Work-Life Imbalance in Call Centres and Software Development

The paper evaluates the centrality of work to employees in two growing employment sectors, call-centres and software development. It then examines evidence for extensions of work into household and family life in these two sectors. Extensions are identified as tangible, such as unpaid overtime, or intangible, represented by incursions imported from work, such as exhaustion and stress. The study finds that organizational pressures, combined with lack of work centrality, result in work intruding into non-work areas of employee lives, though intrusions manifest themselves in different ways according to type of work, levels of worker autonomy and organizational support. Copyright Blackwell Publishing Ltd/London School of Economics 2003..