WORK-LIFE BALANCE OF THE EMPLOYED POPULATION DURING THE EMERGENCY SITUATION OF COVID-19 IN LATVIA

All the employees face the challenge of finding the right work-life balance. The ability of employees to deal with the successful combining of work, family responsibilities and personal life is crucial for both employers and family members of employees. During the COVID-19 emergency situation, many people around the world were forced to work remotely. Initially, there were observed some certain expectations about the possibility of working from home as a positive factor that will promote work-life balance. However, over time, negative tendencies also revealed, as employees were only one call or message away from the employer, and uncertainty and leisure time with family often created more stress. As many organizations and individuals were not ready for this sudden change, many mistakes were made, which further raised the issue of work-life balance. The aim of the research was to evaluate the flexibility of reconciling work and private life of Latvian employees in various socio-demographic groups during the COVID-19 emergency situation in spring 2020, to investigate how family life influenced employees’ ability to perform work duties, to find out if employees had any additional housework responsibilities and how their workload changed concerning housework amount during the COVID-19 emergency situation. The research is based on the data obtained in the survey of the Latvian employed population, which was conducted within the framework of the Latvian National Research Programme Project “CoLife” in the second half of 2020. As a result, the hypothesis of the research that all groups of employees experienced work-life balance difficulties during the COVID-19 emergency situation has been partially confirmed, i.e. women in the 35-44 age group and respondents with minor children in the household more likely faced difficulties of work-life balance.全体职场人士均面临寻求恰当工作与生活平衡的挑战。职场人士妥善兼顾工作、家庭责任与个人生活的能力，对雇主及其家庭成员均至关重要。在新冠疫情紧急状态期间，全球众多民众被迫开启远程办公模式。最初，外界曾对居家办公抱有一定期待，认为其可作为促进工作与生活平衡的积极因素。然而随着时间推移，负面趋势也逐渐显现：职场人士与雇主仅需一通电话或一条消息即可随时取得联系，居家期间的不确定性以及与家人共处的闲暇时光往往加剧了压力。由于诸多组织与个人尚未做好应对这一突发转变的准备，期间出现了诸多失误，进一步凸显了工作与生活平衡的议题。本研究旨在评估2020年春季新冠疫情紧急状态期间，拉脱维亚不同社会人口学群体职场人士兼顾工作与私人生活的灵活性；探究家庭生活对职场人士履职能力的影响；明确职场人士是否承担了额外家务，以及疫情紧急状态期间其家务工作量发生了何种变化。本研究的数据来源于2020年下半年依托拉脱维亚国家研究计划项目"CoLife"开展的拉脱维亚就业人口调查。研究结果显示，本研究提出的「新冠疫情紧急状态期间所有职场群体均面临工作与生活平衡困境」的假说得到了部分验证，即35-44岁年龄段女性及家中有未成年子女的受访者，更易遭遇工作与生活平衡难题。