Work-Family Balance (WFB) Experience of Indian Journalists:Differences by Gender and Life-cycle Stages

Journalism has been contented as one of the most unfriendly profession to family life. Given the collectivist nature of the Indian society, attaining work-family balance has become an incessant challenge for journalists. The present paper aims to investigate differences due to gender, life-cycle stages and their interaction terms (gender x life-cycle stages) in the experience of four dimensions of work-family balance, (namely, work-to-family conflict, family-to-work conflict, work-to-family facilitation and family-to-work facilitation). The application of theories like ‘Role Strain’ and ‘Role accumulation’ to the interplay of work and family roles, triggered bi-directional dimensions of conflict and facilitation, which altogether characterize ‘Work- Family Balance’ (WFB). Data were collected from 212 fulltime journalists working for the Indian newspaper organizations and analysis was done using two-way multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA). Results reveal that ‘one-size fits all’ approach of designing workfamily balancing interventions may not prove beneficial because results reveal that women journalists experience more family-to-work conflict in all life stages, less facilitation (both directions) in launching (early-parenthood) life-stage and greater work-to-family facilitation in shifting-gears life-stage (empty-nest) than men journalists. Further, Life-stage differences suggest that journalists during the launching life-stage experience greater family-to-work conflict as compared to the journalists in anticipatory and establishment life-stages. This understanding may be helpful for the media organizations to design necessary practices and policies that can reduce work-family conflict and at the same time, enhance work-family facilitation from the lives of men and women journalists at different stages of life.