Work-life balance experiences during COVID-19: a case of academics at a South African university.

Abstract

The primary goal of dissertation is to understand, examine and analyze the effects of the COVID- 19 lockdown on academics who are working remotely from home. In other words, using remote work from home as a case study, this research paper aimed to examine, analyze, and understand the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on academics' work-life balance. The study was conducted at a South African university. It draws on work design and spillover theory on remote working as a probable framework for understanding the lived experiences and perceptions of public sector employees on work-life balance during the pandemic lockdown. It is structured around three approaches that are often used by researchers to investigate the concept of work-life balance and remote working among employees. The researcher adopts an explorative qualitative research approach to critically investigate how COVID-19 affected the work-life balance of academics in South Africa while teleworking remotely from home. The research uses a purposive sampling method to recruit a total number of eleven respondents for this study. The researcher provides strong theoretical reasons for the selection criteria, which fit well with the objectives of the study.The study finds that the COVID-19 pandemic crisis has been a challenging experience for many families, and strategies to prevent the crisis from affecting public health (such as working remotely from home) have had a negative impact on engagement in everyday life. The results demonstrate that the experiences of confinement and working remotely from home during the pandemic have been particularly detrimental to the trajectories of academic mothers, especially those with unconducive household situations.