Impact of career advancement on work-life balance:

The main objective of the dissertation was to investigate the impact of career advancement on the satisfaction with work-life balance among employees with high professional status (including managerial function). In this exercise a special focus has been put on gender and generational differences. Work on the doctoral dissertation began with conducting several in-depth interviews with "successful" women – but they were interrupted due to the pandemic. The analysis of the interviews showed it is worth using quantitative methodology in further research. Realisation of the main objective of the dissertation was allocated across five research tasks: (1) Literature review examining factors contributing to the satisfaction with work-life balance among employees with managerial functions, concluded with identification of research gaps; (2) Development of a strategy to construct an index of professional success based on survey data; (3) Development of a new research procedure for estimating WLB using an external view, in which adult children (Generation Z) assess the WLB of parents (Generation X), allowing to eliminate distortions related to attributive egocentrism, which leads to an overestimation of the amount of work performed by the person performing that work; (4) A review of various forms of research on the gender stereotypes – linking professional career with men and household duties with women, accompanied by development of an experimental manipulation of target descriptions of specific situations describing potential for WLB decline as a result of career advancement; (5) Performing analyses on pre-existing data and conducting own research aimed at testing research hypotheses. The research has been conducted in the form of re-analyses of pre-existing data (study A) and conducting 3 own studies (B, C, D) via the Internet (CAWI): Study A: WLB in British generation X (N=3475 employees all 46-year-old); Study B: WLB in Polish generations BB, X, Y (N=616 employees); Study C: WLB in Polish generation X evaluated by their adult children (N=451); Study D: Stereotypical gender differences in WLB standards (N=147 + participants of study B and C). In the course of the research using the four studies, the following hypotheses have been tested: H1. Higher professional success in women does not translate to lower involvement in household duties, especially in home management (i.e., planning and organization of household activities, leading and controlling their execution). H2. Women bear higher costs of professional success (career advancement) compared to men. Higher costs of professional success among women are associated with lower: 1a. work-life balance; 1b. emotional wellbeing; 1c. health condition. H3. WLB gender stereotypes are stronger in men than in women. Dissertation concludes with findings’ discussion regarding the conducted studies, elaboration on research limitations – own and in the work-life balance field in general, and the directions for further research identified by the author.