Work-Life Balance and National Context in Attraction to Public Employment

ABSTRACT

What explains preferences for public employment versus private business employment. Much of the extant literature considers this topic within the context of single-nation studies and the work motives of those individuals already employed by government. This study contributes to the public-management literature with a cross-national examination of government employment preferences across 31 national samples using data from the International Social Survey Programme. Results indicate that a desire for more work-life balance is negatively associated with a preference for government employment and that measures of national economic health help explain the variation in preferences for government employment across nations.

KEYWORDS:

• Work-life balance
• multilevel modeling
• obligation-based intrinsic motives
• employment preferences
• unemployment