A Comparative Study of Work Life Balance among Higher Education Students in ASEM Courses

Emergence of the phrase Work Life Balance came up in 1986 when amid many Americans there was prevalence of detrimental work place practices like neglecting families, leisure activities and friends in order to achieve their work place goals.

The importance of work-life balance has been gaining ground in recent years to capture a wider range of groups, including students combining full-time study with part-time employment. Finding a balance can be complex and challenging for many individuals and students. In this paper we have explored how undergraduate and postgraduate students balance the competing demands of work, study, and social activities.

A lot of research has been done over the past years for understanding the relationship between works, personal life. Optimum balance in life is obtained when balance between the factors like emotional, intellectual, imaginative, spiritual and physical is obtained. A neglect of one factor jeopardizes other.

Balance should be established between workload distribution, leisure time, time spent with family social relationship and extra-curricular activities so as to engender academic excellence.

This paper contributes to the prevailing literature as it pays attention to the various streams Arts Science, Engineering and Management course (ASEM) students ’of varying lifestyles school-work-personal lives. Findings of this study will provide a cognizance of the Work/school-life balance issues faced by university students. The research could be helpful to the various stakeholders of a University, the curriculum designers, program coordinators etc.

The study is based on a sample size restricted to four institutes. Furthermore, there is need to do similar studies with a larger sample size to make results more generalized.