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ABSTRACT
This article introduces work/family border theory - a new theory about work/family balance. According to the theory, people are daily border-crossers between the domains of work and family. The theory addresses how domain integration and segmentation, border creation and management, border-Grosser participation, and relationships between border-crossers and others at work and home influence work/family balance. Propositions are given to guide future research.
Work and family systems, though different, are interconnected. Current theories assert that emotions spill over between the two systems or that the disappointment one may experience in one system may propel individuals to pursue fulfilling activities in the other.
This article introduces work/family border theory, which argues that the primary connection between work and family systems is not emotional, but human. People are border-crossers who make daily transitions between two worlds - the world of work and the world of family. People shape these worlds, mold the borders between them, and determine the border-crosser's relationship to that world and its members. Though people shape their environments, they are, in turn, shaped by them. It is this very contradiction of determining and being determined by our work and home environments that makes work/family balance one of the most challenging concepts in the study of work and the study of families. Work/family border theory is an attempt to explain this complex interaction between border-crossers and their work and family lives, to predict when conflict will occur, and give a framework for attaining balance.
Relationships between work and family
With the growth of the industrial market economy during the past 300 years, a trend began which segmented activities associated with generating income and caring for family members. Before the advent of industry and the growth of market economies, a large amount of production was done by families primarily for their own consumption (Googins, 1991). However, the more industrialized the market economy became, the more that workplaces were created outside of the home and organizations other than families were in charge of production. As industrialization accelerated, the term `work' became synonymous with `employment'. While there was diversity in employment and in family situations (Coontz, 1992), in general, work and family activities after the industrial revolution were carried out in different places, at different times,...