The project identifies how the female owners of small and medium sized businesses deal with the issue of work and family balance in Vietnam – a developing country in Asia.

Negativöverspridning från arbetsliv till privatliv och från privatliv till arbetslivuppkommer när beteenden, humör, stress eller känslor från den ena sfären på ettnegativt sätt påverkar den andra sfären. Denna uppsats har en kvalitativ ansatsoch undersökte lärares upplevelse av negativ överspridning mellan arbetsliv ochprivatliv och tvärtom. Respondenterna var 16 lärare inom grundskola ochgymnasieskola som förde dagbok kring negativ överspridning. De typer av negativöverspridning som nämndes oftast var 1) hög arbetsbelastning, 2) tankar ellerkänslor som stör, 3) trötthet, 4) problem med andra människor samt 5) problemmed maskiner. Resultatet visade att respondenterna rapporterade mer negativöverspridning mellan arbetsliv och privatliv än tvärtom. Respondenterna uppgavatt de arbetade mycket och att förtroendetiden oftast inte räckte till. Deflesta lärare som avböjde medverkan i studien gjorde detta på grund av överbelastningi arbetssituationen. / Negative spillover from work to family and vice versa often occurs when forinstance behaviour, mood, stress and feelings from one domain negatively affectthe other domain. This qualitative thesis investigated teachers perceptions ofnegative spillover from work to family and vice versa. The respondents were 16teachers in primary and secondary school which wrote a diary about negativespillover. The types of negative spillover that occured most frequently were 1)high workload, 2) disturbing thoughts or feelings, 3) fatigue, 4) problems withother human beings and 5) problems with machines. The results showed that therespondents reported more negative spillover from work to family, than fromfamily to work. Most of the respondents worked a lot and the time of trust werenot enough. The respondents who declined participation in the study did thisbecause of an overload in their work situation.

Taiwan¡¦s high-tech industry has realized that employees with professional knowledge and skills are the source of the organizations¡¦ core competitiveness. However, today¡¦s high-tech industry faces complex challenges, longer working hours, and job stress among employees. Many high-tech companies have reduced working hours to focus on employees¡¦ work and family life balance and become happy workplaces. This study, in addition to understanding the mediating effects of work/family balance and job stress, also explores their impact on an employee¡¦s sense of happiness at the individual level.The data collection and analysis units were mainly high-tech industry individuals. A total of 424 valid samples were collected. Through factor analysis, reliability analysis, and regression analysis, the influential relationships of the various research ideas were verified. The following research findings were obtained: perceived organizational support had a significant impact on employees¡¦ sense of happiness and work/family balance and a negative impact on job stress. Through the mediating effect of the work/family balance, perceived organization support had a significant impact on the employees¡¦ sense of happiness, and through the mediating effect of job stress there was a significant impact on the employees¡¦ sense of happiness. Job stress through the mediating effect of work/family balance also had a significant impact on the employees¡¦ sense of happiness.

Försvarsmakten är under tillväxt, den senaste nu gällande propositionen Totalförsvar har en kraftig utökning av Försvarsmaktens organisation som mål för 2030. Antalet anställda yrkesofficerare skall ökas med 1700 individer fram till år 2033. För att möjliggöra denna utökning räcker det inte att bara öka rekryteringen utan även att behålla redan anställd personal. I en studie från 2020 konstaterades att 25 % av yrkesofficerarna hade slutat inom Försvarsmakten inom 10 år efter att de tagit anställning. Att kompensera för detta genom överintag är kanske nödvändigt men samtidigt resurs och kostnadskrävande. Syftet med de attityder och intentioner som de blivande yrkesofficerana denna studie att försöka belysa har innan de åter kommer ut på förbanden och blir påverkade av förbands miljön. Studien undersöker vilka attityder de har om sin tjänstgöring i Försvarsmakten och dess påverkan på intentionerna om tjänstgöringslängd och karriärsutveckling. En insikt i dessa attityder samt intentioner möjliggör att kunna hantera dessa och minska personalomsättningen.  Studien resulterar i vissa tydliga resultat. Det finns en generell attityd bland blivande yrkesofficerare att konflikten mellan arbete och familj kommer att påverka dem i deras tjänstgöring i Försvarsmakten. Det finns också en skillnad mellan könen i hur de uppfattar karriär och barn. Kvinnor har ofta starkare attityd om att föräldraskap negativt påverkar karriärmöjligheterna i Försvarsmakten. Förebilder har betydelse, men inte så stor omfattning. Lärare på skolan samt tidigare chefer har ofta en positiv inverkan på attityden om eventuell karriär i Försvarsmakten. Detta är ett förhållande som bör utnyttjas från myndighetens sida.

The study explored the relationships between role centrality, work-family culture, work-family balance and work-family conflict. Additionally, it examined the incorporation of work-family culture into border permeability as used in work-family border theory. A total of 103 participants from five organisations completed the questionnaires. Participants were employed in administrative, professional/skilled/specialist, supervisory or management positions. Data were analysed using Pearson’s Product Moment correlation and Simple Regression. Significant results were obtained between role centrality, home centrality and workfamily balance as well as work-family conflict. These were in support of Clark (2000) work-family border theory. However, work centrality produced insignificant relationships. Work-family culture produced significantly strong relationships and predictability on work-family balance and conflict. The study findings highlight a need for expansion of border theory to include work-family culture as an aspect of border permeability.

Although there is still a gender division of labour in post-industrial countries, evidence seems to suggest that there are some fathers more involved than others, and interestingly, a growing number of fathers that want to be more involved with their children. Using the Catalan Survey on the Use of Time, this thesis aims to understand how paternal time devoted to children under 10 years old differs across educational level, income, age, number of (paid) working hours, occupation and partner’s occupation among other independent variables. Understanding patterns of those fathers involved with their children will presumably give some clues on how to promote gender equality in parenting. Furthermore, it will contribute to the fatherhood literature by expanding the research to Catalonia. Furthermore, while we know that fatherhood involvement is positively related with child outcomes and gender equality, less is known about the benefits of having both work and family roles for working fathers themselves and their jobs. Using the conceptual framework of WFE elaborated by Greenhaus and Powell (2006), this thesis seeks to explore how resources developed at home are positively transferred and applied at work, and vice versa. For that aim, 20 interviews with Catalan working fathers have been conducted. Understanding and shedding light on these hidden sources of enrichment between work and family domains might be a positive way to challenge the disproportionate attention to the conflict perspective in the work-family literature and to counteract the benefits of the “ideal worker” and “organization man”. The methodological contribution of this thesis is that it is the first study to use the Catalan Survey on the Use of Time to look at fathers as well as offering one of the first qualitative studies to examine the work-family enrichment process for fathers. Regarding the empirical contribution, the analysis of the time use data reveals that father’s age, educational level and partner’s occupation is positively associated with paternal time devoted to children. On the other hand, working hours is negatively associated with time devoted to young children. The qualitative analysis suggests that enrichment occurs under certain conditions. Interestingly, the sources of enrichment reported from family to work (invisible rewards) were different from the sources of enrichment reported from work to family. This thesis also suggested that fathers employed in higher-levels occupation were more likely to experience high levels of enrichment, but at the same time high levels of conflict.

The gender wage gap is accounted for to a substantial degree by the sex composition of occupations. The present thesis examines the mechanisms that produce this pattern. In particular, the theory of devaluation, currently the most widely accepted sociological explanation, is tested. The empirical findings, reported in three self-contained essays, question this line of explanation. All results are based on Swedish data: the Level of Living surveys (LNU; essays I and II) and administrative labour market registers (essay III). In Essay I the association between occupational prestige and occupational sex composition is examined. The association is non-linear, with gender mixed occupations having the highest prestige. Further, care work does not have lower prestige than other kinds of work. These results are inconsistent with expectations derived from devaluation theory. The analysis also shows that the wage returns to occupational prestige are lower for women than for men. Essay II examines why women receive relatively low returns to prestige. Family related factors are shown to be crucial. The gender difference in pay-off to prestige is thus marked among married/cohabiting employees with children but insignificant among singles as well as among childless married/cohabiting women and men. The gender wage gap in high-prestige occupations is largely due to differences between women and men in work characteristics difficult to reconcile with family duties. In essay III the functional form of the relation between wages and occupational sex composition is investigated. In the cross-section gender mixed occupations have the highest wages. Panel data tend to confirm this pattern: mobility from strongly male or female dominated occupations to more gender mixed occupations is associated with relatively high rates of wage growth. Further, there is a wage premium for care work but a wage penalty for other service work. These findings do not support devaluation theory. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 2: Manuscript. 3: Accepted.</p>

Work gets more seamless and the demand on workers increases because of changes in the labour market. Studies show benefits for workers and companies if the employee achieves a balance between work and family, a way to facilitate it is family-friendly policies. A study done by Unionen shows that three out of four white collar workers choose to vobba (working and caring for a sick child), which blurs the boundaries between work and family. Research on flexibility, organisational culture and gender structures shows how these aspects affect the balance between work and family. This is a study where seven white collar workers (three men) that vobbar and two managers (one man) were interviewed. The study adds deeper insights into how white collar workers and managers are experiencing vobb and the results suggest that they experience vobb as something positive to achieve a balance between work and family, but there is a risk of vobb being considered a constraint, creating a lack of boundaries where one is working almost all the time. / Förändringar på arbetsmarknaden gör arbetet mer gränslöst och ökar kraven på arbetstagarna. Studier visar på vinster för arbetstagare och företag om arbetstagaren uppnår balans mellan arbete och familjeliv, ett sätt att underlätta är genom familjevänliga policies. En undersökning genomförd av Unionen visar att tre av fyra tjänstemän väljer att vobba (jobba och vårda sjukt barn), vilket suddar ut gränserna mellan arbete och familj. Forskning om flexibilitet, företagskultur och könsstrukturer visar hur de påverkar balansen mellan arbete och familjeliv. Detta är en kvalitativ studie i form av intervjuer med sju tjänstemän (tre män) som vobbar och två chefer (en man). Studien tillför en fördjupad insikt i hur tjänstemän och chefer upplever företeelsen vobb och resultaten tyder på att de upplever vobb som positivt för att uppnå balans mellan arbete och familjeliv, men med en risk för att uppfattas som ett tvång och skapa en gränslöshet där man halvjobbar nästan hela tiden.

High-Tech industries in Taiwan realize that employees with professional knowledge and skills are the core advantage to competition, therefore implement so call Strategic Human Resource Management(SHRM). Recently, ¡§high performance work practices(HPWPs)¡¨, one of SHRM, becomes more and more emphasized. It is one of management systems that help employees to get needed competences through commitment, involvement, and incentives and to enhance the contributions to organization. However, are employees in high performance work organization feeling well-being? The purpose of this study is to realize the relevance of these two variables, and also if mediating variables, work motivation and work-family balance, work. Literatures about HPWPs are all about the outcomes of organization, however, this study emphasizes on individual with mediating variables, work motivation and work-family balance. Questionnaires was adopted for this study and 301 valid samples are collected from individuals in high-tech industry. Through statistics analysis, the main results are as below: 1. HPWPs separately have partial positive effect on work motivation, work-family balance, and well-being. 2. HPWPs have positive effect on work motivation and this work motivation mediates the effect of HPWPs on well-being. 3. the positive effect of HPWPs on well-being is mediated by work-family balance.

The purpose of this study was to explore working single mothers’ work-life balance in order to better understand how employers can assist them. Role theory, role conflict theory, and spillover theory were utilized to examine how working single mothers experience work-life balance and how they perceive it. In this study, the researcher sought to discover, analyze, and report work-life balance experiences of working single mothers through extended narrative accounts, which answer the following research questions: 1. In what ways do working single mothers strive to attain work-life balance? 2. What challenges do working single mothers encounter that affect their ability to obtain work-life balance? 3. How do working single mothers believe their employers’ policies, practices, and attitudes impact their ability to balance work and family responsibilities? Narrative inquiry was the best research approach for this study because it allowed the individuals to narrate their own stories. The methods of collecting data for this study consisted of a basic demographic questionnaire and in-depth, semi-structured interviews. The data analysis revealed four main themes and several subthemes highlighting the strategies, challenges, and employers’ contributions to the work-life balance of working single mothers.