یک دیدگاه جنسیتی در مورد تعادل کار و زندگی، استرس درک شده و محل کنترل  A gender perspective on work-life balance, perceived stress, and locus of control

1. Introduction Balancing work and family demands is a struggle that almost all employees deal with on a daily basis, consequently incurring high levels of job-related stress. Job stress plays a major role in creating various types of work-related conflicts for employees, being one of the largest problems in the European Union working environment (Bell, Rajendran, & Theiler, 2012). Nevertheless, employees with less conflict between their work and family lives apply positive behaviors from their personal life on their work life (Qu & Zhao, 2012). Recent changes in the workforce composition further contribute to the concept of work-life balance (Ehrhart, Mayer, & Ziegert, 2012). As more women join the workforce and dual-income families become more common, both men and women face the need to balance between family and work life. Recently, most gender-oriented studies revolve around the effect of gender on work-life balance and more specifically about whether men face the same degree of difficulty in juggling work and family demands or are at some sort of advantage over women. This study aims to determine whether high levels of control, mainly internal control, lead to a higher quality of work-life balance, with perceived levels of stress as a mediator between the two variables. Furthermore, this article examines this relationship in both female and male respondents separately, to shed light on the role of gender regarding the variables under study. Thus, this study aims to address two main research questions: Research Question 1: How do the two variables, locus of control and perceived stress, influence the quality of work-life balance among employees? Research Question 2: How does gender play a role in the proposed relationship among the three variables locus of control, perceived stress, and work-life balance? This study focuses on how gender contributes in predicting employees’ quality of work-life balance. This article enhances the existing literature, as few studies attempt to draw a comparison between men and women’s way to deal with work-life conflicts. The article also identifies the predictors of a balanced and conflict free work life. In addition, this study broadens the scope in terms of employees’ locus of control, differentiating between an external and internal locus of control and studying the role of each, relative to gender, in predicting levels of perceived stress at work and work-life balance.