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Work–life balance is a broad concept including proper prioritizing between "work" (career and ambition) on the one hand and "life" (Health, pleasure, leisure, family and spiritual development) on the other. Related, though broader, terms include "lifestyle balance" and "life balance".

History[link]

The work-leisure dichotomy was invented in the mid 1800s.^[1][2] In anthropology, a definition of happiness is to have as little separation as possible "between your work and your play."^[3][4] The expression "Work–life balance" was first used in the United Kingdom in the late 1970s to describe the balance between an individual's work and personal life.^[5] In the United States, this phrase was first used in 1986.

Most recently, there has been a shift in the workplace as a result of advances in technology. As Bowswell and Olson-Buchanan stated, "increasingly sophisticated and affordable technologies have made it more feasible for employees to keep contact with work." Employees have many methods, such as emails, computers and cell phones, which enable them to accomplish their work beyond the physical boundaries of their office. Employees may respond to an email or a voice mail after-hours or during the weekend, typically while not officially "on the job." Researchers have found that employees that consider their work roles to be an important component of their identities, they will be more likely to apply these communication technologies to work while in their non-work domain.^[6]

Some theorists suggest that this blurred boundary of work and life is a result of technological control. Technological control "emerges from the physical technology of an organization" ^[7] . In other words, companies utilize email and distribute smart phones to enable and encourage their employees to stay connected to the business even when they are not in the real office. This type of control, as Barker would argued, replaces the more direct, authoritarian control, or simple control, such as managers and bosses. As a result, communication technologies in the temporal and structural aspects of work have changed, defining a "new workplace" in which employees are more connected to the jobs beyond the boundaries of the traditional workday and workplace.^[8] The more this boundary is blurred, the higher work-to-life conflict is self-reported by employees ^[6]

Many Americans are experiencing burnout due to overwork and increased stress. This condition is seen in nearly all occupations from blue collar workers to upper management. Over the past decade, a rise in workplace violence and an increase in levels of absenteeism as well as rising workers’ compensation claims are all evidence of an unhealthy work life balance.^{[citation needed]} Many authors believe that parents being affected by work-life conflict will either reduce the number of hours one works where other authors suggest that a parent may run away from family life or work more hours at a workplace.^[9] This implies that each individual views work-life conflict differently.

Employee assistance professionals say there are many causes for this situation ranging from personal ambition and the pressure of family obligations to the accelerating pace of technology.[2]. According to a recent study for the Center for Work-Life Policy, 1.7 million people consider their jobs and their work hours excessive because of globalization.

These difficult and exhausting conditions are having adverse effects. According to the study, fifty percent of top corporate executives are leaving their current positions. Although sixty-four percent of workers feel that their work pressures are "self-inflicted", they state that it is taking a toll on them. The study shows that seventy percent of US respondents and eighty-one percent of global respondents say their jobs are affecting their health.

Between forty-six and fifty-nine percent of workers feel that stress is affecting their interpersonal and sexual relationships. Additionally, men feel that there is a certain stigma associated with saying "I can't do this".

United States history[link]

The first enforceable hours' law in the United States was in 1874 when Massachusetts enacted a law which limited the amount of time that women and children could work each week.[1] This limit was set at sixty hours per week. Similar laws were later adopted by about half of the country’s states. Only men in exceptionally hazardous jobs were covered in early legislation and most had no limit to the number of hours their employers could have them work.

Ten-hour workdays were accepted in the agriculture industry during certain seasons and six-day workweeks were not unheard of. Bakers did not win the right to work less than ten hours per day until 1905 with the court case of Lochner vs. New York.

The general presumption during this period was that the courts would allow regulation of labor concerning women and children, who were thought to be incapable of bargaining on an equal footing with employers and in special need of protection. Men were allowed freedom of contract unless it could be proven that regulating their hours served a higher good for the population at large.[2]

During the turn of the twentieth century, the push for an eight-hour workday was geared primarily toward raising the hourly wage. The idea was that by maintaining the current weekly pay while lowering working hours, a fairer rate of pay would result. The slogan, "Whether you work by the piece or work by the day, decreasing the hours increases the pay," seemed to carry the mood of the day. [3]

The early twentieth century laid the groundwork for the idea of work-life balance. Advancements in social sciences would move the focus towards the impact of long hours on the physical and mental health of the employee.

At this time, however, the new information was used to enhance productivity for the company. The shorter hours movement began to focus on the fact that an overworked employee is more prone to injury or mistake and becomes less productive. Josephine Goldmark wrote a book in 1912 detailing this fact and the Federal Public Works Act was passed the same year.

This new act required a forty-hour workweek for employees of government contracted firms. Over the next ten years, the government passed legislation requiring a forty-hour work week for individual industries nearly every time the issue arose in court.[4]

When the employees of the steel industry failed to obtain a reduction from their eighty-four-hour work week in 1919, the industry soon allowed their employees an eight-hour workday, a four hour per day reduction—a move brought about by much "arm-twisting" on the part of President Harding. [5]

By the 1920s, the average work week was fifty hours and was considered a great stride and well-earned award for America’s working man. (Whaples) The push for fewer hours had come to a close, but they had one more hurdle to overcome. The new concentration was on the ability to work half a day on Saturdays or have the day off completely. The ability to have two days of rest was unprecedented, but was considered vital to finalize an ethical work schedule. Pressure was put on businesses to make the change, especially in industries and cities with a large number of Jewish workers (since the Jewish Sabbath is on Saturday), and they finally achieved this goal by the end of the decade. Where only thirty-two firms had a five-day workweek in 1920, nearly half had adopted the practice by 1927. [6]

Their success was short lived. In the 1920s, the workers were coaxed into believing that they wanted to work longer hours and that they would be harmed by measures that limited how many hours they were allowed to work. Social scientists would later name this force the "gospel of consumption." Beginning in the 1920s, advertisers persuaded Americans that happiness would not come from leisure time, but from purchasing commodities, and he concluded that this made it easier for managers to "allow" workers to make more money by working longer hours. [7]

Social scientists would conclude that a new work ethic began as Americans left the psychology of scarcity and adopted one of abundance. Some argue that this mentality of consumption or "consumerism" persists to this day. [8]

During the twentieth century, the average workweek has changed drastically. In 1900, the average workweek in manufacturing was approximately fifty-three hours. However, the workweek is responsive to business conditions. During the Great Depression, the average number of hours for production workers in manufacturing dropped to 34.6 each week. During World War II, hours worked rose to forty-five each week.

The normal range of hours worked during the four decades after World War II was thirty-nine to forty-one hours; (Whaples) however, starting in the 1990s, factory workweek hours began to exceed forty-one hours. As previously mentioned, Americans work approximately 47.1 hours each week; some employees work up to seventy hours. Therefore, it is safe to state that the average number of hours Americans presently work each week is the highest it has been in nearly seventy-five years.

In 1900, only nineteen percent of women of working age were in the labor force. In 1999 sixty percent of women worked outside the home. Even if the hours worked were slightly higher at the turn of the century, most households were supported by one paycheck. "In 1900, eighty percent of American children had a working father and a stay-at-home mother; however, by 1999, that figure was only twenty-four percent." [9]

During the Great Depression, working hours were reduced. By 1932, approximately fifty percent of Americans were working a shortened work week. Instead of reducing wages, employers decided to lay off many workers and attempted to protect the employees that remained by encouraging them to job share.

President Hoover’s Commission for Work Sharing pushed voluntary hours reductions, and it is estimated that nearly three to five million jobs had been saved. (Whaples) Companies such as Sears, General Motors, and Standard Oil reduced the number of days worked each week, and Akron began a six-hour workday. The AFL began to call for a federally-mandated thirty-hour workweek. [10]

By 1933, some experts were predicting that the "thirty-hour workweek was within a month of becoming federal law." [11] Congress began hearings on mandating the thirty-hour workweek, and the Senate even passed the bill (which was written by Hugo Black and sponsored in the House by William Connery) fifty-three to thirty.

Newly-elected President, Franklin Roosevelt initially supported the bill, but had second thoughts when he realized that the bill had a provision to forbid importation of goods produced by workers who worked longer than thirty hours a week. Instead, Roosevelt began to support the National Industrial Recovery Act. Labor leaders were encouraged to support the NIRA instead of the Black-Connery Thirty-Hour Bill with a guarantee of union organization and collective bargaining. With the threat of a mandated thirty-hour work week, businesses "fell into line." [12] When specifics codes for the NIRA were drawn up, shorter hours were no longer a genuine concern.[13]

After the Great Depression ended, the average weekly hours worked began to rise. (According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 1934 the average hours worked each week was approximately thirty-four hours). During World War II, hours increased by approximately ten hours a week but, in the aftermath of the war, weekly work hours averaged forty hours. [14]

With automation of the workplace in "full swing" by the 1970s, large numbers of women began entering the work force and an "awareness of stress rose to the forefront" [15] In the publication Type A Behavior and Your Heart, cardiologists Meyer Friedman and Ray H. Rosenman wrote about the "hurry sickness" common to "workaholics"—people who had no friends and who "never relaxed or went to museums" [16]

In the late 1970s, Professor Robert Karasek of the University of Lowell (now known as University of Massachusetts Lowell) developed a method for analyzing stress-producing factors in the workplace. It has been widely employed to examine workplace pressures and their relationship with research data on coronary heart disease, musculoskeletal illnesses, psychological strain and absenteeism. Karasek explains, "In situations where an individual has high demands on him and low control, the undesirable stress of work and other situations becomes problematic." [17]

The 1980s brought new complaints of work-life balance related stress. This time period was given such names as "the ME generation," "the age of narcissism" and "the pursuit of loneliness."[18] The number of cases of emotional depression in the United States was believed to have doubled between 1970 and 1990.

"What you do is what you are" was the common and unhealthy assumption. According to 'The Workaholic Syndrome', written by Judith K. Sprankle and Henry Ebel, "By their sheer numbers and the consequently narrowing opportunities at every upward run of the organizational ladder, the baby-boomers have been compelled to do more, to move faster, to compete harder. They, in turn, have set the pace for other age groups. The signs of increased stress are legion and have been intensified by an economic climate that mandates that if we marry at all, we marry a working spouse." [19]

In the late 1980s, the "computer revolution" was not only responsible for corporate downsizing, but also increased the demand of employee output. Social critic Jeremy Rifkin states, "Back in the agriculture-based society, people were more attuned to generatively [20], and middle-stress disorders and diseases of affluence were not part of life. They weren’t triggered until the Industrial Age, and now the Information Age has worsened them. Nowadays, instead of seconds, it’s nanoseconds. We have moved from designing a schedule that real people can execute in whatever time it takes them, to a program which people can monitor but can’t affect." [21]

In the 1980s, the number of workers’ compensation claims for "gradual mental stress" began to rise. Claims rose from 1,844 cases in 1981 to 15,688 in 1999 in the state of California alone. Because of the large number of cases as well as evidence of numerous cases of fraud, efforts were made in the early 1990s to reform the workers compensation program. Led by Republican Governor of California Pete Wilson and Democratic Party State assembly Speaker Willie Brown, the new law stated that claimants had to prove that stress was at least 51 percent of the reason for their illness. [22]

Unfortunately, because of these reforms some feel that it is now extremely difficult to be approved for workers compensation. John Burton, dean of the school of management and labor relations at Rutgers University feels that part of the reason for the decline is that "a number of states made it difficult to get stress into the system.

So even if the stress is out there, it’s not showing up (in the compensation statistics). Some of it shows up in the rising violence, which is a crude proxy for the stress out there." [23]

According to sociologist Scott Coltrane “In 1960, there were more than twice as many breadwinner-father/homemaker-mother families as dual-earner families but in 2000, there were more than twice as many dual earner families as breadwinner-father/homemaker-mother families. And the number of other family types, single-mother and single-father families has grown even faster.” This has created vast changes within the work-family equation.^[10]

Balancing work life and family life has become a huge issue for people in the workforce today. This issue is especially difficult for dual-earner families, now consisting of over 47 million people in the United States.^[11]

Work statistics[link]

According to a survey conducted by the National Life Insurance Company, four out of ten employees state that their jobs are "very" or "extremely" stressful.[3] Those in high-stress jobs are three times more likely than others to suffer from stress-related medical conditions and are twice as likely to quit. The study states that women, in particular, report stress related to the conflict between work and family.

In the study, Work-Family Spillover and Daily Reports of Work and Family Stress in the Adult Labor Force , researchers found that with an increased amount of negative spillover from work to family, the likelihood of reporting stress within the family increased by 74%, and with an increased amount of negative spillover from family to work the likelihood to report stress felt at work increased by 47%.^[12] This illustrates that those who are experiencing stress that has spilled over from work to family are more than likely to report feeling stress related to their family. Also, those who feel stress that has spilled over from their family into their work, almost half were likely to feel stress when they were at work.

Employee benefits in the United States –MARCH 2011 Paid leave benefits continued to be the most widely available benefit offered by employers, with paid vacations available to 91 percent of full-time workers in private industry in March 2011, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Access to these benefits, however, varied by employee and establishment characteristics. In private industry, paid vacation benefits were available to only 37 percent of part-time workers. Paid sick leave was available to 75 percent of full-time workers and 27 percent of part-time workers. Paid vacations were available to 90 percent of workers earning wages in the highest 10th percent of private industry employees and only to 38 percent of workers in the lowest 10 percent of private industry wage earners. Access to paid sick leave benefits ranged from 21 percent for the lowest wage category to 87 percent for the highest wage category. These data are from the National Compensation Survey (NCS), which provides comprehensive measures of compensation cost trends and incidence and provisions of employee benefit plans. <refhttp://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/ebs2.pdfref> u.s labor statistics

Stress and work-life balance[link]

The number of stress-related disability claims by American employees has doubled^[when?] according to the Employee Assistance Professionals Association in Arlington, Virginia. Seventy-five to ninety percent of physician visits are related to stress and, according to the American Institute of Stress, the cost to industry has been estimated at $200 billion-$300 billion a year.[4]

Steven L. Sauter, chief of the Applied Psychology and Ergonomics Branch of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health in Cincinnati, Ohio, states that recent studies show that "the workplace has become the single greatest source of stress".[5] Michael Feuerstein, professor of clinical psychology at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences at Bethesda Naval Hospital states, "We're seeing a greater increase in work-related neuroskeletal disorders from a combination of stress and ergonomic stressors".[6]

It is clear that problems caused by stress have become a major concern to both employers and employees. Symptoms of stress are manifested both physiologically and psychologically. Persistent stress can result in cardiovascular disease, sexual health problems, a weaker immune system and frequent headaches, stiff muscles, or backache. It can also result in poor coping skills, irritability, jumpiness, insecurity, exhaustion, and difficulty concentrating. Stress may also perpetuate or lead to binge eating, smoking, and alcohol consumption.

According to James Campbell Quick, a professor of organizational behavior at the University of Texas-Arlington, "The average tenure of presidents at land-grant universities in the past ten years has dropped from approximately seven to three-and-a-half years".[7]

The feeling that simply working hard is not enough anymore is acknowledged by many other American workers. "To get ahead, a seventy-hour work week is the new standard. What little time is left is often divvied up among relationships, kids, and sleep." [8] This increase in work hours over the past two decades means that less time will be spent with family, friends, and community as well as pursuing activities that one enjoys and taking the time to grow personally and spiritually.^{[citation needed]}

Texas Quick, an expert witness at trials of companies who were accused of overworking their employees, states that "when people get worked beyond their capacity, companies pay the price." [9] Although some employers believe that workers should reduce their own stress by simplifying their lives and making a better effort to care for their health, most experts feel that the chief responsibility for reducing stress should be management.

According to Esther M. Orioli, president of Essi Systems, a stress management consulting firm, "Traditional stress-management programs placed the responsibility of reducing stress on the individual rather than on the organization-where it belongs. No matter how healthy individual employees are when they start out, if they work in a dysfunctional system, they’ll burn out." [10]

Formation of the "ideal worker" and gender differences[link]

Work-life conflict is not gender-specific. According to the Center for American Progress, 90 percent of working mothers and 95 percent of working fathers report work-family conflict.^[13] However, because of the social norms surrounding each gender role, and how the organization views its ideal worker, men and women handle the work-life balance differently. Organizations play a large part in how their employees deal with work-life balance. Some companies have taken proactive measures in providing programs and initiatives to help their employees cope with work-life balance (see: Responsibility of the employer).

Yet, the root of the work-life conflict may come from the organizational norms and ideologies. As a macro structure, the organization maintains the locus of power. Organizations, through its structure, practices, symbols and discourse, create and reproduce a dominant ideology. The dominant ideology is what drives organizational power and creates organizational norms.

At the top of the organizational hierarchy, the majority of individuals are males, and assumptions can be made regarding their lack of personal experience with the direct and indirect effects of work-family conflict.^[13] For one, they may be unmarried and have no thought as to what "normal" family responsibilities entail. On the other hand, the high-level manager may be married, but his wife, due to the demands of the husband’s position, has remained at home, tending solely to the house and children. Ironically, these are the individuals creating and reforming workplace policies.^[14]

Workplace policies, especially regarding the balance between family/life and work, create an organizational norm in which employees must fall into. This type of organizational behavior, according to Dennis Mumby, "contribut[es] in some ways to the structuring of organizational reality, and hence organizational power." ^[15]

In other words, the reality of what employees experience, specifically in regards to work-life balance, is a direct result of power operating covertly through ideological controls. This is seen in the ideological norm of the "ideal worker." Many organizations view the ideal worker as one who is "committed to their work above all else".^[16] "Ideal workers" are those that demonstrate extra-role behaviors, which are seen as positive attributes.

Alternatively, those who are perceived as having to divide their time (and their commitments) are seen not as dedicated to the organization. As research has shown, a manager’s perception of a subordinate’s commitment to the organization is positively associated with the individual’s promotabilty. Hoobler et al.’s (2009) findings mirrored the perceived commitment-to-promotabilty likelihood.^[17]

Often, these perceptions are placed on the female worker. Managers who perceived their female employees of maintaining high work-family conflict were presumed as not as committed to the organization, therefore not worthy of advancement. This negatively impacts working mothers as they may be "inaccurately perceived to have less commitment to their organizations than their counterparts, their advancement in organizations may be unfairly obstructed".^[16]

Working mothers often have to challenge perceptions and stereotypes that evolve as a working woman becomes a working mother. Working mothers are perceived as less competent and less worthy of training than childless women.^[18] Another study, focusing on professional jobs, found that mothers were 79 percent less likely to be hired and are typically held to a higher standard of punctuality and performance than childless women.^[13] The moment when she becomes a mother, a working woman is held at a completely different norm than her childless colleagues. In the same Cuddy et al. (2004) study, men who became fathers were not perceived as any less competent, and in fact, their perceived warmth increased.^[18]

The ways in which corporations have modeled the "ideal worker" does not compliment the family lifestyle, nor does it accommodate it. Long hours and near complete devotion to the profession makes it difficult for working mothers to participate in getting ahead in the workplace.^[14] A Fortune article found that among the most powerful women in business (female CEOs, presidents and managing directors of major corporations), 29 percent were childless compared to 90 percent of men (;^[19][14]).

Should a woman seek a position of power within an organization, she must consider the toll on other facets of her life, including hobbies, personal relationships and families. As Jeffrey Pfeffer states: "Time spent on the quest for power and status is time you cannot spend on other things, such as … family…The price seems to be particularly severe for women".^[20] Many executive jobs require a substantial amount of overtime, which as a mother, many cannot devote because of family obligations.^[14] Consequently, it is nearly impossible for a working mother in a top management position to be the primary caretaker of her child.^[14]

Perceptions of work-life balance and gender differences[link]

This circumstance only increases the work-life balance stress experienced by many women employees.

Research conducted by the Kenexa Research Institute (KRI), a division of Kenexa, evaluated how male and female workers perceive work-life balance and found that women are more positive than men in how they perceive their company’s efforts to help them balance work and life responsibilities. The report is based on the analysis of data drawn from a representative sample of 10,000 U.S. workers who were surveyed through WorkTrends, KRI’s annual survey of worker opinions.

The results indicated a shift in women’s perceptions about work-life balance. In the past, women often found it more difficult to maintain balance due to the competing pressures at work and demands at home. [11]

“The past two decades have witnessed a sharp decline in men’s provider role, caused in part by growing female labor participation and in part by the weakening of men’s absolute power due to increased rates of unemployment and underemployment” states sociologist Jiping Zuo. She continues on to state that “Women’s growing earning power and commitment to the paid workforce together with the stagnation of men’s social mobility make some families more financially dependent on women. As a result, the foundations of the male dominance structure have been eroded.” ^[21]

Work-life balance concerns of men and women alike[link]

Similar discrimination is experienced by men who take time off or reduce working hours for taking care of the family.

For many employees today—both male and female—their lives are becoming more consumed with a host of family and other personal responsibilities and interests. Therefore, in an effort to retain employees, it is increasingly important for organizations to recognize this balance. [12]

Young generation views on work-life balance[link]

According to Kathleen Gerson, Sociologist, young people "are searching for new ways to define care that do not force them to choose between spending time with their children and earning an income" and " are looking for definition of personal identity that do not pit their own development against creating committed ties to others".^[22][23] Young adults believe that parents should get involved and support the children both economically and emotionally, as well as share labor equally. Young people do not believe work-life balance is possible and think it is dangerous to build a life dependent on another when relationships are unpredictable. They are looking for partners to share the house work and family work together.^[23][24] Men and women believe that women should have jobs before considering marriage, for better life and to be happy in marriage. Young people do not think their mother’s generations were unhappy. They also do not think they were powerless because they were economically dependent.

Identity through work[link]

By working in an organization, employees identify, to some extent, with the organization, as part of a collective group.^[25] Organizational values, norms and interests become incorporated in the self-concept as employees increase their identify with the organization. However, employees also identify with their outside roles, or their "true self".^[26] Examples of these might be parental/caretaker roles, identifications with certain groups, religious affiliations, align with certain values and morals, mass media etc.

Employee interactions with the organization, through other employees, management, customers, or others, reinforces (or resists) the employee identification with the organization.^[26] Simultaneously, the employee must manage their "true self" identification. In other words, identity is "fragmented and constructed" through a number of interactions within and out of the organization; employees don’t have just one self.

Most employees identify with not only the organization, but also other facets of their life (family, children, religion, etc.). Sometimes these identities align and sometimes they do not. When identities are in conflict, the sense of a healthy work-life balance may be affected. Organization members must perform identity work so that they align themselves with the area in which they are performing to avoid conflict and any stress as a result.

Women[link]

Today there are many young women who do not want to just stay at home and do house work, but want to have their careers.^[23][24] About 64% of mothers whose youngest child was under age six, and 77% of mothers with a youngest child age 6-17 were employed in 2010,^[27] indicating that the majority of women with dependent care responsibilities cannot or do not wish to give up careers. While women are increasingly represented in the work force they still face challenges balancing work and home life. Both domestic and market labor compete for time and energy. “For women, the results show that that only time spent in female housework chores has a significant negative effect on wages” (Noonan 1140). Noonan attributes reduced earnings to the time intensive and repetitive chores that are stereotyped as feminine, including cooking, washing dishes, and cleaning laundry. This leaves women with less time to dedicate to paid labor.^[28]

Maternity Leave[link]

Maternity leave is a leave of absence for an expectant or new mother for the birth and care of the baby. This is a very important factor in creating a work-life balance for families, yet in the United States most states do not offer any paid time off, for this important time in ones life. Many mothers are forced to return to work only weeks after having given birth to their children; missing out on important bonding time with their child. At this age, newborn babies and their mother are forming an important bond and the child is learning to trust and count on their parents. Yet, they are often sent to daycare and are now being cared for by a non-family member. According to the US Census, Almost two-thirds of American women (62 percent) with a birth in the last year were in the labor force in 2008 http://www.census.gov/

Some new mothers (and fathers) will take unpaid time off, allowed by the Family and Medical Leave Act. The FMLA entitles eligible employees of covered employers to take unpaid, job-protected leave for specified family and medical reasons with continuation of group health insurance coverage under the same terms and conditions as if the employee had not taken leave. Eligible employees are entitled to twelve workweeks of leave in a 12-month period for:

• the birth of a child and to care for the newborn child within one year of birth;
• the placement with the employee of a child for adoption or

foster care and to care for the newly placed child within one year of placement; http://www.dol.gov/whd/fmla/ Some states will allow paid time off for maternity leave under the states Temporary Disability Insurance (TDI).

http://www.paidfamilyleave.org/pdf/PaidLeaveinStates.pdf

At the state level, California was the first state to offer paid family leave benefits for its workers. While the benefits only last for 6 weeks ^[29] this is the first major step for maternity leave in the United States.New Jersey lawmakers are pushing legislation that would make their state the second state to add this worker benefit. Under one New Jersey proposal, workers who take leave would be paid through the state’s temporary disability insurance fund, "augmented by a 0.1 percent charge on workers’ weekly wages."^[30] Traditionally, many conservatives have opposed paid family leave, but there is a sign that this mindset is beginning to change. Reverend Paul Schenck, a prominent member of the National Pro-Life Action Center recently stated that he would support paid maternity leave on the assumption that it might encourage women to follow through with their pregnancies instead of having abortions. According to Heyman, "Across the political spectrum, people are realizing these policies have an enormous impact on working families. If you look at the most competitive economies in the world, all the others except the U.S. have these policies in place." ^[30]

The United States is not as workplace family-oriented as many other wealthy countries. According to a study released by Harvard and McGill University researchers in February 2007, workplace policies for families in the U.S. are weaker than those of all high-income countries and even many middle-and low-income countries.

For example, the study notes that the United States is one of only five countries out of 173 that does not guarantee some form of paid maternity leave. (The other countries are Lesotho, Liberia, Swaziland, and Papua New Guinea).^[30] Other differences include the fact that fathers are granted paid paternity leave or paid parental leave in sixty-five countries; thirty one of these countries offer at least fourteen weeks of paid leave. The U.S. does not guarantee this to fathers.(survey) Sweden, Denmark and Norway have the highest level of maternity benefits—Sweden provides 68 weeks paid maternity leave, Norway provides 56 weeks paid maternity leave and Denmark provides 52.^[31]

Men[link]

Men know that work alone may not provide their lives with meaning. Young men can lose their meaning of life; they want a balance between paid work and personal attachments without being victimized at work.^{[23] [24]} More men are realizing that work is not their only primary source of fulfillment from life. A new study on fatherhood (2010) shows that more men are looking for alternatives to their 40-hour workweek in order to spend more time with their family. Though working less means a smaller paycheck and higher stress levels, men are looking for flexibility just as much as women. However, with an ever-changing society, flexibility is becoming much more apparent. “It seems that some traditional stereotypes are starting to lessen just a bit in terms of who’s responsible for care of the children” says human resource specialist Steve Moore. Traditionalism is becoming less frequent due to what’s actually practical for each individual family.^[32]

Men often face unequal opportunity to family life as they are often expected to be the financial supporter of the family unit, “The masculine ideal of a worker unencumbered by caregiving obligations is built into workplace structures and patterns of reward” (Thorne 2011).^[33]

Facts[link]

Regarding home life, men and women have similarities with work and home life. Today, home is not a heavenly place which men and women could rest and feel comfort as before, but home is an additional place of work.^{[23] [34]} Most of us adhere to the cultural belief that there's no better guarantee of a happy, healthy, and emotionally rich and rewarding life than having children.^[35] Sociologists find that as a group, parents in the United States experience depression and emotional distress more often than their childless adult counterparts.^[35]

Work-life balance issues and their influence on children[link]

An increasing number of young children are being raised by a childcare provider or another person other than a parent; older children are more likely today to come home to an empty house and spend time with video games, television and the internet with less guidance to offset or control the messages coming from these sources.

No one knows how many kids are home after school without an adult, but they know the number is in the millions. Also, according to a study by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the "more time that children spent in child care, the more likely their sixth grade teachers were to report behavor problems..."One possible reason why relations between center care and problem behavior may endure is that primary school teachers lack the training as well as the time to address behavior problems, given their primary focus on academics," the researchers said. The authors emphasized that the children's behavior was within a normal range and that it would be impossible to go into a classroom, and with no additional information, pick out those who had been in child care." [13] The findings are the results of the largest study of child care and development conducted in the United States; the analysis tracked 1,364 children from birth.

With the economy in America making single parent and dual earner families stuck in the workplace the part-time and full-time work has raised. With more women needing to go into the workforce this leaves children at home with relatives, babysitters, alone or at a daycare. Having to spend more time under the supervision of someone else often times leaves the parents of the child with little to no respect for them. If the child is left home by his or her self then the chances of getting into trouble is a higher chance. Not only will the chances of trouble be higher but how important an education is and how much it is valued is not communicated to the child(ren). However, the reason we need to be putting more hours into work is because of the consumption of goods. Kids today are often "babysat" by a television, computer, or video games. But it is very important to people today to "Keep up with the Jones's". By having the thoughts of this more and more people are buying things they may never use after one time just to say they have something. Often times kids can be found scoping out a toy they really want and once they receive it they are no longer interested in the object. Because of this happening this is leading to parents needing to be in the workplace so that they are able to support their families lifestyle. Crittenden, Anne. 2001. Consumption as Care and Belonging.

In the article The Work-Home Crunch, the authors discusses how although the average working hours have remained constant, in reality, those that are more educated are working more hours while those that are less educated are working less hours. The article states that “the people under the most pressure are not just overburdened at work. Increasingly, these single parents and two-income couples find themselves in a time squeeze between home and work.” ^[36]

Consequences of an Imbalance[link]

Mental health is a balancing act that may be affected by four factors: the influence of unfavourable genes, by wounding trauma, by private pressures and most recently by the stress of working.^[37] Many people expose themselves unsolicited to the so-called job stress, because the "hard worker" enjoys a very high social recognition. These aspects can be the cause of an imbalance in the areas of life. But there are also other reasons which can lead to such an imbalance.

Remarkable is, for example, the increase in non-occupational activities with obligation character, which include mainly house and garden work, maintenance and support of family members or volunteer activities. All this can contribute to the perception of a chronic lack of time.^[38] This time pressure is, amongst others, influenced by their own age, the age and number of children in the household, marital status, the profession and level of employment as well as the income level.^[39] The psychological strain, which in turn affects the health, increases due to the strong pressure of time, but also by the complexity of work, growing responsibilities, concern for long-term existential protection and more.^[40] The mentioned stresses and strains could lead in the long term to irreversible, physical signs of wear as well as to negative effects on the human cardiovascular and immune systems.^[41]

Prominent cultural beliefs that parenthood is the best avenue for a happy fulfilling life may not be justified. In, The Joys of Parenthood Reconsidered, what was found is the opposite, that parents actually suffer worse mental and physical health than childless adults. This is associated with the high costs of parenthood described in the article. Simon states that, “In America we lack institutional supports that would help ease the social and economic burdens associated with parenthood.” ^[42]

Psychoanalysts diagnose uncertainty as the dominant attitude to life in the postmodern society.^[43] This uncertainty can be caused by the pressure which is executed from the society to the humans. It is the uncertainty to fail, but also the fear of their own limits, not to achieve something what the society expects, and especially the desire for recognition in all areas of life.^[43] In today's society we are in a permanent competition. Appearance, occupation, education of the children - everything is compared to a media staged ideal. Everything should be perfect, because this deep-rooted aversion to all average, the pathological pursue to excellence - these are old traditions.^[43] Who ever wants more - on the job, from the partner, from the children, from themselves - will one day be burned out and empty inside. He is then faced with the realization that perfection do not exist.^[44] Who is nowadays empty inside and burned out, has in the common language a Burnout. But due to the definitional problems Burnout is till this date no recognized illness.^[37] An attempt to define this concept more closely, can be: a condition that get only the passionate, that is certainly not a mental illness but only a grave exhaustion (but, lo and behold, can lead to numerous sick days).^[37] It can benefited to the term that it is a disease model which is socially acceptable and also, to some extent, the individual self-esteem stabilizing. This finding in turn facilitates many undetected depressed people, the way to a qualified treatment.^[37] According to experts in the field are, in addition to the ultra hard-working and the idealists mainly the perfectionist, the loner, the grim and the thin-skinned, especially endangered of a burnout. All together they usually have a lack of a healthy distance to work.^[37]

Another factor is also, that for example decision-makers in government offices and upper echelons are not allowed to show weaknesses or signs of disease etc., because this would immediately lead to doubts of the ability for further responsibility. It should be noted that only 20% of managers (e.g. in Germany) do sports regularly and also only 2% keep regularly preventive medical check-up.^[45] In such a position other priorities seem to be set and the time lacks for regular sports. Frightening is that the job has such a high priority, that people waive screening as a sign of weakness. In contrast to that, the burnout syndrome seems to be gaining popularity. There seems nothing to be ashamed to show weaknesses, but quite the opposite: The burnout is part of a successful career like a home for the role model family.^[46] Besides that the statement which describes the burnout as a "socially recognized precious version of the depression and despair that lets also at the moment of failure the self-image intact" fits and therefore concludes "Only losers become depressed, burnout against it is a diagnosis for winners, more precisely, for former winners.".^[47]

However, it is fact that four out of five Germans complain about too much stress. One in six under 60 swallows at least once a week, a pill for the soul, whether it is against insomnia, depression or just for a bit more drive in the stressful everyday life.^[43] The phases of burnout can be described, among other things, first by great ambition, then follows the suppression of failure, isolation and finally, the cynical attitude towards the employer or supervisor. Concerned persons have very often also anxiety disorders and depressions, which are serious mental diseases. Depressions are the predominant causes of the nearly 10,000 suicides that occur alone each year in Germany.^[37] The implications of such imbalances can be further measured in figures: In 1993, early retirement due to mental illness still made 15.4 percent of all cases. In 2008, there were already 35.6 percent. Even in the days of illness, the proportion of failures due to mental disorders increased. Statisticians calculated that 41 million absent days in 2008 went to the account of these crises, which led to 3.9 billion euros in lost production costs.^[37] For companies it is time to act and support their employees with a healthy work-life-balance.^{source needed}

Responsibility of the employer[link]

Companies have begun to realize how important the work-life balance is to the productivity and creativity of their employees. Research by Kenexa Research Institute in 2007 shows that those employees who were more favorable toward their organization’s efforts to support work-life balance also indicated a much lower intent to leave the organization, greater pride in their organization, a willingness to recommend it as a place to work and higher overall job satisfaction.

Employers can offer a range of different programs and initiatives, such as flexible working arrangements in the form of part time, casual and telecommuting work. More proactive employers can provide compulsory leave, strict maximum hours and foster an environment that encourages employees not to continue working after hours.

It is generally only highly skilled workers that can enjoy such benefits as written in their contracts, although many professional fields would not go so far as to discourage workaholic behaviour. Unskilled workers will almost always have to rely on bare minimum legal requirements. The legal requirements are low in many countries, in particular, the United States. In contrast, the European Union has gone quite far in assuring a legal work-life balance framework, for example pertaining to parental leave and the non-discrimination of part-time workers.

According to Stewart Friedman -- professor of Management and founding director of the Wharton School’s Leadership Program and of its Work/Life Integration Project—a "one size fits all" mentality in human resources management often perpetuates frustration among employees. "[It’s not an] uncommon problem in many HR areas where, for the sake of equality, there's a standard policy that is implemented in a way that's universally applicable -- [even though] everyone's life is different and everyone needs different things in terms of how to integrate the different pieces. It's got to be customized." ^[48]

Friedman’s research indicates that the solution lies in approaching the components of work, home, community, and self as a comprehensive system. Instead of taking a zero-sum approach, Friedman’s Total Leadership program teaches professionals how to successfully pursue "four-way wins" -- improved performance across all parts of life.

Although employees are offering many opportunities to help their employees balance work and life, these opportunities may be a catch twenty-two for some female employees. Even if the organization offers part time options, many women will not take advantage of it as this type of arrangement is often seen as "occupational dead end".^[14]

Even with the more flexible schedule, working mothers opt not to work part time because these positions typically receive less interesting and challenging assignments; taking these assignments and working part time may hinder advancement and growth. Even when the option to work part time is available, some may not take advantage of it because they do not want to be marginalized.^[14] This feeling of marginalization could be a result of not fitting into the "ideal worker" framework (see: Formation of the "ideal worker" and gender differences).

Additionally, some mothers, after returning to work, experience what is called the maternal wall. The maternal wall is experienced in the less desirable assignments given to the returning mothers. It is also a sense that because these women are mothers, they cannot perform as "ideal workers".^[14] If an organization is providing means for working mothers and fathers to better balance their work-life commitments, the general organizational norm needs to shift so the "ideal worker" includes those who must manage a home, children, elderly parents, etc.

Global comparisons[link]

United States[link]

According to a new study by Harvard and McGill University researchers, the United States lags far behind nearly all wealthy countries when it comes to family-oriented workplace policies such as maternity leave, paid sick days and support for breast feeding. Jody Heyman, founder of the Harvard-based Project on Global Working Families and director of McGill’s Institute for Health and Social Policy, states that, "More countries are providing the workplace protections that millions of Americans can only dream of. The U.S. has been a proud leader in adopting laws that provide for equal opportunity in the workplace, but our work/family protections are among the worst." ^[49]

This observation is being shared by many Americans today and is considered by many experts to be indicative of the current climate. However, the U.S. Labor Department is examining regulations that give workers unpaid leave to deal with family or medical emergencies (a review that supporters of the FMLA worry might be a prelude to scaling back these protections, as requested by some business groups). At the same time, Senator Chris Dodd from Connecticut is proposing new legislation that would enable workers to take six weeks of paid leave. Congress is also expected to reconsider the Healthy Families Act which is a bill that would require employers with at least fifteen employees to provide seven paid sick days per year.^[49]

At least 107 countries protect working women’s right to breast-feed and, in at least seventy-three of them, women are paid. The U.S. does not have any federal legislation guaranteeing mothers the right to breast-feed their infants at work, but 24 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico have laws related to breastfeeding in the workplace.^[50]

There is not a federal law requiring paid sick days in the United States. When it comes to sick days, 145 countries provide sick days to their employees; 127 provide a week or more per year.

At least 134 countries have laws setting the maximum length of the work week; the U.S. does not have a maximum work week length and does not place any limits on the amount of overtime that an employee is required to work each week. (survey) Sweden, Denmark and Norway have the highest level of maternity benefits—Sweden provides 68 weeks paid maternity leave, Norway provides 56 weeks paid maternity leave and Denmark provides 52.^[31]

Even when vacation time is offered in some U.S. companies, some choose not to take advantage of it. A 2003 survey by Management Recruiter International stated that fifty percent of executives surveyed didn’t have plans to take a vacation. They decided to stay at work and use their vacation time to get caught up on their increased workloads.^[51]

American workers average approximately ten paid holidays per year while British workers average twenty-five holidays and German employees thirty. Americans are at "work" twelve weeks more a year in total hours than Europeans though they are no more productive than the average European.^{[citation needed]}

European Union[link]

In Europe, the Working Time Directive has implemented a maximum 48-hour working week.^[52] Many countries have opted for fewer hours. France attempted to introduce a thirty-five hour workweek, and Finland experimented with a thirty-hour week in 1996.^{[citation needed]} Contradictory to the Scandinavian countries, there is no evidence of state policies that absolutely encourage men to take on a larger share of domestic work in France, Portugal, or Britain.^[53] In a 2007, the European Quality of Life Survey found that countries in south-eastern Europe had the most common problems with work-life balance. In Croatia and Greece, a little over 70% of working citizens say that they are too tired to do household jobs at least several times a month because of work.^[54]

In Britain, legislation has been passed allowing parents of children under six to request a more flexible work schedule. Companies must approve this request as long as it does not damage the business. A 2003 Survey of graduates in the UK revealed that graduates value flexibility even more than wages.^[55]

In all twenty-five European Union countries, voters "punish" politicians who try to shrink vacations. "Even the twenty-two days Estonians, Lithuanians, Poles and Slovenians count as their own is much more generous than the leave allotted to U.S. workers." ^[51] According to a report by the Families and Work Institute, the average vacation time that Americans took each year averaged 14.6 days.

According to Jeremy Reynolds, unions can lobby for benefits, pay, training, safety measures, and additional factors that impact the costs and benefits of work hours. “Unions can also have a more direct impact on hour mismatches through their efforts to change the length of the workday, work week, and work year, and to increase vacation and leave time.” This is why workers in countries where there are strong unions usually work fewer hours and have more generous leave policies than workers who are in countries where there are weaker unions.^[56]

It is critical to mention that cultural factors influence why and how much we work. As stated by Jeremy Reynolds, “cultural norms may encourage work as an end in itself or as a means to acquiring other things, including consumer products.” This might be why Americans are bound to work more than people in other countries. In general, Americans always want more and more, so Americans need to work more in order to have the money to spend on these consumer products.^[56]

See also[link]

• Money-rich, time-poor
• Work-leisure dichotomy
• On-Ramping
• Personal life
• Time bind
• Workaholic
• Mompreneur
• Work-Family Balance in the United States
• Work–life balance in Germany
• Work-life interface

Stress related:

• Burnout (psychology)
• Occupational health psychology
• Psychoneuroimmunology
• Stress (biological)
• Workplace stress

Labour:

• Labour law
• Labour market flexibility

Other:

• Death from overwork (Japan)
• Medical resident work hours
• Superwoman (sociology)

References[link]

Notes[link]

• Gregory, Abigail, Milner, Susan "Work-Life Balance: A Matter of Choice?" Gender, Work & Organization, Vol 16, Issue 1, Pages 1–177.
• Anderson, Jennifer., "Report Highlights Gap Between European and US Vacation Time." Ergoweb, 15 May 2005. retrieved 20 February 2007.
• Barada, Paul W., "Exempt Vs. Nonexempt Workers". retrieved 24 February 2007
• Clark, C S. "Job Stress." CQ Researcher, 4 August 1994. CQ Researcher. Retrieved 1 March 2007 .
• "Effects of Stress." WebMD. 2 June 2005. Healthwise, Incorporated. 3 April 2007.
• Freking, Kevin., "Study Links Child Care to Poor Behavior." ABC News, 26 March 2007. The Walt Disney Company, Retrieved 4 April 2007.
• Fisk, Donald M., "American Labor in the 20th Century.", Compensation and Working Conditions Online. 30 June 2003. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Retrieved 4 April 2007.
• Gallitano, Thomas., "Small Necessities Leave Act, Maternity Leave Act". J. CKRP & F. 2007. Conn Kavanaugh Rosenthal Peisch & Ford, LLP. Retrieved 16 February 2007 .
• How extreme is your job? There is a danger of the 70-hour workweek becoming the new standard. Survey, 18 February 2007. Retrieved 18 February 2007.
• Matuska, Kathleen & Christiansen, Charles et al. (eds). Life Balance: Multidisciplinary Theories and Research. Bethesda, MD: AOTA Press/Slack Publishers. 2009
• O'Bannon, Brent., "Balance Matters: Turning Burnout Into Balance". R&B Publishing, TX: 2007.
• Paving the Road for Women to Return to Work. Nightly Business Report. PBS. 8 December 2005. Retrieved 3 April 2007 .
• Survey: U.S. Workplace Not Family-Oriented., Forbes, 1 February 2007. Retrieved 17 February 2007.
• The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993., U.S. Department of Labor, 1 March 2007 .
• Wide Variation in European Maternity Benefits., HRM Guide 17 February 2007.
• Whaples, Robert, ed., "Hours of Work in U.S. History". EH.Net Encyclopedia. August 2001. Retrieved 3 April 2007 .
• When It's Just You After School, Kids Health. 2007. The Nemours Foundation. 4 April 2007.
• Work-Life Balance Defined., 2006.
• "Kenexa Research Institute finds that when it comes to work-life balance, men and women are not created equal", Kenexa, July 25, 2007. Accessed May 27, 2008.
• [14]

External links[link]

• The Sloan Work and Family Research Network at Boston College
• "Stress...At Work" document and "Working With Stress" video from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• The Work-Family Dilemma: A Better Balance (The Barnard Center for Research on Women)
• Writings concerning a shorter workweek, with emphasis on its economic impact
• Work Life Balance: Opportunities for SMEs, a video by Eurobalance, a project focused on work-life balance, funded by the European Commission through Leonardo da Vinci Programme.

Sir Richard Branson
Branson at the Time 100 Gala, 4 May 2010
Born	Richard Charles Nicholas Branson (1950-07-18) 18 July 1950 (age 61) Blackheath, London, England, UK
Residence	London, England
Occupation	Chairman of Virgin Group
Years active	1966–present
Net worth	US$4.2 billion (2011)[1]
Title	Sir
Spouse	Kristen Tomassi (m. 1972–1979) «start: (1972-07-22)–end+1: (1980)»"Marriage: Kristen Tomassi to Richard Branson" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Richard_Branson) (divorced) Joan Templeman (m. 1989) «start: (1989-12-20)»"Marriage: Joan Templeman to Richard Branson" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Richard_Branson)
Children	2 daughters (1 deceased), 1 son

Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson (born 18 July 1950) is an English business magnate, best known for his Virgin Group of more than 400 companies.^[2]

His first business venture was a magazine called Student at the age of 16.^[3] In 1970, he set up an audio record mail-order business. In 1972, he opened a chain of record stores, Virgin Records, later known as Virgin Megastores. Branson's Virgin brand grew rapidly during the 1980s, as he set up Virgin Atlantic Airways and expanded the Virgin Records music label.

Branson is the 4th richest citizen of the United Kingdom, according to the Forbes 2011 list of billionaires, with an estimated net worth of US$4.2 billion.^[1]

Early life[link]

Branson was born in Blackheath, London, the son and eldest child of barrister Edward James Branson (10 March 1918 – 19 March 2011)^[4] and Eve Huntley Branson (née Flindt).^[4][5] His grandfather, the Right Honourable Sir George Arthur Harwin Branson, was a judge of the High Court of Justice and a Privy Councillor.^[6] Branson was educated at Scaitcliffe School (now Bishopsgate School)^[7] until the age of thirteen. He then attended Stowe School until the age of sixteen. Branson has dyslexia and had poor academic performance as a student, but later discovered his ability to connect with others.^[8]

Career[link]

Record business[link]

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Branson started his record business from the crypt of a church where he ran The Student. Branson advertised popular records in The Student Magazine and it was an over night success. Trading under the name "Virgin", he sold records for considerably less than the "High Street" outlets, especially the chain W. H. Smith. The name "Virgin" was suggested by one of Branson's early employees because they were all new at business.^[9] At the time, many products were sold under restrictive marketing agreements that limited discounting, despite efforts in the 1950s and 1960s to limit so-called resale price maintenance.^[10] In effect, Branson began the series of changes that led to large-scale discounting of recorded music.

Branson eventually started a record shop in Oxford Street in London. In 1971, Branson was questioned in connection with the selling of records in Virgin stores that had been declared export stock. The matter was never brought before a court and Branson agreed to repay any unpaid tax and a fine. Branson's mother Eve re-mortgaged the family home to help pay the settlement.^[9]

Earning enough money from his record store, Branson in 1972 launched the record label Virgin Records with Nik Powell and bought a country estate, in which he installed a recording studio. He leased out studio time to fledgling artists, including multi-instrumentalist Mike Oldfield, whose debut album Tubular Bells (1973) was Virgin Records' first release and a chart-topping best-seller.

Virgin signed such controversial bands as the Sex Pistols, which other companies were reluctant to sign. It also won praise for exposing the public to such obscure avant-garde music as Faust and Can. Virgin Records also introduced Culture Club to the music world. In the early 1980s, Virgin purchased the gay nightclub Heaven. In 1991, in a consortium with David Frost, Richard Branson had made the unsuccessful bid for three ITV franchisees under the CPV-TV name. The early 1980s also saw his only attempt as a producer—on the novelty record "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep", by Singing Sheep in association with Doug McLean and Grace McDonald. The recording was a series of sheep baaing along to a drum machine produced track and even made the charts at number 42 in 1982.

In 1992, to keep his airline company afloat, Branson sold the Virgin label to EMI for £500 million.^[11] Branson says that he wept when the sale was completed since the record business had been the birth of the Virgin Empire. He later formed V2 Records to re-enter the music business.^[12]

Business ventures[link]

Branson formed Virgin Atlantic Airways in 1984, launched Virgin Mobile in 1999, Virgin Blue in Australia (now named Virgin Australia) in 2000. He was 9th in the Sunday Times Rich List 2006, worth just over £3 billion. Branson wrote in his autobiography of the decision to start an airline:

My interest in life comes from setting myself huge, apparently unachievable challenges and trying to rise above them...from the perspective of wanting to live life to the full, I felt that I had to attempt it.

In 1993, Branson took what many saw as being one of his riskier business exploits by entering into the railway business. Virgin Trains won the franchises for the former Intercity West Coast and Cross-Country sectors of British Rail.

Virgin acquired European short-haul airline Euro Belgian Airlines in 1996 and renamed it Virgin Express. In 2006, the airline was merged with SN Brussels Airlines forming Brussels Airlines. It also started a national airline based in Nigeria, called Virgin Nigeria. Another airline, Virgin America, began flying out of San Francisco International Airport in August 2007. Branson has also developed a Virgin Cola brand and even a Virgin Vodka brand, which has not been a very successful enterprise. As a consequence of these lacklustre performers, the satirical British fortnightly magazine Private Eye has been critical of Branson and his companies (see Private Eye image caption).^[13]

After the so-called campaign of "dirty tricks", British Airways settled the case, giving £500,000 to Branson and a further £110,000 to his airline and had to pay legal fees of up to £3 million. Branson divided his compensation (the so-called "BA bonus") among his staff.^[14]

On 25 September 2004, Branson announced the signing of a deal under which a new space tourism company, Virgin Galactic, will license the technology behind Spaceship One—funded by Microsoft co-Founder Paul Allen and designed by legendary American aeronautical engineer and visionary Burt Rutan—to take paying passengers into suborbital space. Virgin Galactic (wholly owned by Virgin Group) plans to make flights available to the public with tickets priced at US$200,000 using Scaled Composites White Knight Two.

Branson's next venture with the Virgin group is Virgin Fuels, which is set to respond to global warming and exploit the recent spike in fuel costs by offering a revolutionary, cheaper fuel for automobiles and, in the near future, aircraft. Branson has stated that he was formerly a global warming sceptic and was influenced in his decision by a breakfast meeting with Al Gore.^[15]

Branson has been tagged as a "transformational leader" in the management lexicon, with his maverick strategies and his stress on the Virgin Group as an organisation driven on informality and information, one that is bottom-heavy rather than strangled by top-level management.

On 21 September 2006, Branson pledged to invest the profits of Virgin Atlantic and Virgin Trains in research for environmentally friendly fuels. The investment is estimated to be worth $3 billion.^[16][17]

On 4 July 2006, Branson sold his Virgin Mobile company to UK cable TV, broadband, and telephone company NTL/NTL:Telewest for almost £1 billion. The new company was launched with much fanfare and publicity on 8 February 2007, under the name Virgin Media. The decision to merge his Virgin Media Company with NTL was in order to integrate both of the companies' compatible parts of commerce. Branson used to own three quarters of Virgin Mobile, whereas now he owns 15 percent of the new Virgin Media company.^[18]

In 2006, Branson formed Virgin Comics and Virgin Animation, an entertainment company focussed on creating new stories and characters for a global audience. The company was founded with author Deepak Chopra, filmmaker Shekhar Kapur, and entrepreneurs Sharad Devarajan and Gotham Chopra.

Branson also launched the Virgin Health Bank on 1 February 2007, offering parents-to-be the opportunity to store their baby's umbilical cord blood stem cells in private and public stem cell banks.

In June 2006, a tip-off from Virgin Atlantic led US and UK competition authorities to investigate price-fixing attempts between Virgin Atlantic and British Airways. In August 2007, British Airways was fined £271 million over the allegations. Virgin Atlantic was given immunity for tipping off the authorities and received no fine—a controversial decision the Office of Fair Trading defended as being in the public interest.^[19]

On 9 February 2007, Branson announced the setting up of a new Global science and technology prize—The Virgin Earth Challenge—in the belief that history has shown that prizes of this nature encourage technological advancements for the good of mankind. The Virgin Earth Challenge will award $25 million to the individual or group who are able to demonstrate a commercially viable design which will result in the net removal of anthropogenic, atmospheric greenhouse gases each year for at least ten years without countervailing harmful effects. This removal must have long-term effects and contribute materially to the stability of the Earth's climate.

Branson also announced that he would be joined in the adjudication of the Prize by a panel of five judges, all world authorities in their respective fields: Al Gore, Sir Crispin Tickell, Tim Flannery, James E. Hansen, and James Lovelock. The panel of judges will be assisted in their deliberations by The Climate Group and Special Advisor to The Virgin Earth Prize Judges, Steve Howard.

In August 2007, Branson announced that he bought a 20 percent stake in Malaysia's AirAsia X.^[20]

Branson in April 2009 at the launch of Virgin America in Orange County, California

On 13 October 2007, Branson's Virgin Group sought to add Northern Rock to its empire after submitting an offer that would result in Branson personally owning 30% of the company, changing the company's name from Northern Rock to Virgin Money.^[21] The Daily Mail ran a campaign against his bid and Liberal Democrats' financial spokesperson Vince Cable suggested in the House of Commons that Branson's criminal conviction for tax evasion might be felt by some as a good enough reason not to trust him with public money .^[22]

On 10 January 2008, Branson's Virgin Healthcare announced that it would open a chain of health care clinics that would offer conventional medical care alongside homoeopathic and complementary therapies.^[23] The Financial Times reported that Ben Bradshaw, UK's health minister, welcomed the launch. "I am pleased that Virgin Healthcare is proposing to work with GPs to help develop more integrated services for patients."

Plans where GPs could be paid for referring National Health Service (NHS) patients to private Virgin services were abandoned in June 2008. The BMA warned the plan would "damage clinical objectivity", there would be a financial incentive for GPs to push patients towards the Virgin services at the centre.^[24] Plans to take over an NHS Practice in Swindon were subsequently abandoned in late September 2008.^[25]

In February 2009, Branson's Virgin organisation were reported as bidding to buy the former Honda Formula One team. Branson later stated an interest in Formula One but claimed that, before the Virgin brand became involved with Honda or any other team, Formula One would have to develop a more economically efficient and environmentally responsible image. At the start of the 2009 formula one season on 28 March, it was announced that Virgin would be sponsoring the new Brawn GP team.,^[26] with discussions also under way about introducing a less "dirty" fuel in the medium term.^[27] After the end of the season and the subsequent purchase of Brawn GP by Mercedes, Branson invested in an 80% buyout of Manor Grand Prix^[28][29] with the team being renamed to Virgin Racing.

Branson and Tony Fernandes, owner of Air Asia and Lotus F1 Racing, had a bet for the 2010 F1 season where the team's boss should work on the winner's airline for a day dressed as a stewardess. Fernandes escaped as the winner of the bet, as Lotus Racing ended 10th in the championship, while Virgin Racing ended 12th and last.

Branson and Somerset County's Natirar Resort development in New Jersey, on the Natirar Estate, opened in late 2009 with the Ninety Acres Culinary Center. It includes a restaurant run by chef David Felton, cooking school, wine school, working farm, luxury resort and spa. The development, spearheaded by Branson and Bob Wojtowicz, sits on 500 acres which was the former estate of the King of Morocco.^[30]

In 2010 Richard Branson became patron of the UK's Gordon Bennett 2010 gas balloon race, which has 16 hydrogen balloons flying across Europe.^[31]

In April 2010 Branson described the closure of large parts of European airspace owing to volcanic ash as "beyond a joke". Scientists later concluded that serious structural damage to aircraft could have occurred if passenger planes had continued to fly.^[32]

World record attempts[link]

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A 1998 attempt at an around-the-world balloon flight by Branson, Fossett, and Lindstrand ends in the Pacific Ocean on 25 December 1998.

Richard Branson made several world record-breaking attempts after 1985, when in the spirit of the Blue Riband he attempted the fastest Atlantic Ocean crossing. His first attempt in the "Virgin Atlantic Challenger" led to the boat capsizing in British waters and a rescue by RAF helicopter, which received wide media coverage. Some newspapers called for Branson to reimburse the government for the rescue cost. In 1986, in his "Virgin Atlantic Challenger II", with sailing expert Daniel McCarthy, he beat the record by two hours. A year later his hot air balloon "Virgin Atlantic Flyer" crossed the Atlantic.

In January 1991, Branson crossed the Pacific from Japan to Arctic Canada, 6,700 miles (10,800 km), in a balloon of 2,600,000 cubic feet (74,000 m³). This broke the record, with a speed of 245 miles per hour (394 km/h).

Between 1995 and 1998 Branson, Per Lindstrand and Steve Fossett made attempts to circumnavigate the globe by balloon. In late 1998 they made a record-breaking flight from Morocco to Hawaii but were unable to complete a global flight before Bertrand Piccard and Brian Jones in Breitling Orbiter 3 in March 1999.

In March 2004, Branson set a record by travelling from Dover to Calais in a Gibbs Aquada in 1 hour, 40 minutes and 6 seconds, the fastest crossing of the English Channel in an amphibious vehicle. The previous record of six hours was set by two Frenchmen.^[33] The cast of Top Gear, Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond, attempted to break this record in an amphibious vehicle which they had constructed and, while successfully crossing the channel, did not break Branson's record.

In September 2008 Branson and his children made an unsuccessful attempt at an Eastbound record crossing of the Atlantic ocean under sail in the 99 feet (30 m) sloop Virgin Money.^[34] The boat, also known as Speedboat, is owned by NYYC member Alex Jackson, who was a co-skipper on this passage, with Branson and Mike Sanderson. After 2 days, 4 hours, winds of force 7 to 9 (strong gale), and seas of 40 feet (12 m), a 'monster wave' destroyed the spinnaker, washed a ten-man life raft overboard and severely ripped the mainsail. She eventually continued to St. George's, Bermuda.^[35] In March 2010 Richard tried for the world record of putting a round of golf in the dark at the Black Light Mini Golf in The Docklands, Melbourne, Australia. He succeeded in getting 41 on the par 45 course.

Television, film, and print[link]

Branson at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival.

Branson has guest starred, usually playing himself, on several television shows, including Friends, Baywatch, Birds of a Feather, Only Fools and Horses, The Day Today, a special episode of the comedy Goodness Gracious Me and Tripping Over. Branson made several appearances during the nineties on the BBC Saturday morning show Live & Kicking, where he was referred to as 'the pickle man' by comedy act Trev and Simon (in reference to Branston Pickle).^[36] Branson also appears in a cameo early in XTC's "Generals and Majors" video.

He was also the star of a reality television show on Fox called The Rebel Billionaire: Branson's Quest for the Best (2004), in which sixteen contestants were tested for their entrepreneurship and sense of adventure. It did not succeed as a rival show to Donald Trump's The Apprentice and only lasted one season.

His high public profile often leaves him open as a figure of satire—the 2000 AD series Zenith features a parody of Branson as a super villain, as the comic's publisher and favoured distributor and the Virgin group were in competition at the time. He is also caricatured in The Simpsons episode "Monty Can't Buy Me Love" as the tycoon Arthur Fortune, and as the ballooning megalomaniac Richard Chutney (a pun on Branson, as in Branston Pickle) in Believe Nothing. The character Grandson Richard 39 in Terry Pratchett's Wings is modelled on Branson.

He has a cameo appearance in several films: Around the World in 80 Days (2004), where he played a hot-air balloon operator; Superman Returns, where he was credited as a 'Shuttle Engineer' and appeared alongside his son, Sam, with a Virgin Galactic-style commercial suborbital shuttle at the centre of his storyline. He also has a cameo in the James Bond film Casino Royale. Here, he is seen as a passenger going through Miami Airport security check-in and being frisked – several Virgin Atlantic planes appear soon after. British Airways edited out Branson's cameo in their in-flight screening of the movie.^[37]

He makes a number of brief and disjointed appearances in the cult classic documentary Derek and Clive Get the Horn which follows the exploits of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore recording their last comedy album. Branson and his mother were also featured in the documentary film, Lemonade Stories. In early 2006 on Rove Live, Rove McManus and Sir Richard pushed each other into a swimming pool fully clothed live on TV during a "Live at your house" episode.

Branson is a Star Trek fan and named his new spaceship VSS Enterprise in honour of the famous Star Trek ships, and in 2006, reportedly offered actor William Shatner a ride on the inaugural space launch of Virgin Galactic. In an interview in Time magazine, 10 August 2009, Shatner claimed that Branson approached him asking how much he would pay for a ride on the spaceship. In response, Shatner asked "how much would you pay me to do it?"

In August 2007, Branson announced on The Colbert Report that he had named a new aircraft Air Colbert. He later doused political satirist and talk show host Stephen Colbert with water from his mug. Branson subsequently took a retaliatory splash from Colbert. The interview quickly ended, with both laughing^[38] as shown on the episode aired on Comedy Central on 22 August 2007. The interview was promoted on The Report as the Colbert-Branson Interview Trainwreck. Branson then made a cameo appearance on The Soup playing an intern working under Joel McHale who had been warned against getting into water fights with Stephen Colbert, and being subsequently fired.

In March 2008 he launched Virgin Mobile in India and during that period, he even played a cameo performance in Bollywood film, London Dreams.^[39]

In July 2010, Branson narrated Australian sailor Jessica Watson's documentary about her solo sailing trip around the world. It premiered on ONEHD on 16 August 2010.

In April 2011 Branson appeared on CNN's Mainsail^[40] with Kate Winslet. Together they reenacted a famous scene^[41] from the 1997 film Titanic for the cameras. On 17 August 2011, he was featured in the premier episode of Hulu's first long-form original production entitled, A Day in the Life.^[42]

Activism[link]

Humanitarian initiatives[link]

In the late 1990s, Branson and musician Peter Gabriel discussed with Nelson Mandela their idea of a small, dedicated group of leaders, working objectively and without any vested personal interest to solve difficult global conflicts.^[43]

On 18 July 2007, in Johannesburg, South Africa, Nelson Mandela announced the formation of a new group, The Elders, in a speech he delivered on the occasion of his 89th birthday. The founding members of this group are Desmond Tutu, Graça Machel, Kofi Annan, Ela Bhatt, Gro Harlem Brundtland, Jimmy Carter, Li Zhaoxing, Mary Robinson, and Muhammad Yunus.^[43] The Elders is independently funded by a group of "Founders", including Branson and Gabriel.

Desmond Tutu serves as the chair of The Elders—who will use their collective skills to catalyse peaceful resolutions to long-standing conflicts, articulate new approaches to global issues that are causing or may cause immense human suffering, and share wisdom by helping to connect voices all over the world. They will work together over the next several months to carefully consider which specific issues they will approach.

Branson's other work in South Africa includes the Branson School of Entrepreneurship, set up in 2005 as a partnership between Virgin Unite, the non-profit foundation of Virgin, and entrepreneur Taddy Bletcher, the founder of CIDA City Campus, a university in Johannesburg. The school aims to improve economic growth in South Africa by supporting start-ups and micro-enterprises with skills, mentors, services, networks and finance arrangements.^[44] Fundraising activity to support the school is notably achieved by the Sunday Times Fast Track 100, sponsored by Virgin Group, at its yearly event, where places to join Richard Branson on trips to South Africa to provide coaching and mentoring to students are auctioned to attendees. In 2009, Jason Luckhurst and Boyd Kershaw of Practicus, Martin Ainscough of the Ainscough Group and Matthew Riley of Daisy Communications helped raise £150,000 through the auction.^[45]

In September 2007, Richard Branson chaired the jury of the first Picnic Green Challenge, a €500,000 award for best new green initiative, set up by the Dutch "Postcode Loterij" (postcode lottery) and the PICNIC Network of creative professionals. The first Green Challenge was won by Qurrent with the Qbox.

Branson was the first celebrity guest for the popular charity fund raisers, Reserve Dinners, raising over $75,000 in one evening towards his Virgin Unite charity.^[46]

In March 2008, Richard Branson hosted an environmental gathering at his private island, Necker Island, in the Caribbean with several prominent entrepreneurs, celebrities, and world leaders. They discussed global warming-related problems facing the world, hoping that this meeting will be a precursor to many more future discussions regarding similar problems. Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales, and Larry Page of Google were in attendance.^[47]

Branson has been very supportive of Kenya during its troubles, and in May 2008 had gone to Masai Mara to open a new school (Sekenani Primary School) which has also been partly funded by Virgin Atlantic frequent flyers who volunteered their time to help with the construction. A documentary of the experience was directed by Carolyn Scott-Hamilton and filmed by David Collupy.

On 8 May 2009, Branson took over Mia Farrow's hunger strike in protest of the Sudanese government expulsion of aid groups from the Darfur region.^[48] He concluded his scheduled 3-day fast on 11 May. Later that year, he joined the project Soldiers of Peace, a movie against all wars and for a global peace.^[49][50]

Richard Branson is a signatory of Global Zero (campaign), a non-profit international initiative for the elimination of all nuclear weapons worldwide.^[51] Since its launch in Paris in December 2008,^[52] Global Zero (campaign) has grown to 300 leaders, including current and former heads of state, national security officials and military commanders, and 400,000 citizens worldwide; developed a practical step-by-step plan to eliminate nuclear weapons; launched an international student campaign with 75 campus chapters in eight countries; and produced an acclaimed documentary film, Countdown to Zero, in partnership with Lawrence Bender and Participant Media.^[53]

Since 2010, Branson has served as a Commissioner on the Broadband Commission for Digital Development, a UN initiative which promotes universal access to broadband services.^[54]

In 2011, Branson served on the Global Commission on Drug Policy with former political and cultural leaders of Latin America and elsewhere, "in a bid to boost the effort to achieve more humane and rational drug laws."^[55]

Politics[link]

In the 1980s, he was briefly given the post of "litter Tsar" by Margaret Thatcher—charged with "keeping Britain tidy".^[56][57] In 2005 he declared that there were only negligible differences between the two main parties on economic matters.^[58] He has frequently been mentioned as a candidate for Mayor of London, and polls have suggested he would be a viable candidate, though he has yet to express interest.^[59][60][61]

Business practices[link]

Branson's business empire is owned by a complicated series of offshore trusts and companies. The Sunday Times stated that his wealth is calculated at £3.065 billion; if he were to retire to his Caribbean island and liquidate all of this, he would pay relatively little in tax.^[62]

Honours and awards[link]

In 1993, Branson was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Technology from Loughborough University.

In the New Years Honours list dated 30 December 1999, HM The Queen signified her intention to confer the honour of Knight Bachelor on him for his "services to entrepreneurship".^[63][64] He was knighted by HRH The Prince of Wales on 30 March 2000 at an investiture in Buckingham Palace.^[65]

Also in 2000, Branson received the 'Tony Jannus Award' for his accomplishments in commercial air transportation.

Branson is the patron of several charities, including the International Rescue Corps and Prisoners Abroad, a registered charity which supports Britons who are detained outside of the UK.

Branson appears at No. 85 on the 2002 list of "100 Greatest Britons" (sponsored by the BBC and voted for by the public). Branson was also ranked in 2007's Time Magazine "Top 100 Most Influential People in the World". In 2009, Branson was voted the UK's "Celebrity Dream Boss" in an opinion poll by Cancer Research UK.^[66]

On 7 December 2007, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon presented Branson with the United Nations Correspondents Association Citizen of the World Award for his support for environmental and humanitarian causes.^[67]

On 24 January 2011, Branson was awarded the German Media Prize (organised by "Media Control Charts" ), previously handed to former U.S. president Bill Clinton and the Dalai Lama.

On 14 November 2011, Branson was awarded the ISTA Prize by the International Space Transport Association in The Hague for his pioneering achievements in the development of suborbital transport systems with "Virgin Galactic".^[68]

On February 11, 2012, Branson was honoured with the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences' President's Merit Award for his contributions to the music industry. The event took place the night before the 54th Grammy Awards. ^[69]

Personal life[link]

He stated in an interview with Piers Morgan that he and wife Joan had a daughter named Clare Sarah who died when she was just four days old in 1979.^[70] The couple wed—at their daughter Holly's suggestion when she was eight years old—in 1989 at Necker Island, a 74-acre (30 ha) island in the British Virgin Islands that Branson owns.^[71] He also owns land on the Caribbean Islands of Antigua and Barbuda. Holly Branson is now a doctor and is a keen supporter of the football team Oxford United.^{[72][dead link]}

In 1998, Branson released his autobiography, titled Losing My Virginity, an international bestseller.^[73]

Branson was deeply saddened by the disappearance of fellow adventurer Steve Fossett in September 2007; and, the following month, he wrote an article for Time magazine, titled "My Friend, Steve Fossett".^[74]

Influences[link]

Branson has stated in a number of interviews that he derives much influence from non-fiction books. He most commonly names Nelson Mandela's autobiography, Long Walk to Freedom, explaining that Mandela is "one of the most inspiring men I have ever met and had the honour to call my friend." Owing to his interest in humanitarian and ecological issues, Branson also lists Al Gore's best-selling book, An Inconvenient Truth and The Revenge of Gaia by James Lovelock amongst his favourites. According to Branson's own book, Screw It, Let's do It. Lessons in Life, he is also a huge fan of works by Jung Chang.^[75]

See also[link]

• Virgin Group
• Virgin Earth Challenge
• List of Richard Branson's business ventures

Notes[link]