Abstract:
Work life imbalance has been identified as one of the serious problems among nurses in
health care industry of Sri Lanka. The overall research study has been structured based on
the concept indicator model built up with referring to the two research objectives, which
was identifying the antecedents and consequences of work life imbalance. The qualitative
research was conducted through structured interviews, using 20 female nurses who are
employed at Colombo District Government Hospitals. Qualitative data were analysed by
using the thematic analysis. The findings of the study revealed that, parental demand, lack
of family support, task difficulty, nature of working schedules and lack of staff as the
antecedents which create the work life imbalance and intention to leave the job, conflicts in
work and home, health problems, feeling overload and stress and demanding leaves as
consequences of work life imbalance. Consequently, the current study concluded that
among the majority of selected participants, the work life imbalance is existing. Based on
the in-depth data collected by participants, it identified that they are having struggles in
balancing their work lives while balancing their personal lives. Finally, study suggests
management of hospitals to pay more attention on reducing nurses’ work life imbalance by
taking necessary steps and actions. Equally, this study will be beneficial in employees’
perspective to enhance their work life and personal life by getting a proper understanding
of work life imbalance.
