Work–life balance is shaped not only by how individuals manage their personal demands and resources, but also by stressors and work–life balance support mechanisms from external environment encompassing multilevel social systems. Our systematic literature review focuses particularly on the role of work–life balance support, drawing on 384 journal articles and book chapters published between 1960 and 2019 across five research disciplines, including management, applied psychology, industrial relations, family studies and sociology. We make four major contributions to the literature, including: (1) conceptualizing work–life balance support from a process-oriented perspective pertinent to a virtuous cycle of resource investment and return, drawing on the conservation of resources theory and the personal resource allocation framework; (2) adopting a multilevel approach that construes the interactions in terms of resource changes between individuals’ work–life experiences and their surrounding social systems nested at multiple levels, applying the socio-ecological systems theory; (3) proposing a multidimensional typology that differentiates the role of actual existence versus subjective perception of support mechanisms as inspired by social support literature; and (4) advocating a pluralist, multi-stakeholder approach to comprehending and reconciling multiple stakeholders’ shared and competing interests around provision/utilization of support mechanisms based on insights from multidisciplinary literature. Our process-oriented, multilevel and multidimensional framework conceptualizes the critical role of work–life balance support in iterative interactions between individuals and their multilevel social environment through resource changes and reality–perception transformation. This conceptual framework also underscores the importance of pluralist thinking, context specification and cost-effectiveness analysis for future research.

中文翻译：

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工作与生活平衡支持的面向过程、多层次、多维度的概念框架：多学科系统文献综述和未来研究议程

工作与生活的平衡不仅取决于个人如何管理他们的个人需求和资源，还取决于来自外部环境的压力源和工作生活平衡支持机制，包括多层次的社会系统。我们的系统文献综述特别关注工作与生活平衡支持的作用，借鉴了 1960 年至 2019 年间发表的 384 篇期刊文章和书籍章节，涉及五个研究学科，包括管理、应用心理学、劳资关系、家庭研究和社会学。我们对文献做出了四项主要贡献，包括：（1）从与资源投资和回报的良性循环相关的面向过程的角度将工作与生活平衡支持概念化，借鉴资源节约理论与个人资源配置框架；(2) 采用多层次方法，运用社会生态系统理论，解释个体的工作-生活经历与其周围多层次嵌套的社会系统之间资源变化的相互作用；(3) 提出一种多维类型学，以区分实际存在的作用与受社会支持文献启发的支持机制的主观感知；(4) 提倡多元化、多利益相关者基于多学科文献的见解，理解和协调多个利益相关者围绕提供/利用支持机制的共同利益和竞争利益的方法。我们以流程为导向、多层次和多维度的框架通过资源变化和现实-感知转变将工作-生活平衡支持在个人与其多层次社会环境之间的迭代互动中的关键作用概念化。这一概念框架还强调了多元思维、背景规范和成本效益分析对未来研究的重要性。