Issues of Teaching and Learning, 11(6)

Balancing life: Paid work and the rest of life

Balancing life, in terms of allocating time for paid employment and all the other facets, has been discussed widely. “The underlying assumption is that we all work too hard. We live to work – not the other way round” (Arthur, 2002). Finding an equilibrium, or balancing the demands on an employee’s time, has been shown to be good for both employer and employee, for it leads to a “happier and, ultimately, more productive workforce” (Institute for Employment Research, 2001). In order to avoid the pitfalls of an unbalanced workforce, there are ‘work-life balance’ policies and programmes in a number of industrialised countries that are promoted by governments or other bodies (Todd, 2004). However, the term ‘work-life balance’ seems to imply that paid work is not part of life, and that all other activities must be leisure.

Balancing the demands on one’s time is an issue for staff at all levels of an organisation, however finding the right balance is dependant on the individual staff member’s circumstances, including the policies and expected work practices relevant to the position. It is interesting to note that the Working Life Survey 2003 (University of Western Australia, 2004) data indicate that the job was a source of considerable personal stress to a majority of academic staff in this University (60.5%, n=420), and yet a large majority was also generally satisfied with the job (73.7%, n=422). This edition of ITL raises some of the issues in balancing life.

• Arthur, L. (2002). Work-life balance: Towards an agenda for policy learning between Britain and Germany. Anglo-German Foundation for the Study of Industrial Society. Retrieved August 2, 2005, from http://www.agf.org.uk/pubs/pdfs/1381WorkLifeweb.pdf

• Brown, P. (2004). Promoting work/life balance in a ‘hurry culture’: Issues and challenges. Mt Gravatt, Queensland:Griffith University. Retrieved August 3, 2005, from http://www.gu.edu.au/ins/collections/proflects/brownp04.pdf

• Institute for Employment Research(2001). Work-life balance in Britain (Bulletin NO. 63). Warwick, UK. The University of Warwick.

• Todd, S. (2004). Improving Work-Life Balance – What Are Other Countries Doing? Human Resources and Skills Development Canada. Retrieved August 3, 2005, from http://www.hrsdc.gc.ca/en/lp/spila/wlb/pdf/improvingwork-life-balance.pdf

• University of Western Australia (2004. Working life survey 2003 (Report No. 04/25) Retrieved August 22, 2005, from http://www.hr.uwa.edu.au/?f=44075

What's Inside ITL

• Balancing life: Paid work and the rest of life

• Habits of work? Habits of Culture?

• A PhD student's poor work-life balance

• Additional resources

• Excellence in teaching

Some of us love our work. So much so that we work extraordinary long hours with our social lives merging almost seamlessly with our work. We stay late at the office, attend work events in the evening, and socialise with colleagues at the weekend. Institute for Employment Research, 2001

I doubt if there is anyone in this audience who cannot relate to the juggling act involved in balancing the demands of professional, family and personal life. I also wonder how many of you here have a sense that the pace of life is accelerating, where there seems to be more and more things to do yet less time in which to do them. Brown, 2004

The Centre for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning (CATL) invites reader response to its publication ITL. Responses advancing the scholarly debate of issues raised will be published in the Web version of that issue.