The impact of social support on work-life balance in Singapore.

Abstract

The importance of work-life harmony is increasingly receiving greater attention from the Singapore government, organisations and employees to promote work-life balance in the workplace to better attract and retain a mobile and educated workforce in a knowledge-based economy.

This study assessed the antecedents of work-life balance, focusing on three work-based and non-work social support factors that are especially relevant in the Singapore context: management support, spousal support and support from foreign domestic helper. The study extends previous work-life balance research by self-developing the measure of support from foreign domestic helper to include both instrumental and perceptual dimensions. Furthermore, for spousal support, the dimension of instrumental assistance is being separated from affective reactions to be examined solely so as to minimise perceptual bias of attitudinal measures in this self-report study.

Quantitative data was collected through a questionnaire administered to 155 married working individuals in Singapore. The results showed that management support and spousal support are significantly positively related to work-life balance, which are in agreement with existing literature. However, no significant relationship was found between support from foreign domestic helper and work-life balance. Limitations, practical implications and areas for future research are also discussed. In essence, this study provided valuable implications of social support on employees' levels of work-life balance in the local context.