parliament, to introduce a right (and/or an obligation) to disconnect in favour of digitized employees, and in order to protect workers’ private life, preventing diseases related to risk of burnout and the augmentation of stress. Furthermore, the analysis will be focused on the social debate related to the abovementioned topic. In particular, it will concern the positions assumed on this matter by main workers’ and employers’ organizations of the said countries, and their reactions to the initiatives undertaken by legislators, in order to realize a first evaluation concerning the impact of the solutions proposed. Afterwards, the attention will be cantered on praxis and tools introduced by collective agreements, in order to verify whether social partners have been able to find more efficient methods to balance work and private life, than the ones suggested by legislators. The outcome of the paper is referred to the actions that ILO could assume, on the base of the experience developed in France and in Italy, to address the future global issue of protecting employees’ work-life balance.


2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (3.6) ◽  
pp. 134
Author(s):  
S M. Chockalingam ◽  
P Sudarshan

Human beings in this earth have to work for inevitable reasons. For the purpose of employment people even migrate to their nearest cities or even they may relocate themselves too far off places, due to swiftly growing population across the country and also numbers of people getting qualified degrees have increased a lot. On the other hand scope for employment is considerably reducing day by day. This has made job markets completely employee driven. When job markets become employee driven, by all means employees will extract much work from employees. This will make them spend more and more time at the workplace and less time with their families. The result of this will lead to imbalance between work and family life. This study tries to cover many insights on work life balance especially covering major BPO employees working at Bangalore.  


Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 261
Author(s):  
Chenxing Han

This paper engages the perspectives of thirty young adult Asian American Buddhists (YAAABs) raised in non-Buddhist households. Grounded in semi-structured, one-on-one in-person and email interviews, my research reveals the family tensions and challenges of belonging faced by a group straddling multiple religious and cultural worlds. These young adults articulate their alienation from both predominantly white and predominantly Asian Buddhist communities in America. On the one hand, they express ambivalence over adopting the label of “convert” because of its Christian connotations as well as its associations with whiteness in the American Buddhist context. On the other hand, they lack the familiarity with Asian Buddhist cultures experienced by second- or multi-generation YAAABs who grew up in Buddhist families. In their nuanced responses to arguments that (1) American convert Buddhism is a non-Asian phenomenon, and (2) Asians in the West can only “revert” to Buddhism, these young adults assert the plurality and hybridity of their lived experiences as representative of all American Buddhists, rather than incidental characteristics of a fringe group within a white-dominated category.


Author(s):  
Michael Bourdillon

In much of human history, and in the majority of the world today, children participate in the work activities of the communities in which they are growing, and thereby learn to become productive members of the societies in which they live. Relatively recently, the principal work of children has switched from productive work to schoolwork, a change that has created conceptual problems for understanding the continuing importance of children’s work outside school. An attempt to divide children’s work into harmful “labor” and benign “work” fails to account for the vast majority of children’s work, which combines potentially positive and negative elements. References to harmful work and exploitative conditions can be found in the Oxford Bibliographies article on Child Labor. More positive accounts of children’s work in different cultural contexts appear in the article on Children’s Work and Apprenticeship, which focuses on unpaid work in the family context and work associated with learning. Neither article defines its topic in relation to the other. This indeterminate division leaves gaps, omitting some literature on children’s work that does not easily fall into either category, such as the benefits that children can derive from employment and how to assess costs and benefits in children’s work. This article, therefore, has two roles: it points to publications that provide a more comprehensive view of children’s work and it fills some of the gaps left by the other two articles.


Management ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 326-340 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janina Stankiewicz ◽  
Hanna Bortnowska ◽  
Patrycja Łychmus

Summary The article presents the results of research concerning worklife balance of employees of enterprises located in lubuskie voivodeship. The working conditions provided by employers were analyzed. The authors of research checked whether they favor, according to the respondents, the homeostasis between work and private life. The results showed some deficits in this area. This led to reflection on the potential remedial actions which can be applied in the organization, such as a policy of „family friendly employment”.


2020 ◽  
Vol 25 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-54
Author(s):  
Ondřej Hradský ◽  
Tomáš Sadílek

This article looks at the working expectations and motivations of Generation Y members working in their parents’ businesses. The goal of this article is to identify how the working expectations and motivations of Generation Y members working in their parents’ businesses differ from the working expectations and motivations of Generation Y overall. Qualitative research design and in-depth unstructured interviews with 31 respondents were used to obtain the opinions of Generation Y members working in their parents’ businesses. Three main dimensions of working motivation were surveyed: the reasons for entering a family business, what work in a family business means, and general motivation to work. The principal findings of the article are the importance of work-life balance, flexibility, the opportunity for career development and the drive to continue one’s family tradition for Generation Y members working in their parents’ businesses. A sample of respondents added that they expect to be more involved in the operation of the family business in the future. A sample of our respondents also expected to be more involved in the operation of the family business in the future.


2017 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-43
Author(s):  
Ann Ward

This article explores how Sophocles’ Oedipus the King and Plato’s Apology of Socrates address the question of whether reason can ground the good human life. Sophocles’ tragedy and Plato’s dialogue both tell of the search for rational self-knowledge. Both Oedipus and Socrates are recognized for human wisdom and are presented as skeptical toward the gods. Yet, whereas Oedipus’ life ends in tragedy, Socrates’ life does not. Sophocles thus suggests that the rational search for truth must be limited by a pious respect for the gods. Plato, on the other hand, preserves Socrates’ belief that the ‘unexamined life is not worth living for a human being’. Four lines of inquiry into the causes of this divergence are then explored: 1) Socrates’ order of knowledge from particular to universal, 2) Oedipus’ proneness to anger, 3) Socrates’ private life in contrast to Oedipus’ public life and, 4) the differing status of the family.


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