Work-family balance of knowledge workers in Poland

Abstract

The subject of managing both work and family spheres has drawn a lot of academic attention in the last few decades. Various models of work-family balance have been created. Yet, the most widely used, and perhaps the most feasible are models that measure balance by its absence. In the study, we use the work to family conflict model to investigate how work interrupts the family life. We focus on knowledge workers, as among this group the boundary between work and family spheres continue to be more and more blurry, especially with the presence of new information and communication technologies. In the research, we show how different working patterns and work attitudes influence family life. Additionally, we analyze the impact of usage of ICTs at home for professional reasons on familial harmony. In order to conduct the analysis we use the secondary data from the Social Diagnosis 2013 Project. The analysis is conducted on the group of knowledge workers (nkw=1, 457) and the rest of the workers (now=5, 955). The knowledge workers who used the Internet and e-mail at home for professional reasons were found to be more likely to face family problems than ones who did not use the new technologies in this manner. The relation between working hours and struggling with family problems has turned out to be non-linear and changing depending on the work environment perception. The results suggest that in general knowledge workers, who report work problems, have higher probability of struggling with problems in family than individuals who do not. The workers, who do not perceive their work as problematic, are more likely to have problems in family long very long hours. The individuals who work long hours are less likely to be subject to family problems, if they do not struggle with work-related problems.