Differences in Work-Life Balance Perceptions of Individuals in Asian and Western Countries

Topic 

Differences in Work-Life Balance Perceptions of Individuals in Asian and Western Countries

Instructions 

  1. literature review format, no need introduction or conclusion
  2. general topic: Differences in Work-life balance perceptions of individuals in Asian and Western countries
  3. narrow topic: male AND female WLB perception(s) in one or more Asian countries compared with those in one or more Western countries
  4. Specific requirements:

define and give examples to help explain, in your research, the meaning of:

  • WLB(Work-life balance)
  • WLB perception(s) (these need to be defined and measured in the same way, so that you can identify cultural/gender difference)
  • gender socilization

According to the literature, what are the differences and how have they been measured? How do we know that these differences are meaningful? When we compare male with female, Asian with Western, what to we believe are the real differences? It is those real differences that you should be testing in your own research

Answer Preview 

A comprehensive study by Chandra (2012) reported that there is a big difference between the work-life balance perceptions between eastern and western countries; the work-life balance issues are perceived to be women issues in India, while in western countries, such issues are perceived to be affecting both men and women. These differences in perceptions across different sociocultural settings underscore the implications of the work and family balance, and how the different genders handle them. Generally, in the Indian culture the conventional gender socialization and gender roles where household duties are thought to belong to the women are still relatively stronger than most western countries. These assertions corroborate those documented by Adya (2008) and Cooke and Jing (2009). Adya (2008) compared career perceptions and experiences of South Asian and American women working in the US IT workforce. Adya (2008) found that the American IT workers perceived more discrimination and stereotyping at the workplace than their South Asian counterparts.

Word Count; 1200