Family Futures

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nsuring

ork

-F

amily

alance

it feasible for working parents to spend adequate time at

home and provide the necessary care and supervision to

their children, family-friendly policies can reduce infant

and child morbidity and mortality; encourage longer

breastfeeding duration; and make a difference in chil-

dren’s academic achievement, behaviour and general

development. The ILO,

on the other hand, has high-

lighted benefits for society, including reduced poverty

as parents in low-income families are able to participate

in income-generating activities; improved employment

and occupation equities between men and women; and

improved family and marital relationships. For employ-

ers, the literature is abundant with evidence showing that

family-friendly policies are linked to job engagement, satis-

faction, retention and better health for employees; reduced

absenteeism and lateness; higher motivation, performance,

and hence productivity of employees; and enhanced capac-

ity to attract a broader range of candidates that can create

and maintain a competitive and innovative edge, contribut-

ing to improved competitiveness.

The literature on work-family conflict and work-family

balance has, however, several noteworthy limitations that

require the attention of scholars and policymakers in the

area. These include a biased focus on western countries;

very little has been done in the developing regions of the

world. An often-advanced notion for this is that developed

and developing countries differ in the degree of impor-

tance attached to work and family and the extent to which

they perceive them to be incompatible.

That is, while

westerners typically perceive time spent at work as time

spent fulfilling personal ambition, in developing societies

people value work as a means of supporting the family and

improving family welfare,

and hence are less likely to view

the demands of work as a challenge. Another assumption

is that the extended family – which is the main famil-

ial system in many developing societies – has a strong

traditional culture of intergenerational support where

grandparents, aunts and other relatives are counted on to

provide childcare support.

There is also a biased focus

on women which might be understood against the socio-

cultural relations that, in many countries, relegate unpaid

family responsibilities to women, as well as the social poli-

cies’ historical disregard of men’s contribution to family

life. Children, specifically those of preschool age are

another specific target group due largely to the increased

proportion of single-parent households which means that

children are less likely to have other adult carers from

within the family.

However, given the prevailing socioeconomic and demo-

graphic changes that underlie much work-family conflict, it

is imperative for the post-2014 research and policy agenda

in this area to disregard outdated notions of the family and

the availability of its support. Instead, it must take into

account the changed nature of families and workplaces by

the following means.

It is important to recognize that workers in developing

countries face the same challenges as those in the west. It

is noteworthy that developing countries are experiencing

similar socioeconomic and demographic changes as devel-

oped countries. Thus, workers in these countries face the

same challenges of reconciling work and family demands

as their counterparts in the west. Despite this, develop-

ing countries have not been a visible part of the global

work-family research agenda, resulting in a paucity of

information regarding the work-family situation in these

countries. This calls for the development and execution of

a research agenda aimed at acquiring an information base

for understanding the antecedents of work-family conflict

and balance in these countries; their impact on individu-

als and societies; and plausible context-relevant strategies

and policies for achieving work-family balance. In execut-

ing this agenda it will also be worthwhile for scholars and

policymakers in developing countries to establish partner-

ships with regional and international networks for research

and information exchange on current work-family balance

policy options, experiences and best practices. In addition

to responding to the increasing calls for more cross-

cultural research on the subject, this research agenda will

be imperative for documenting valuable lessons on suitable

approaches to address the varying needs of employees given

the globalization of the world economy, where managers

around the world are increasingly confronted with real and

virtual employees and teams with diverse cultural and soci-

odemographic backgrounds.

The focus on children needs to be extended to include

school-aged children, as arranging care for this group of chil-

dren presents another difficult set of challenges for working

parents. Although the time a child spends in school provides

a supervised environment for a significant number of hours

each day while parents work, many families experience

gaps between parental work hours and after-school hours.

Several studies have documented the negative outcomes that

result when children are unsupervised after school, such as

involvement in high risk behaviour and criminal activities,

increased risk of physical injury, emotional harm and poor

Common examples of alternative work schedules

Flexi-time

– the employee is required to be at the workplace

during specified hours or the ‘core’ hours; all other hours are flexibly

scheduled to work a prescribed number of hours per pay period.

Compressed work week –

employees work longer hours each day

but fewer days a week.

Telecommuting

– employees work out of their homes or at

a satellite work site instead of in the office; they are usually

connected to the office by computer and/or telephone.

Job sharing

– two or more workers share the duties of one full-

time job, each working part-time; or two or more workers who have

unrelated part-time assignments share the same budget line

Part-time employment

– can refer to portions of days, weeks,

months or years worked by temporary or permanent workers.

Voluntary reduced work time

– employees reduce their work time

and salary by a specified amount (usually between 5 per cent and

50 per cent) for a specific period (6-12 months) or permanently

while retaining benefits and seniority on a prorated basis.