Gender Equality and Work-life Balance in the Digital Era: A Bibliometric Analysis

Abstract

The impact of digitalisation on work-life balance stemming from flexible working arrangements, which have blurred the boundaries between one’s profession and personal space, has heightened in the face of modern technological advancements. Unlike males, females are the most disadvantaged when it comes to gender norms and formulation of institutional policies as most of the existing policies have been clearly oriented on men as compared to women. The study aims to conduct a bibliometric analysis of the relationship among evidence regarding gender equality and work-life balance in the era of digitalisation. VOSviewer is used to present data obtained from the Scopus database. Articles retrieved were critically appraised and presented in the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) flowchart. The study finds that the number of publications on the topic of gender equality, work-life balance, and digitalisation has seen a steady increase (47 in 2023 from 4 in 2017). The West and Europe dominate when it comes to contributions made to publications on digitalisation, gender equality, and work-life balance, only one paper is from South Africa and there are no publications contributed from Ghana. The study further reveals that though Germany has the highest number of publications, the United Kingdom and the United States have the highest collaboration and impact (citations). This indicates the gap in literature requiring empirical research on the effect of digitalisation on gender equality and work-life balance in the Ghanaian and developing countries context.