What About Us? Why Work-Life Balance Still Leaves Child-Free Workers Behind

More than fifteen years ago, researchers Julie Waumsley, Diane Houston and Gillian Marks asked a question that still feels current: What about Us? Measuring the Work-Life Balance of People Who Do Not Have Children Their article examined the way workplaces and researchers talk about work-life balance, and in particular, how often that conversation is really about work-family balance, with “family” understood to mean children.

That distinction matters. For years, work-life balance has been framed around the collision between paid work and parenting. That collision is real. Parents, and still disproportionately mothers, continue to manage significant pressures between work, caregiving, domestic responsibilities and career expectations. But the problem identified in the article is not that parents receive too much attention. It is that everyone else is too often left out of the frame.

The researchers studied full-time women with and without children and looked at whether existing “work-family conflict” measures could be adapted to measure “work-life conflict.” In plain language, they were asking whether we capture the same thing when we ask whether work interferes with someone’s “family” as when we ask whether work interferes with someone’s “life.” Their answer was important: not exactly.

Women without children reported more conflict when the question was framed around work interfering with life generally, rather than work interfering with family specifically. That finding should not surprise anyone who has watched the workplace treat child-free employees as though their lives are more flexible, more available, or less deserving of protection. When the language is “family,” people without children may not see themselves in the question. When the language is “life,” the impact of work becomes easier to name.

This is one of the enduring problems with the way we talk about balance. Workplaces often claim to support work-life balance, but the policies, examples and cultural permission structures frequently centre parenting. Flexibility is more readily understood when it is attached to school pickup, daycare closure or a sick child. Those are valid reasons. But they are not the only valid reasons.

A child-free worker may need flexibility to care for an aging parent, support a partner, manage their health, attend an appointment, maintain a friendship, volunteer, rest, travel, recover, study, grieve, or simply have a life that is not endlessly available to work. The issue is not whether one reason is better than another. The issue is whether employees should have to prove that their non-work life is sufficiently worthy before the workplace will respect it.

Some things have changed since this article was published. Flexible work is now much more mainstream. The pandemic forced many employers to accept, at least temporarily, that work could be done differently. Remote and hybrid work, flexible hours and conversations about mental health are no longer fringe ideas. In some jurisdictions, the legal right to request flexible working has expanded. In Canada, working from home increased dramatically during the pandemic and remains far more common than it was before.

The language has also changed. Many workplaces now speak more openly about wellness, burnout, belonging and psychological safety. There is greater recognition that employees are whole people, not just workers. There is also more public discussion about caregiving beyond parenting, including eldercare and the pressures faced by the “sandwich generation.” These are meaningful shifts.

But the article still feels uncomfortably relevant because the hierarchy of legitimacy has not disappeared. Parenting remains one of the clearest and most socially accepted explanations for needing boundaries at work. Child-free workers are still often assumed to have fewer obligations, fewer demands on their time, and greater capacity to absorb extra work. Their evenings are treated as more open. Their holidays are treated as more negotiable. Their personal commitments are treated as preferences rather than responsibilities.

This is where the article’s measurement point becomes a workplace culture point. If we only measure “family” conflict, we will miss “life” conflict. If we only design policies around parenting, we will miss the needs of employees whose responsibilities and identities do not fit that model. And if we only validate certain kinds of personal lives, we create a workplace where some employees are expected to explain, defend or disclose more than others simply to access the same level of respect.

The article also reminds us that work-life balance is not only a policy issue. It is a perception issue. Employees notice who is allowed to say no. They notice whose conflicts are treated as legitimate. They notice whether flexibility is genuinely available or quietly reserved for people with the “right” kind of reason. They notice when the child-free employee becomes the default backup, the late-night option, the holiday coverage plan or the person presumed to have less at stake outside work.

That does not create a stronger workplace. It creates resentment, disengagement and inequity. It also undermines the very purpose of work-life balance, which should be to support sustainable work for all employees, not to sort personal lives into categories of acceptable and unacceptable need.

A better approach is reason-neutral flexibility. Employees should not have to disclose the details of their personal life to justify wanting balance. Managers should be trained to assess the work, not the perceived worthiness of the reason. Policies should use inclusive language that recognizes caregiving, health, personal commitments, community involvement, rest and recovery. The question should not be whether an employee’s reason is family-related. The question should be whether the work can be done effectively while still allowing that employee to protect a sustainable life outside of work. 

This is not anti-parent. It is pro-worker. Supporting child-free employees does not require reducing support for parents. It requires expanding the imagination of what a full life can look like.

The article was published more than fifteen years ago, but its central question still deserves attention. When workplaces say they value work-life balance, child-free workers are entitled to ask whether that promise includes them. Not as an exception. Not as an afterthought. Not only when their responsibilities resemble parenting closely enough to be understood.

Work-life balance should not require a child to be taken seriously.