Work-Life Balance Among University Academic Leaders in a Developing Country Context: Empirical Evidence From Ethiopia

The issue of work-life balance (WLB) has received rising attention globally. Academic leaders are said to have a compromised WLB situation as they juggle multiple roles involving a wide range of challenging factors in their work-life environment. Yet, academic leaders, particularly in the context of developing countries, have to deal with gruelling circumstances ranging from lack of funding to political interference. On top of that, empirical studies on the WLB of academic leaders from the developing world are scant. Given this, this study examined WLB issues among academic leaders from public universities in Ethiopia to provide empirical evidence to narrow the knowledge gap on WLB (of academic leaders) from various contexts, especially from the less developed part of the world. Accordingly, the study surveyed the WLB circumstances of academic leaders in the study setting using a standard questionnaire, and a total of 205 complete questionnaires were collected from academic leaders of eight Ethiopian public universities. The (descriptive) analysis relied on mean analysis to assess the level of WLB among the academic leaders. The study found that the academic leaders’ WLB is severely compromised across all dimensions of WLB that this study drew on (role overload, quality of health, dependent care issues, time management, and support networks). Thus, in addition to extending the subject of WLB among academic leaders to less explored territories, this study provides empirical contributions as well as practical/managerial and social implications.