Abstract:

Teaching is widely regarded as one of the most meaningful professions in society, yet it is also among the most demanding, requiring educators to balance classroom duties, lesson planning, administrative work, assessment, continuous professional development, and increasingly, digital and emotional labour. This paper presents a conceptual review of work-life balance (WLB) among teachers, synthesising established organisational-behaviour theory principally work-family conflict theory (Greenhaus & Beutell, 1985) and work/family border theory (Clark, 2000) with the wider human resource management (HRM) literature on employee well-being. Rather than presenting original empirical findings, the review draws on secondary academic sources to (a) organise the factors that erode teachers’ work-life balance into a coherent theoretical structure, (b) evaluate the institutional and HR strategies proposed in the literature to address them, and (c) identify gaps that primary research has yet to address. The review finds that teachers’ WLB challenges are best understood as a combination of role conflict (competing, incompatible demands) and boundary permeability (the erosion of clear lines between school and home, accelerated by digital communication and post-pandemic online teaching). It further finds that the literature on solutions workload management, supportive leadership, flexibility, wellness programming, and recognition is well developed in general HRM terms but rarely tested specifically within educational institutions. The review concludes that work-life balance should be treated as a strategic HR priority in education, and it proposes directions for future empirical research.

Keywords:

Work-Life Balance, Work-Family Conflict, Border Theory, Teaching Profession, Teacher Well-being, Job Satisfaction, Educational Institutions, Human Resource Management.

Aim/Objectives

Methods