Hi Rajguru,
The term work life balance was coined somewhere in the 60s 70s. Before that, no one even heard of the concept. The reason is quite simple - men were the sole bread earners of the family while women took care of the household. The went on right from the beginning of the industrial revolution till the time women entered the workforce.
Although initially women were hired till the time they got married or got children, with education and policy changes women began to take higher positions in offices. With it came in the need of work-life balance. Men didnt need to take up household responsibilities if they were working but women "couldn't " give up their household responsibilities, like cooking, cleaning, raising children etc even though they worked for the same number or hours as men did.
All this added to a lot of stress which affected performance at work. The term work-life balance came into existence of out the need to manage and shine at work without sacrifice the joy or personal life.
Then men realized that they too need "live" their life. Whether it means watching a game with their buddies or watching their children perform in the school play or vacationing in Maldives men too realised that they cant wait till retirement to enjoy the fruits of their effort.
The final chord was played by scientists through various studies that proved that both men and women, young and old performed consistently better at work when they had a healthy personal life.
The point of mentioning all this is for one to realize that ever manager want to stretch the employee to his/her maximum. He is hired to do exactly that. The onus lies on the employee to manage her work-life balance. There is a case where a women had gone on maternity leave and a man in the same firm wanted time off because he wanted to focus on his yoga. Who is the manager to decided that to him yoga is or isnt as important as having a child. The final call has to be on performance. If the women has performed well she must be given the leave. If she is a poor performer, she has to be let go. The same applies to the man. If he has performed well then he deserves a break, if his performance is poor, he has to be denied the break or asked to leave.
Hope this helps
Avinash Tavares
<link outdated-removed> ( Search On Cite | Search On Google )