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Engaging the Flexibility Paradox: Working from Home and Work-Family Conflict Among Working Adults in South Africa

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Work-Life Balance in Africa

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Abstract

Working from home is widely embraced by many workers and organisations as a useful strategy for achieving better work-life balance. As evidenced by the exigencies of the COVID-19 pandemic, working from home has become a new norm for many working adults, as flexible working arrangements continue to hold sway across many countries. That said, recent debates in the work-family literature suggest that home-based telecommuting presents a paradox whereby such work arrangements potentially increase workers’ experiences of work-family conflict, resulting in poor work-life balance. Drawing from retrospective secondary data on South African workers (n = 727) in the 2015 International Social Survey Programme, this study provides evidence of the relationship between working from home and work-family conflict. Our study results show that working from home during usual working hours increased work-to-family conflict (B = 0.150, p < 0.05) and family-to-work conflict (B = 0.166, p < 0.05) among individuals in paid employment after controlling for well-established sociodemographic variables (such as age, sex, years of schooling, weekly working hours). While the flexibility paradox has become a topical concern following the COVID-19 pandemic, this study underscores the pitfalls of working from home for workers’ work-family balance and the need to adopt working from home with some caution.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology and Social Policy, Lingnan University, 8 Castle Peak Road, Tuen Mun, Hong Kong

    Kwaku Abrefa Busia & Pascal Agbadi

  2. Department of Sociology, The University of Pretoria, Lynwood Road, Pretoria, South Africa

    Kwaku Abrefa Busia & Zitha Mokomane

Authors
  1. Kwaku Abrefa Busia
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  2. Pascal Agbadi
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  3. Zitha Mokomane
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Correspondence to Kwaku Abrefa Busia .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. College of Business, University of Doha for Science and Technology, Doha, Qatar

    Hakeem Adeniyi Ajonbadi

  2. College of Business, Arts, and Social Sciences, Brunel University London, Uxbridge, UK

    Chima Mordi

  3. College of Business, Technology and Engineering, Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield, UK

    Olatunji David Adekoya

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Abrefa Busia, K., Agbadi, P., Mokomane, Z. (2023). Engaging the Flexibility Paradox: Working from Home and Work-Family Conflict Among Working Adults in South Africa. In: Ajonbadi, H.A., Mordi, C., Adekoya, O.D. (eds) Work-Life Balance in Africa. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-38008-2_7

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