Abstract:

Income, standard of living, housing, job, health, education, skill development, socialisation, environmental quality and safety are among the core indicators that are commonly used in measuring the level of better life of a person or of a whole society. Concerning the quality life of employees, the main indicator becomes work-life balance (WLB) which is sometimes considered a choice between achievement and enjoyment of employees. Extant research and surveys carried out globally show that working hours, maternity/paternity rights, parental leave entitlements, flexible working practices and time off possibilities for dependants are the key determinants of WLB. This paper compares WLB indicators of Turkey with those of the other 37 member countries of OECD using better life indices estimated by OECD based on a great number of responses (around 100000) from different countries. Around 76 percent of 2231 respondents from Turkey are male and nearly half are 25-34 years old. For a multi-country comparison, the paper respectively considers two aspects of WLB, namely working hours and time devoted to leisure (socialising with friends and family, hobbies, games, computer/internet and television use, etc.) and personal care (eating, sleeping, etc.) On the first aspect, survey results reveal that, on average, about 13 percent of employees in the OECD countries work 50 hours or more in a usual working week. Turkey has the highest proportion (around 34 percent) of people working very long hours. Reflecting the characteristics of a patriarchal society, men seem to be spending more hours at work in Turkey. About the second aspect, it is seen that a full-time worker in the OECD devotes 62 percent of a day (around 15 hours) on average, to personal care and leisure. This proportion is much higher than that of in Turkey (around 12.5 hours). Considered the overall indicators, Turkey has the lowest WLB index among OECD member countries. After presenting the findings from the surveys, the study discusses the possible reasons and results of having such a low WLB for Turkey.

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