It’s no secret that many of us are feeling too overwhelmed, pressured and short of time to pursue the things that would actually make us feel good. Even worse, the sheer array of paths available to us to achieve work/life balance (WLB) is enough to send our stress barometers sky-rocketing even higher.

It seems that at every turn there is a program, workshop or seminar designed to offer us that elusive quality of life called “balance”. We can access information more easily than ever before, but the big challenge is how we can locate the right path that will lead us, as individuals and families, to a real improvement in the quality, appreciation and joy in our lives.

In an increasingly hectic world, it’s becoming more difficult to achieve a balance between all the competing demands we face. Often, work alone becomes our focus, to the detriment of health, personal relationships and family life. Globalisation, longer working hours and increased workloads, shifting demographics and an increase in single-parent families are only a few of the conditions adding to the growing pressures we face in finding a balance between our work and our lives outside it.

Within a generation, Australia has experienced unprecedented social change with profound implications for the way men and women use and manage their time. Many workplaces have come a long way in accommodating workers’ family responsibilities, with legislative provisions, agreements and workplace policies in place to allow us greater flexibility about how we can more fully participate in family life.

The work/life balance initiatives we are experiencing such as job sharing, flexible working hours, working from home and paid maternity and paternity leave are all steps in the right direction but, as we know, family-friendly workplace policies do not necessarily translate to work/life balance in our personal lives.

Only last year, a new project to examine the work/family balance titled Striking the Balance: Women, Men, Work and Family (initiated by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission) was set up to investigate the pressures facing both men and women in our efforts to combine paid work and family responsibilities. Fundamentally, we need to move beyond the perception that balancing work and family is largely a woman’s concern.

Perhaps the reason much of the work/life balance literature focuses on women is in part due to the significant increase of women in the paid workforce over the past 40 years. Between 1966 and 2002, the labour force participation rate of married women increased from 29 to 58 per cent. However, according to the Striking The Balance Project With Work and Family, studies show that of Australian women with two or more children, only 43 per cent are in the workforce, compared with 82 per cent in Sweden and 62 per cent in the UK.

Another reason we still think of balancing work and family issues as a woman’s issue is partly that the advocacy role played by women in changing gender roles in Australia, along with traditional ideas of children and the home, is seen as the woman’s domain. But as long as paid work and family balance is framed as the concern of women only, and specifically one for women with young children, men will continue to be seen as the secondary parent and carer.

Clearly, work/life balance is not just a women’s issue. Many men are also finding it difficult to juggle priorities, which include a deep need to care for their children. However, while women re-entering the workforce have sought to juggle work and family responsibilities by working more flexibly, men have not done so to the same extent. Men are generally working longer hours and fathers predominantly continue to work full-time while mothers take on part-time work. In June 2002, about 6 per cent of employed fathers and 57 per cent of employed mothers worked part-time. It’s therefore evident that men as well as women want to lead balanced lives.