Work-Life Balance Scale
Measure how work and personal life interact in your day-to-day experience. This assessment examines conflict, interference, and positive spillover between domains.
How this works: You'll rate 15 statements about your work and personal life on a scale from "Strongly Disagree" to "Strongly Agree". Answer based on your typical experience over recent months.
This assessment measures three dimensions:
Work → Personal Life
Rate how much you agree with each statement.
1. My job makes it difficult to have time for my personal life.
2. I often miss personal activities because I'm working.
3. I neglect some of my personal needs due to the demands of my work.
4. I put my personal life on hold when work gets busy.
5. I struggle to balance my work with responsibilities outside of work.
Work ↔ Personal Life
Rate how much you agree with each statement.
6. Because of my work, I've missed quality time with friends or family.
7. I am happy with the amount of time I have for things outside of work.
8. My personal life drains me of the energy I need to do my job.
9. I'm often too tired at work because of things going on in my personal life.
10. I have a hard time focusing on my work because of personal matters.
Personal Life ↔ Work
Rate how much you agree with each statement.
11. My personal responsibilities sometimes make my work suffer.
12. The positive mood from my personal life helps me be a better worker.
13. Having a fulfilling personal life gives me energy for my job.
14. My job leaves me in a good mood, which improves my personal life.
15. The things I learn or gain at work make me a better person outside of work.
Your Work-Life Balance Profile
Based on your responses across three dimensions
What This Means
A note on interpretation: This is a self-reflection tool, not a clinical assessment. Work-life balance varies by life stage, career phase, and personal circumstances. Use these insights as a starting point for reflection rather than a definitive judgment.
The Research Behind This Scale
From the Research
"Work-life balance is conceptualized as the individual perception that work and nonwork activities are compatible and promote growth in one's current life situation."
— Kalliath, T. & Brough, P. (2008). Work-life balance: A review of the meaning of the balance construct. Journal of Management & Organization.
The concept of work-life balance emerged from decades of research on work-family conflict. Early studies focused primarily on family obligations, but researchers recognized that "personal life" extends beyond family to include health, hobbies, friendships, and self-care.
This assessment adapts the structure developed by Fisher-McAuley et al. (2003) and refined by Hayman (2005), who validated a 15-item scale measuring three distinct factors.
| Dimension | What It Measures | Ideal |
|---|---|---|
| WIPL | Work interference with personal life (time, energy, missed activities) | Lower is better |
| PLIW | Personal life interference with work (fatigue, distraction, responsibilities) | Lower is better |
| WPLE | Positive spillover between domains (mood, energy, skills) | Higher is better |
This assessment is a research-inspired adaptation. We're not affiliated with the original researchers, and this is not the official Hayman Work-Life Balance Scale.
Our approach:
- We studied the validated three-factor structure from Hayman (2005) and Fisher-McAuley et al. (2003)
- Questions have been reworded while preserving the core constructs measured by each subscale
- We use the same scoring methodology and interpretation bands described in published research
- We replaced "family" with "personal life" throughout to be inclusive of diverse life circumstances
Key Source
"This study evaluated a 15-item scale for assessing the construct of work life balance adapted from an instrument... Factor analysis confirmed a robust three factor solution."
— Hayman, J. (2005). Psychometric assessment of an instrument designed to measure work life balance. Research and Practice in Human Resource Management.
The original scale has shown strong internal consistency across multiple studies:
| Subscale | Items | Cronbach's α | Interpretation |
|---|---|---|---|
| WIPL | 7 | 0.93 | Excellent reliability |
| PLIW | 4 | 0.85 | Good reliability |
| WPLE | 4 | 0.69 | Acceptable reliability |
Research has found that work-life balance scores correlate with important outcomes including job stress, job satisfaction, and intentions to quit (Hayman, 2005). Higher conflict scores tend to associate with greater stress and lower job satisfaction.
Note: Reliability figures from Hayman (2005) study of 61 HR administrators. Similar values have been reported in subsequent validation studies across cultures.
About This Tool
This work-life balance scale is designed to help you reflect on how work and personal life influence each other. It's based on established research but adapted for general educational use.