Description
The financial crisis in Greece seems to have negatively affected working conditions in Greece, and Greek employees report on high levels of stress and job dissatisfaction. In current societies, there is an increase in the proportion of women employment. Furthermore, the last decades there is a change to the traditional gender roles inside the family.This project addresses the systematic examination of the work-life balance in Greek women employees, causes and potential protective factors, as well as consequences of work-life conflicts. The main aim of this research project is to 1) offer an in-depth description of the situation as regards work-life phenomenon in female population in Greece, 2) suggest and test a rigor methodology 3) develop some scales and a questionnaire package for future research, 4) suggest and test a conceptual framework, 5) test a training curriculum and how effective could be to improve work-life balance among women employees, 6) provide stakeholders with some recommendations for policy reform and plans and 7) increase job satisfaction, quality of life and a the balance between work and life. A combination of qualitative and quantitative methodology will be used, enriched with a research intervention on a training curriculum for the work-life improvement. Data will be collected from women employees of different categories of employment covering a wide range of occupations and geographical locations in area of Attiki/Greece. The project will be implemented in 12 months.
Summary of project results
Although, work-life balance is a very popular topic in the last decade, it seems that there is no clear definition about this concept. This concept seems to be sensitive to change according individual needs and priorities, social and financial circumstances, time period and changes in values. The increase in unemployment rates and the economic instability of the country seem to have affected negatively the quality of life of Greek people, and increased the levels of stress and depressive symptoms. Based on suchlike data and desk research which has been proceeded to the application, it was decided the implementation of a research program focusing on women employees in Greece examining various factors related to work life balance, suggesting and confirming a model that could explain work-life balance phenomenon in Greek reality and suggesting a number of potential risk and protective factors. The project has been fortunately implemented according to the planned activities and originally submitted application. Qualitative research reached more people that it has been planned (654 women in total) and all the activities have been followed the initial planning. Two of the changes occurred within the project, on one hand concern the number of women completed the Research intervention. In particular, the Training Intervention was developed in three days workshops. Totally nine women participated. During the Training Intervention though, dropout was observed and the final number of participants which completed the Training Intervention were six, therefore the number of collected Follow-up Questionnaires is also less. On the other hand, the second change concerns the delay of some of the research activities. In particular, Qualitative Research due to a further allocation of the target group into sectors (secondary, tertiary, private, healthcare and public) and difficulty in collecting the data from the sample needed more time in order to be fully completed.
Summary of bilateral results