Work–life-imbalance during the COVID-19 pandemic: exploring social support and health outcomes in the United States

ABSTRACT

This study explored work–life imbalance and social support during the Spring 2020 COVID-19 shelter-in-place restrictions in the U.S. and their impact on perceived stress and depression. In addition, the study explored relationships among perceived social support from others, support-seeking behaviors, and the role of weak-tie support network preference and demographic variables in terms of perceived stress and depression. The findings indicate that when controlling for social support, work–life imbalance was a significant predictor of both perceived stress and depression during the shelter-in-place restrictions. Moreover, higher work–life imbalance was a significant predictor of higher weak-tie support preference, while lower perceived social support predicted higher weak-tie support network preference. In addition, the findings indicated significant differences in weak-tie support preference based on living arrangements as well as differences between gender and racial/ethnic groups in terms of perceived stress and depression. The implications of the study findings for theory and practice are discussed along with key limitations and directions for future research.

KEYWORDS:

• Covid-19
• work–life imbalance
• social support
• weak ties
• health outcomes

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.