Work/Life Balance

Work/life balance is the precarious art of men's and women's balancing act of their multiple roles and responsibilities associated with engagement in paid work and unpaid activities, such as family care, community service, professional development, and self-care. This also involves mechanisms that employers enact to help employees effectively handle work/life pressures so that they can be more productive and achieve their goals.

Women, many of whom were mothers, entering the workforce in increasing numbers in the 1960s and 1970s in the United States and Canada created a need for greater emphasis on supports requisite to maintaining the status quo in businesses and homes. Thus, women in the workforce likely were the impetus for the term work/life balance. Employers found that working women needed child care, ...