Family status and changing demands/resources: the overlooked experience of solo-living employees transitioning to homeworking during the Covid-19 pandemic

Abstract

Solo-living employees are a growing segment of the workforce, yet their work-life experiences are under-researched. Taking a biographical narrative approach, we interviewed 35 solo-livers from different countries to explore their transition to homeworking during the Covid-19 lockdowns. Drawing upon the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model and key concepts from the work-life interface literature, we explored both lost/reduced and new/increased job and personal demands and resources at this time. We found that the transition to homeworking during lockdown created several challenges for solo-living staff, often exacerbated by changes to the demands and resources of others – namely those with childcare responsibilities. We argue that ‘sense of entitlement to support for work-life balance’ is an important personal resource, which impacts the work-life interface, and which solo-living staff often lack. Our findings offer solo-friendly recommendations for organisational practice.

Keywords:

• Solo-living
• job-demands resources (JD-R)
• work-life balance
• homeworking
• fairness
• Covid-19

Acknowledgements

We wish to thank the Editor and the anonymous reviewers for their advice and support through the publications process.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Data availability statement

The datasets generated and analysed during this study are not publicly available due to the terms of the ethical approval granted by [name] University Ethics Committee

Notes

1 On 13th June 2020, people in the UK who lived alone were permitted to form a ‘support bubble’ with another household, without being in breach of lockdown rules.