Samenvatting

Various barriers, which include a stereotypical provisional labour institution and a difficulty in balancing work and childcare or nursing care, stand in our ways even if Japanese office workers hope to accomplish something, is at the root of the bottleneck hindering Japanese office worker 's Work-life balance (WLB). The structural issue regarding population, which is caused by the declining birthrate and ageing population as well as the decrease in productive-age population. There are also the issues of the stagnation of the improvement in productivity, which is derived from a lack of innovation, as well as insufficient working style and the environment in the revolutionary technology. The practice of long working hours makes it difficult for Japanese office workers to ensure health and balance work with family life, which leads to the declining birthrate, prevention of women’s career formation and men’s participation to household affairs. Moreover, the worst scenario clearly shows that the balance between work and personal life has collapsed, the time spend on personal life is sacrificed, life is dominated by work. If we amend the long working hours, the work-life balance will improve, and managers will become more conscious of the various ways in which people can work for them, and therefore labour 's WLB will also improve.
Hence the objective of this research is to gain more insight into the relation between Flexible Working Arrangements (FWAs) to satisfaction with Work-Life Balance (WLB) of Japanese office workers. Also, the influence of the level of Duration of working hours, the level of Timing of working hours are taken into account during this research, and Flexible working places as well as Employee’s household factors and personal factors.
Therefore, the following main research question is formulated: “What is the contribution of Flexible Working Arrangements (FWAs) to satisfaction with Work-Life Balance (WLB) of Japanese office workers?”.
This research is a combination of statistical analysis and a literature review. The questionnaire was conducted for this research to collect quantitative data. A total of 96 responses were valid and are used in the statistical analyses. The respondents were asked to state how do they work in current working condition/environment from the perspective of FWAs and how do they think and feel about it from the standpoint of WLB.
The research found that FWAs do not influence the WLB of Japanese Office workers. The relationship between FWAs and WLB was not observed in this research study. Since FWAs did not affect improving WLB of the Japanese office workers, the details of the mechanism of the relation between them have not been clear yet, only literature and previous research may give us a significant perspective. Besides FWAs, which is a way to establish WPF and WTF, it should be considered that the revision of the Labor Standards Law will strengthen the regulation of total working hours and the spread of short-time work for improving WLB. The expansion of short-time work will be a solution to realize the WLB of Japanese office workers, and it will be the best shortcut. However, FWAs is still a future work trend in response to growing concerns for evolving workforce demographics and retaining women in the workforce in Japan.