Conceptualising Work-Life Balance; Extension of Work-Family Balance

The balance between work and non-work lives has been the subject of debate among academicians, practitioners, and policy makers over the past two decades. This is because significant changes in the demographics in modern societies have blurred the boundary and the interactions between work and other life's interests. However the term work-life balance itself is still inconclusive as there were some studies that referred it as work-family balance. Additionally, the studies of work-life balance were lacking in terms of consistent measurements that actually assessed both work-and non-work interfaces. Therefore, this conceptual study aims to better understand the difference between work-family balance and work-life balance based on review of various literatures for the benefits of both academics and human resource practitioners. At the end of this paper, a measurement called satisfaction with work-life balance is proposed to better operationalised work-life balance concept.