Online Program

Seeking Work-Life Balance (304920)

Articles such as “Why women still can’t have it all,” (Anne-Marie Slaughter) and books such as “Lean In” (Sheryl Sandberg) have sparked passionate discussions about healthy approaches to work-life balance, particularly for women. Research in 2015 from the Pew Research Center found that among working parents, mothers with children were about three times as likely as fathers to say that being a working parent impeded their progress in their career (51% vs. 16%). Other data indicate that women bear a larger burden of household chores than men (in the US: 2 hours vs. 82 minutes), and more recent attention has been given to the inequities in the “mental load.”

With all of the demands in our daily lives, many of us spend our lives striving for that elusive “work-life balance,” regardless of the career path we find ourselves on. Given the data on the gender inequities in household tasks, childcare, and other leisure time tasks, finding balance in our lives can be more of a challenge for women. However, creating work-life balance is not a one-size fits all concept, and essential to work life balance is understanding how to tip the scales in a way that makes sense to you.

In this talk, I will discuss the concept of work-life integration, and approaches to determining how to better integrate your own work and life. I will discuss how I’ve approached work-life integration throughout my career so far, and how this has changed over time as my career goals have changed.