Introduction

Work and family are the two primary spheres in most people's lives, which makes it necessary to balance both. The two should complement each other in ways that help people to perform well in both. Due to recent developments in both spheres this has become an increasingly difficult task to achieve in India. This is evidenced by recent findings from the Randstad Workmonitor Survey (2015) which found that Indian employees had a poor work-family balance (WFB) as compared with countries in the Europe and the USA. Several reasons can be cited for this. On the family front, the rise of women in the workforce has certainly increased their expectations that domestic tasks should also be shared more equally (Russel et al., 1988; Aryee et al., 1999). Though women still appear to bear the brunt of the unpaid household work (see Chapter 5), the pattern is slowly changing with men also starting to contribute their share over the past few years. This said there is still considerable room for improvement in India to make it a more female-friendly culture (Dreze and Sen, 2014). Alongside increased rates of female labour market participation, the continued rise in the cost of living has made it imperative for both partners to earn money which can have a negative impact on WFB. There has also been a rapid rise in the number of nuclear families which has tended to have a negative impact on the availability of crucial family support in India, making it more difficult to balance work and family life. Finally, the growth in both internal and external migration means that families are increasingly dispersed across wide geographical locations (Banerjee, 1981; Singh, 1984; Desai and Banerji, 2008). On the work side factors such as the increase in labour market participation among older members of society, the increasing number and types of jobs, an increase in the salary being offered, emergence of more and more team-based work (including virtual teams), a trend towards globalisation resulting in more global competition, staffing reductions, travelling on work duties and so on have all contributed to making WFB an increasingly challenging task to achieve (Nasscom, 2003; Taylor and Bain, 2005; Taylor and Bain, 2006; Som, 2007) (see Chapter 4).