Assessing Work-Life Balance in Malta and Italy: A Cross-Cultural Investigation Using Exploratory Structural Equation Modelling (ESEM).

Purpose: Work-life balance (WLB) represents a well-established construct in several fields. However, the post-pandemic period has prompted substantial re-evaluations of the boundaries between professional and personal life among the general population, highlighting a critical need for renewed theoretical frameworks and empirical updates in this field. Our research focuses on the procedure of effectively assessing WLB in different cultural contexts, grounded in well-established theoretical foundations and involving the testing of measurement quality. Thus, the present cross-cultural study aimed to provide new evidence about the dimensionality, validity, reliability, and cultural invariance of the Work-Life Balance Scale and its practical impact on employee well-being.

Participants and methods: A sample of 362 employees (50% Maltese; 50% Italian), with a mean age of 43.36 (SD = 11.51) completed the WLBS in an online survey from March to April 2023. The cultural invariance was tested using the 13-model ESEM taxonomy of full measurement invariance. Moreover, through Network Analysis, the life satisfaction and optimism scales were administered to test the WLBS validity across countries.

Results: Results showed ESEM model good fit (X²=127.609, df = 63, CFI = 0.963, TLI = 0.939, RMSEA = 0.053 [0.040-0.066]) and less correlated latent factors than CFA. Tests of cultural invariance supported a weak invariance (ie, factor loadings and item uniqueness or factor variance/covariance matrix) across countries. Furthermore, the findings supported the validity and reliability of the scale.

Conclusion: In conclusion, new evidence about the WLBS theoretical framework and dimensionality was provided by using the ESEM as a challenging psychometric approach. Results from this study also supported its psychometric features and the cross-cultural applicability of the WLBS in two different European countries. The practical recommendations for government policy were discussed.