An international perspective on work-family

Abstract

This special issue resulted from the Community,Work, and Family 2nd Conference in Lisbon, Portugal (12_14 April 2007). It builds on the premise that the field of work-family conflict has grown to be well recognized and accepted since the seminal article on work-family conflict (Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985) was published over two decades ago. With this growing popularity has come increased attention and some authors have noted that work-family conflict should occur for all global employees (Ling & Powell, 2001).While the interest in conflict has grown in the past two decades, in more recent times there has been greater interest on the positive influences of the work-family interface and the term work-life balance. However, one dominant criticism of the work-family literature is its predominately US focus. While studies have been set in other countries including Europe, Asia, and Australasia, there is still a need to understand the work-family interface in greater international settings.