The Impact of ICT Use on Work and Life Balance for Working Parents with Infants

Abstract

ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) is blurring the boundaries in time and space between work and the home, although they have been historically separated. It gives the possibility to work anytime and anywhere in time and space at home. Also it can bring private time or communication into the workplace. In this paper, research has been conducted with interviews and a descriptive diary study of 6 dual-earner families with infants, to study ICT use and its impact in their daily life, about 1) work at home with ICT use and 2) ICT private use at the workplace. The results show that for some participants having extra work as management or in busy periods, the working time with ICT eroded their personal time. And ICT at the workplace is privately used to communicate between husbands and wives to coordinate housework and childcare, or to obtain emotional benefit. ICT mediates contexts of work within the family domain and encourages concepts of work efficiency and productivity to distribute housework and childcare into tasks and controlling time. Moreover, ICT private use at the workplace has raised consciousness towards the family by shifting the points of contact with families into work time and space.