{"id":{"repo_id":"oxford-brookes","oai_identifier":"tle:5c1ee3ab-62bb-410b-ad92-42a9cf100dd5:d6bd9758-527a-46cd-bfe2-c433766e8fca:1"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/oxford-brookes/tle:5c1ee3ab-62bb-410b-ad92-42a9cf100dd5:d6bd9758-527a-46cd-bfe2-c433766e8fca:1","repository":{"repo_id":"oxford-brookes","name":"Oxford Brookes University","base_url":"https://radar.brookes.ac.uk/radar/oai"},"display":{"title":"Work-life performance : a male professional perspective on work-life balance","abstract":"The work-life balance (WLB) debate began as a gender issue, from the need to increase and retain female participation in the labour market alongside their caring and domestic responsibilities whilst also addressing equality issues between men and women at work. After decades of studies on women, researchers and practitioners began to understand that gender equality cannot be attained until men are also included in the debate. This direction of the literature has been influenced by the ideology that gender equality starts from a fair share of responsibilities between men and women at home. Consequently, this study is aimed at contributing to WLB body of knowledge from the male perspective. Aligned with the critical realist approach, 40 semi-structured interviews were undertaken with professionals in engineering and consultancy backgrounds with the interview questions guided by existing WLB theoretical understanding. Three areas of investigation were proposed: firstly, the exploration of individuals’ thoughts on paid work and the rest of life; secondly, investigations of events which show how individuals reconcile work and the rest of life in practice; and thirdly, a search for information on gender and organisational culture. In conclusion the research suggests that there is a gap between professional males’ WLB thoughts, feelings and actual behaviours. Most thoughts were aligned with modern dynamics of family roles and expectations but behaviours were still influenced by some ingrained traditional gender beliefs. This mismatch between males’ thoughts and their behaviours caused an imbalance in terms of allocation of their resources to different domains. This often triggered feelings of regret afterwards when reflecting on their actual priorities in life. The ingrained traditional gender beliefs and prioritisation of paid work seemed to be more associated with the intergenerational transmission of masculinity and personal characteristics than demands from gendered organisations. Consequently, this study suggests that males’ personal beliefs, personalities and family set-ups are the foundations which promote meaningful changes toward better WLB, and not organisational culture.","abstract_html":"The work-life balance (WLB) debate began as a gender issue, from the need to increase and retain female participation in the labour market alongside their caring and domestic responsibilities whilst also addressing equality issues between men and women at work. After decades of studies on women, researchers and practitioners began to understand that gender equality cannot be attained until men are also included in the debate. This direction of the literature has been influenced by the ideology that gender equality starts from a fair share of responsibilities between men and women at home. Consequently, this study is aimed at contributing to WLB body of knowledge from the male perspective. Aligned with the critical realist approach, 40 semi-structured interviews were undertaken with professionals in engineering and consultancy backgrounds with the interview questions guided by existing WLB theoretical understanding. Three areas of investigation were proposed: firstly, the exploration of individuals’ thoughts on paid work and the rest of life; secondly, investigations of events which show how individuals reconcile work and the rest of life in practice; and thirdly, a search for information on gender and organisational culture. In conclusion the research suggests that there is a gap between professional males’ WLB thoughts, feelings and actual behaviours. Most thoughts were aligned with modern dynamics of family roles and expectations but behaviours were still influenced by some ingrained traditional gender beliefs. This mismatch between males’ thoughts and their behaviours caused an imbalance in terms of allocation of their resources to different domains. This often triggered feelings of regret afterwards when reflecting on their actual priorities in life. The ingrained traditional gender beliefs and prioritisation of paid work seemed to be more associated with the intergenerational transmission of masculinity and personal characteristics than demands from gendered organisations. Consequently, this study suggests that males’ personal beliefs, personalities and family set-ups are the foundations which promote meaningful changes toward better WLB, and not organisational culture.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Pereira, Priscila"],"institution":"Oxford Brookes University","degree_name":null,"degree_level":null,"degree_discipline":null,"degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Manfredi, Simonetta","Gannon, Judie"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2016,"date_issued":"2016","date_published":"2016","updated_at":"2026-07-24T03:41:56Z","subjects":[],"languages":["en"],"rights":["All rights reserved"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://doi.org/10.24384/fghm-cj58","outbound_label":"DOI","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Pereira, Priscila","Manfredi, Simonetta","Gannon, Judie"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Pereira, Priscila"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2016"]},{"key":"dc:publisher","label":"Institution","values":["Oxford Brookes University"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["thesis"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["en"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["All rights reserved"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["https://doi.org/10.24384/fghm-cj58","https://radar.brookes.ac.uk/radar/file/5c1ee3ab-62bb-410b-ad92-42a9cf100dd5/1/fulltext.pdf"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["The work-life balance (WLB) debate began as a gender issue, from the need to increase and retain female participation in the labour market alongside their caring and domestic responsibilities whilst also addressing equality issues between men and women at work. After decades of studies on women, researchers and practitioners began to understand that gender equality cannot be attained until men are also included in the debate. This direction of the literature has been influenced by the ideology that gender equality starts from a fair share of responsibilities between men and women at home. Consequently, this study is aimed at contributing to WLB body of knowledge from the male perspective. Aligned with the critical realist approach, 40 semi-structured interviews were undertaken with professionals in engineering and consultancy backgrounds with the interview questions guided by existing WLB theoretical understanding. Three areas of investigation were proposed: firstly, the exploration of individuals’ thoughts on paid work and the rest of life; secondly, investigations of events which show how individuals reconcile work and the rest of life in practice; and thirdly, a search for information on gender and organisational culture. In conclusion the research suggests that there is a gap between professional males’ WLB thoughts, feelings and actual behaviours. Most thoughts were aligned with modern dynamics of family roles and expectations but behaviours were still influenced by some ingrained traditional gender beliefs. This mismatch between males’ thoughts and their behaviours caused an imbalance in terms of allocation of their resources to different domains. This often triggered feelings of regret afterwards when reflecting on their actual priorities in life. The ingrained traditional gender beliefs and prioritisation of paid work seemed to be more associated with the intergenerational transmission of masculinity and personal characteristics than demands from gendered organisations. Consequently, this study suggests that males’ personal beliefs, personalities and family set-ups are the foundations which promote meaningful changes toward better WLB, and not organisational culture."]},{"key":"dc:format","label":"Dc Format","values":["application/pdf"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Work-life performance : a male professional perspective on work-life balance"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Pereira, Priscila","Manfredi, Simonetta","Gannon, Judie"],"dc:creator":["Pereira, Priscila"],"dc:date":["2016"],"dc:description":["The work-life balance (WLB) debate began as a gender issue, from the need to increase and retain female participation in the labour market alongside their caring and domestic responsibilities whilst also addressing equality issues between men and women at work. After decades of studies on women, researchers and practitioners began to understand that gender equality cannot be attained until men are also included in the debate. This direction of the literature has been influenced by the ideology that gender equality starts from a fair share of responsibilities between men and women at home. Consequently, this study is aimed at contributing to WLB body of knowledge from the male perspective. Aligned with the critical realist approach, 40 semi-structured interviews were undertaken with professionals in engineering and consultancy backgrounds with the interview questions guided by existing WLB theoretical understanding. Three areas of investigation were proposed: firstly, the exploration of individuals’ thoughts on paid work and the rest of life; secondly, investigations of events which show how individuals reconcile work and the rest of life in practice; and thirdly, a search for information on gender and organisational culture. In conclusion the research suggests that there is a gap between professional males’ WLB thoughts, feelings and actual behaviours. Most thoughts were aligned with modern dynamics of family roles and expectations but behaviours were still influenced by some ingrained traditional gender beliefs. This mismatch between males’ thoughts and their behaviours caused an imbalance in terms of allocation of their resources to different domains. This often triggered feelings of regret afterwards when reflecting on their actual priorities in life. The ingrained traditional gender beliefs and prioritisation of paid work seemed to be more associated with the intergenerational transmission of masculinity and personal characteristics than demands from gendered organisations. Consequently, this study suggests that males’ personal beliefs, personalities and family set-ups are the foundations which promote meaningful changes toward better WLB, and not organisational culture."],"dc:format":["application/pdf"],"dc:identifier":["https://doi.org/10.24384/fghm-cj58","https://radar.brookes.ac.uk/radar/file/5c1ee3ab-62bb-410b-ad92-42a9cf100dd5/1/fulltext.pdf"],"dc:language":["en"],"dc:publisher":["Oxford Brookes University"],"dc:rights":["All rights reserved"],"dc:title":["Work-life performance : a male professional perspective on work-life balance"],"dc:type":["thesis"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-24T03:41:56Z"}