Outline of a Theory of ‘Work-Life Balance’: How Multiple Fields Structure the Family-Employment-Leisure Nexus

The phenomena going under the label of ‘work-life balance’ (WLB) are crucial for understanding not only major pressures weighing on people’s wellbeing and choices but the very organization and negotiation of everyday life. Despite being heavily researched, however, WLB is surprisingly under-theorized within sociology. This paper attempts to redress the situation by proposing a robust and multilayered sociological model capable of explaining its genesis, experience and variations. It first deconstructs the commonsense notion of WLB, recasts it as a ‘family-employment-leisure’ nexus and specifies its elements. Next, it flags the limits of current conceptualizations of WLB and turns to Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory for solutions. However, the paper also goes beyond Bourdieu by modelling more precisely how multiple fields interact to shape the demands, dispositions and desires of everyday experience. I develop a series of concepts and distinctions to that end and finish with a sketch of research possibilities.