Written by Lis Ku, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, De Montfort University.

Finding the right work-life balance is by no means a new issue in our society. But the tension between the two has been heightened by the pandemic, with workers increasingly dwelling over the nature of their work, its meaning and purpose, and how these affect their quality of life.

Studies suggest people are leaving or planning to leave their employers in record numbers in 2021 – a “great resignation” that appears to have been precipitated by these reflections. But if we’re all reconsidering where and how work slots into our lives, what should we be aiming at?

It’s easy to believe that if only we didn’t need to work, or we could work far fewer hours, we’d be happier, living a life of hedonic experiences in all their healthy and unhealthy forms. But this fails to explain why some retirees pick up freelance jobs and some lottery winners go straight back to work.

Striking the perfect work-life balance, if there is such a thing, isn’t necessarily about tinkering with when, where and how we work – it’s a question of...

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Lis Ku, Senior Lecturer in Psychology, De Montfort University, is an experimental social psychologist who is interested in the impact of socially-grounded values such as materialism on various types of behaviour that have important implications for both individual and societal well-being.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.