This chapter presents a metaphysic for how to understand and think about the relation of work and life in a different way than the current perspectives on work-life balance that was presented in chapter 3. However, it is not presented as a pure metaphysic; rather, it is a metaphysic that transcends the current forms and ways of understanding the relation of work and life. This means that the metaphysic is created with certain problems that have been concerning the theoretical discipline of work-life balance for a long time, matters that have been discussed over and over, and have not yet been resolved. This is an important aspect, because the re-thinking of the relation of work and life is exactly established on the transcendental level of problems, which considers how the given is given. In other words, how is the object of work-life balance constituted and which kinds of problems take this constitution place? The aim is not to resolve these problems but instead to pose them in a new and different way – and hereby deploy a new kind of metaphysic that is new to the discipline of work-life balance. This metaphysic is transcendental rather than transcendent because it is created from within the problematic forms which understand the relation of work and life and is not imposed from the outside.
It is an investigation of the nature of the categories that we invoke when talking, discussing and arguing about the relation of work and life. In this sense it is also a social analytic that will be deployed in the empirical analysis. The chapter describes in detail the transformation of various concepts that traditionally are used to explain the nature of the relation of work and life.
Traditionally, we understand work-life balance as the individual human subject’s experience of work-life balance. However, I will suggest that we should not understand the relation of work and life as a balance that belongs to the human subject in the form of a given experience, if we want to address how the relation between work and life really is constituted. In contrast, I will argue for a metaphysical and ontological
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perspective on these matters in which we think of the relation in itself. However, it is important that this system is understood as an open and changeable system, and that this system does not have the solution to work-life balance. It is a new way of raising the problem of work and life – not as a problem of human subjects, but as a problem of the relation of work and life in itself. In this sense, it is an experiment in metaphysics to go beyond the human subject as the essence of work-life balance in an effort to push the limit for the possible experience of work-life balance.
The aim of the chapter is to expand the way that we can think and experience the relationship of work and life by going beyond the human state to think about the relation of work and life in itself. In this sense it can be read as an expansion of chapter 3 that described the contemporary perspectives on work-life balance. The purpose is neither to study the relation of work and life from a theoretical perspective, empirical perspective nor a perspective between these. Instead, it is to create a different ontology and metaphysics for how to think about the relation of work and life. A consequence of this is that the current theoretical perspectives on work-life balance are insufficient in so far as constituting the relation of work and life in itself. However, this is not to say that these theories are wrong or false, but they will never be able to create a concept of the relationship between work and life that will not be based on human nature and not recognized as basically an individual problem. The reason for critique is therefore political rather than epistemological, because the contemporary perspectives on work-life balance are simply not able to produce a way of thinking about the relation of work and life that is not based upon the individual human subjects’ experience. This implies that I have to be critical of thinking about work-life balance as a matter of experience and relation as balance and not as a matter of thinking about the relation in itself.
Introduction
It has been difficult for the contemporary perspectives on work-life balance to account for what constitutes the relation between work and life (Guest, 2002: 259). This is the case even though there have been numerous suggestions to what should link work and home together and hence constitutes the relationship between them. In the following I will show how the theories of work-life balance are faced with four problems that they
perspective on these matters in which we think of the relation in itself. However, it is important that this system is understood as an open and changeable system, and that this system does not have the solution to work-life balance. It is a new way of raising the problem of work and life – not as a problem of human subjects, but as a problem of the relation of work and life in itself. In this sense, it is an experiment in metaphysics to go beyond the human subject as the essence of work-life balance in an effort to push the limit for the possible experience of work-life balance.
The aim of the chapter is to expand the way that we can think and experience the relationship of work and life by going beyond the human state to think about the relation of work and life in itself. In this sense it can be read as an expansion of chapter 3 that described the contemporary perspectives on work-life balance. The purpose is neither to study the relation of work and life from a theoretical perspective, empirical perspective nor a perspective between these. Instead, it is to create a different ontology and metaphysics for how to think about the relation of work and life. A consequence of this is that the current theoretical perspectives on work-life balance are insufficient in so far as constituting the relation of work and life in itself. However, this is not to say that these theories are wrong or false, but they will never be able to create a concept of the relationship between work and life that will not be based on human nature and not recognized as basically an individual problem. The reason for critique is therefore political rather than epistemological, because the contemporary perspectives on work-life balance are simply not able to produce a way of thinking about the relation of work and life that is not based upon the individual human subjects’ experience. This implies that I have to be critical of thinking about work-life balance as a matter of experience and relation as balance and not as a matter of thinking about the relation in itself.
Introduction
It has been difficult for the contemporary perspectives on work-life balance to account for what constitutes the relation between work and life (Guest, 2002: 259). This is the case even though there have been numerous suggestions to what should link work and home together and hence constitutes the relationship between them. In the following I will show how the theories of work-life balance are faced with four problems that they
have been struggling to solve for the last thirty years or more. I will not be as bold to say that I have the solutions to these problems; rather, I will displace these problems in order to raise new problems that I believe are more important if we want to understand how the relationship between work and life is constituted.
First, the relationship between work and home is constituted by what Edwards and Rothbard call ‘work-family linking mechanism’ (2000: 193) or what Lewis and Cooper (1995) call ‘work-home interface’, as, for example, balance (Saltzstein et al., 2001;
Voydanoff, 2005), spill-over (Greenhaus et al., 2003; Grzywacz et al., 2002; Poelmanns et al., 2008; White et al., 2003), segmentation (Rothbard et al., 2005), compensation (Guest, 2002; Hill et al., 2001), work-family fit (Voydanoff, 2005; see Runté and Mills for a critique), resource drain (Greenhaus et al., 2003; Hill et al., 2008), and conflict (Greenhaus and Beutell, 1985) that constitutes the relation of work and home. All of these mechanisms are recognized by being ways in which the human subjects experience the relation between work and home. Do I see my relation of work and home as a matter of conflict or segmentation? In this sense they are forms that mediate the way that we perceive the relation of work and home. The problem with these mechanisms is that they do not constitute the relation between work and life; they constitute the human subject’s perception of the relation of work and life. This means that they never will be able to account for what constitutes the relation of work and life, but have restricted themselves to study what constitutes the ‘work-family linking mechanism’ in the perception of the human subject.
Second, they have restricted themselves to think of ‘work’ and ‘home’ as constructs that are “conceptually distinct” (Edwards and Rothbard, 2000: 180) or as Clark (2000: 748) remarks “work and family systems, though different, are interconnected”. Accordingly, work and home are defined as being numerically distinct constructs even before they study the relationship between them. This is necessary to establish the ‘work-family linking mechanism’ (Edwards and Rothbard, 2000: 180) so they can account for the conditions of the boundary between work and home. However, there is a price to be paid, because this means that they cannot account for the conditions of the difference between work and life. The problem is therefore not that they do not think about the
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relation of work and life, but that before they even start doing so transform this relation into something general and possible (mechanism of conflict, segmentation, spillover or balance) that makes it thinkable and perceptible for the particular human subject. They
“constitute a set of theoretical conditions that may be examined empirically” (Edwards and Rothbard, 2000: 193). Hereby, they may take into consideration that relation of work and home is given as a construct, but they will forever have restricted themselves to think within the possible conditions that they to begin with set up to make work and home distinct.
Furthermore, it is increasingly difficult within certain forms of jobs today to make a distinction between work and home. This has been discussed as the blurring of the boundaries of work and home (see e.g. Greenhaus and Beutell, 1985; Hall and Richter, 1989; Hardill et al., 1997; Nippert-Eng, 1996; Sullivan and Lewis, 2001). Hereby, it becomes difficult for these theories to establish a distinction between work and home in an effort to create a relationship between them as a consequence of the traditional conditions on which it has been possible to establish the boundary of work and home and a loose definition power, for example, by establishing boundary conditions that separate various places, times, roles, identities of work and home. So I would claim that these current changes in the working conditions commonly addressed as ‘working to live or living to work’ (Sturges and Guest, 2004) or ‘when work becomes home and home becomes work’ (Hochschild, 2000) make it necessary to find other ways of thinking about the constitution of work and life.
Third, theories of work-life balance seem trapped within a dichotomy of the human subject and the environments of work and home. In her influential article ‘Work/family Border Theory: A New Theory of Work/Family Balance’ Sue Campbell Clark (2000:
748) writes that
Though people shape their environments, they are, in turn, shaped by them. It is this very contradiction of determining and being determined by our work and home environments that makes
relation of work and life, but that before they even start doing so transform this relation into something general and possible (mechanism of conflict, segmentation, spillover or balance) that makes it thinkable and perceptible for the particular human subject. They
“constitute a set of theoretical conditions that may be examined empirically” (Edwards and Rothbard, 2000: 193). Hereby, they may take into consideration that relation of work and home is given as a construct, but they will forever have restricted themselves to think within the possible conditions that they to begin with set up to make work and home distinct.
Furthermore, it is increasingly difficult within certain forms of jobs today to make a distinction between work and home. This has been discussed as the blurring of the boundaries of work and home (see e.g. Greenhaus and Beutell, 1985; Hall and Richter, 1989; Hardill et al., 1997; Nippert-Eng, 1996; Sullivan and Lewis, 2001). Hereby, it becomes difficult for these theories to establish a distinction between work and home in an effort to create a relationship between them as a consequence of the traditional conditions on which it has been possible to establish the boundary of work and home and a loose definition power, for example, by establishing boundary conditions that separate various places, times, roles, identities of work and home. So I would claim that these current changes in the working conditions commonly addressed as ‘working to live or living to work’ (Sturges and Guest, 2004) or ‘when work becomes home and home becomes work’ (Hochschild, 2000) make it necessary to find other ways of thinking about the constitution of work and life.
Third, theories of work-life balance seem trapped within a dichotomy of the human subject and the environments of work and home. In her influential article ‘Work/family Border Theory: A New Theory of Work/Family Balance’ Sue Campbell Clark (2000:
748) writes that
Though people shape their environments, they are, in turn, shaped by them. It is this very contradiction of determining and being determined by our work and home environments that makes
work/family balance one of the most challenging concepts in the study of work and the study of families.
She points out one of the biggest problems of contemporary theories of work-life balance (and properly also contemporary social theories in general): how can we separate cause and effects in relation to the production of the social? In other words, the problem that she wants to address is who is creating or constituting the boundary between work and home? Clark argues that where most theories of work-life balance have emphasised human subjects as reactive being determined by working and home environments, she believes that human subjects are proactive in creating and shaping the boundary between work and home (2000: 751). It is therefore human subjects that create the boundary of work and home. However, in my opinion she does not succeed in developing a theoretical answer to the challenge she is raising, because she still takes her point of departure in a given distinction between work and home (2000: 750-751).
Hence, the problem is still if the environments of work and home influence the human subject or vice versa. Is the subject – the creator, the speaker, the determinator of the relationship between work and home – structure or agent? I will argue that this is not the real problem with the theories of work-life balance. It is rather that neither the perspectives that Clark criticizes nor the perspective that Clark presents herself see the relation between work and life as the creator and the subject of work and life. The relation is always created by something else, for example, organizational or individual factors (Guest, 2002: 265) or if people identify themselves with work or home (Clark, 2000: 759). I will suggest that we focus on what in fact is created in order to locate who is created inside this creation as a subject of expression – and not vice versa. This means that instead of focusing on who is creating work-life balance, I will pay attention to who is expressed in the creation of the relationship between work and life.
Fourth, the theories of work-life balance have discussed whatever the outcome of work and home represented as a null sum relationship (see e.g. Edwards and Rothbard, 2000:
194) or plus sum relationship (see e.g. Hill et al., 2001). Is it possible that the demands of work and home can be experienced as being fulfilled at the same time or will one part of the human subject’s demands be left unfulfilled? What is important is that the
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relationship is always thought of by how it affects the human subjects. It can be a matter of, for example, feelings (e.g. Clark, 2000), involvement (e.g. Greenhaus and Beutell, 1985), and work and life satisfaction (e.g. Guest, 2002), stress/illness (e.g. Wise and Bond, 2002), depressive mood (e.g. Duxbury and Higgins, 2001), performance (e.g.
Greenhaus and Beutell, 1985), attention (e.g. Greenhaus et al., 2003), rewards (e.g.
Greenhaus and Beutell, 1985), or meaning (Taylor, 2000). These are examples of the consequences or impact that the constitution of the relationship of work and home has on the human subject’s well-being (or the well-being of others that the human subject knows, e.g. children and spouse). They are important because they are what in fact are said to be studied by theories of work-life balance. They are the dependent variables that are observed. However, the problem is that these variables say more about the human subject’s perception of work and home than they do about the relation. They do not even say something about how the relationship between work and home affects the well-being of the human subject, because the independent variable of the relationship is seen as, for example, work-family spillover conflict (Matsui et al., 1995) or work-life balance (Saltzstein et al., 2001). This means that they develop a scale to measure the level and impact of, for example, conflict and balance, but what they are studying is nevertheless not the relation of work and life: it is a perception of home and work.
Instead of studying the dependent variables (work-family interface) and independent variables (consequences) as a relationship between a cause and effect, I will suggest that we should study both of these as effects in themselves. It is not work and home that influence each other, it is the relationship between life and work that produces effects that can be said to belong to the human subject in the sense that they can be founded as constituting principles within these. This means that I will study the outcome of the relation between work and life as a real expression and not as a possible experience.
In this following part of this chapter I will discuss in detail how we should think and understand these displacements of the four-fold problem of this constitution of the relationship between work and life. The first part regards the object of the relationship between work and life as problematic forms in which the object is expressed. The subject of the relationship between work and life is discussed in the second part. Here it is shown that the relationship between work and life is not expressed by human subjects
relationship is always thought of by how it affects the human subjects. It can be a matter of, for example, feelings (e.g. Clark, 2000), involvement (e.g. Greenhaus and Beutell, 1985), and work and life satisfaction (e.g. Guest, 2002), stress/illness (e.g. Wise and Bond, 2002), depressive mood (e.g. Duxbury and Higgins, 2001), performance (e.g.
Greenhaus and Beutell, 1985), attention (e.g. Greenhaus et al., 2003), rewards (e.g.
Greenhaus and Beutell, 1985), or meaning (Taylor, 2000). These are examples of the consequences or impact that the constitution of the relationship of work and home has on the human subject’s well-being (or the well-being of others that the human subject knows, e.g. children and spouse). They are important because they are what in fact are said to be studied by theories of work-life balance. They are the dependent variables that are observed. However, the problem is that these variables say more about the human subject’s perception of work and home than they do about the relation. They do not even say something about how the relationship between work and home affects the well-being of the human subject, because the independent variable of the relationship is seen as, for example, work-family spillover conflict (Matsui et al., 1995) or work-life balance (Saltzstein et al., 2001). This means that they develop a scale to measure the level and impact of, for example, conflict and balance, but what they are studying is nevertheless not the relation of work and life: it is a perception of home and work.
Instead of studying the dependent variables (work-family interface) and independent variables (consequences) as a relationship between a cause and effect, I will suggest that we should study both of these as effects in themselves. It is not work and home that influence each other, it is the relationship between life and work that produces effects that can be said to belong to the human subject in the sense that they can be founded as constituting principles within these. This means that I will study the outcome of the relation between work and life as a real expression and not as a possible experience.
In this following part of this chapter I will discuss in detail how we should think and understand these displacements of the four-fold problem of this constitution of the relationship between work and life. The first part regards the object of the relationship between work and life as problematic forms in which the object is expressed. The subject of the relationship between work and life is discussed in the second part. Here it is shown that the relationship between work and life is not expressed by human subjects
but by certain types. In the third part the conditions of the relationship between work and life is taken into consideration as modes of individuation that can be located as constitutions within types’ expression of work and life. Finally, it is argued that the effects of the relationship between work and life have to be located within the expression of the relation itself and not by how it affects the nature of a given human subject.