Data Watch

Women More Satisfied Than Men with Work–Life Balance

Research suggests that women are more positive than men in their perceptions of their company's efforts to help them balance work and life responsibilities. Furthermore, regardless of gender, those who show more favorability toward their organization's efforts to support work–life balance also indicate a much lower intent to leave the organization.

Among 10,000 U.S. workers surveyed by the Kenexa Research Institute (KRI), women who are working in small (100-249 employees) and moderately large (5,000-9,999 employees) companies are significantly more satisfied with their companies' ability to allow for work–life balance than are men who work in organizations of those same sizes.

Across many professions (though not all) women are more satisfied than their male counterparts, the study reveals. But women in some industries are less satisfied than they are in others.

The number of women in clerical and operative roles who are satisfied with their organizations’ efforts in helping employees manage both work and personal needs is significantly higher than for their male counterparts. The same holds true for women vs. men laborers. But, while women in both these areas of discipline outnumber their male counterparts in their level of satisfaction with work–life balance, women laborers feel much less positive about it than women in clerical and operative roles. In fact, regardless of gender, those in labor positions exhibit the lowest level of satisfaction among all workers who participated in the survey.

Among all professions where the number of women satisfied with their work–life balance exceeds the number of men, those who work technical jobs such as medical technician and computer programmer show the smallest difference. Notably, the number of men in crafts/skilled trades satisfied with their work–life balance exceeds women by 2%.

KRI’s findings look at the concept as a whole based on a data from a survey that asked respondents whether their “company supports employees' efforts to balance work and family/personal responsibilities.” The results are a measure of participants’ perceptions regarding the matter, and a correlation between the level of employees’ satisfaction with work–life balance and differences between men and women’s working habits is difficult to ascertain; work–life balance encompasses many notions. But no possible correlation changes KRI’s findings: In most professions, more women than men are satisfied in the area of work–life balance. An employer wishing to retain more of its top talent, male or female, might benefit from programs designed to elevate all employees’ level of satisfaction.