In general, work-life balance is the relationship between work and non-working time. However, it is difficult to define exactly how that balance is to be understood and measured. Good work-life balance can be assessed subjectively, in terms of the individual worker's impressions of their work-life balance, or absolutely, in terms of whether the worker's time is balanced equally between work and nonwork activities.

This is why work-life balance is not a legal phenomenon.

As things stand in Malta, we have several work-life balance rights and facilities governed by laws and regulations. These vary from parental leave, emergency leave, and carers' leave to flexible working arrangements and telework.

Still, parents are particularly likely to feel dissatisfied with their work-life balance; people of different genders may experience work-life balance differently, and younger generations of Maltese workers value work-life balance more highly than older generations.

Poor work-life balance carries personal and collective risks comprised of both mental and physical health hazards that accompany overwork.

This is why Malta and other European countries have sought to address work overload and work-life conflict through policies. Relative to those in the United States, workers in Europe spend fewer hours working and enjoy greater paid leave. Denmark, for example, touts the fact that Danish workers are entitled to five weeks of paid vacation each year and generally conduct their work within the confines of the official workweek, which is thirty-seven hours. Other countries have experimented with policy interventions such as limiting work-related correspondence outside of working hours and creating maximum hour caps for workweeks.

Finding the right balance between the different spheres of life of an individual, especially in the case of balancing work and family, requires a variety of measures and good cooperation from all stakeholders: employees, employers, trade unions, local communities, and the state.

Globalisation,  new  technologies  and business restructuring are challenging long-established patterns of paid work and, at the same time, imposing new burdens on families, individuals, and households. Considerable changes in labour force demographics and family composition have taken place in the past few decades, making the challenge of adequately balancing work and family roles one of today's central concerns for individuals.

In fact, according to a survey commissioned by the National Commission for the Promotion of Equality a few months ago, it transpired that challenges in reconciling work and childcare responsibilities are evident, with 67.6% of women and 58.6% of men finding it difficult to fulfil their family responsibilities at times or frequently.

Regarding work-life balance support measures, the survey found dissatisfaction with the duration and compensation levels of existing leave policies referred to above.

Clearly, assumptions embedded in this rather minimalist work-life structure are based on outdated patterns of workforce participation and family structure. These entrenched patterns systematically disadvantage certain categories of workers, including women, single parents, individuals with disabilities and low-wage workers, and make it difficult for today's workforce to participate in non-market-work activities like caretaking or civic and community engagement.

Between the 1960s and the 1980s most Maltese families were structured such that a man could work for pay while his wife provided hours of unpaid homemaking labour, which served to preserve her husband's time for work.

That expectation is at odds with the realities of today's workforce. Starting with the economic boom and continuing through social movements promoting equal opportunity, labour force participation among women increased dramatically and the typical household structure shifted.

Taking time away from work remains difficult. At the same time, the minimum wage has increasingly fallen out of step with rising inflation and the cost of living. Real wages of those at the bottom of the income distribution can hardly make ends meet, even while those at the top have seen notable gains.

The result of the increasing difficulty of balancing work and family lives is the increasing frequency of people starting families at a later age, a decrease in the number of children, or people with no children at all. Alternatively, some parents may choose to temporarily or permanently stop working.

Children whose parents do not work are more likely to be poor, whereas mothers who have interrupted their careers to care for their children are exposed to a higher risk of poverty in later life. Finding a good work-family balance is thus a critical issue for the well-being of children and society, as both poverty and a lack of personal attention can harm child development.

Work-life balance means effectively combining working life with private obligations or aspirations. The result is that there are many different definitions of the term work-life balance. The balance is presumed to exist between the paid work performed and the lives led outside one's job. But in reality, life and work overlap and interact.

Consequently, there are different terms and definitions used in connection to work-life balance, such as work/life, work/family, work/family balance, work/family conflict, family-friendly benefits, work/life programmes, work/life initiatives, work/family culture, boundary crossing, work-life harmony, etc.

Dialogue is important when developing practices to facilitate the balancing of work and family lives so that they are tailored to the needs of all stakeholders. Making the working environment family-friendly is most effective when it is seen as a shared responsibility. It is also vital that policies/measures be actually implemented and not merely formulated.

Stress has become the trash of modern life. We all generate it, but if we don't dispose of it properly, it will pile up and overtake our lives.