Work-Life Balance and Its Socio-cultural Inclination from Industry 1.0 to Industry 4.0

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AbstractThe pervasiveness of the humanitarian values in the work environment necessitated work-life balance (WLB) as an organisational responsibility (Joseph, Sebastian (2017) Work-life Balance a Conceptual Review). Work schedule flexibility, one of the most valued benefits identified by several studies (Hall 2018; Kramer 2018; Team 2017), is one of the several WLB measure-reflecting the importance of work-life balance in the current era. That is, the management of work-life balance is one of the prime factors which the human resource managers have to be cautious about. Casualization of the work environment provides the employees with the opportunity to move across the market in search of better WLB. The debate over work-life balance ‘policy’ a topic with contemporary relevance seems only to skim the surface of much deeper and fundamental set of challenges (Gambles et al. (2006) The Myth of Work—Life Balance). This paper is a critical evaluation of the etymology of the paradigm that necessitates the development of the concept of work-life balance and the factors responsible for its widespread acceptance in the labour market. Changes that occurred in the socio-cultural as well as work environment together with the widespread acceptance of humanitarian values across the globe resulted in the furtherance of the work-life balance concept into gender neutral and plural framework. Similarly, the industry 1.0 segregated work out of the family through mechanisation; on the other hand, the industry 4.0 integrated the work into the personal life domain of the employee. Furthermore, the twenty-first century management concepts such as corporate social responsibility (CSR), participative management, work socialisation, and employee engagement predominantly backed the evolution of the concept of work-life and keep it live. (Industrialisation and WLB, Industry 4.0, Feminisation and WLB, Socio-Cultural factors and WLB, Integrated Telecommunication Systems and Industry 4.0).