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The purpose of this paper is to theorize men’s experiences of work-life balance in male-dominated, high-performance industries.

This study provides an in-depth qualitative study comprising interviews and informal conversations with male lawyers in Canada.

This study highlights the socially constructed nature of male lawyers’ experiences of work-life balance and the recursive impact of industry, professional and societal expectations and norms.

A relatively small sample size, suggesting the need for further study with a larger and more diverse sample. The study was conducted in Canada – other national contexts may furnish different results.

This study identifies the need for greater awareness of how institutional, professional and societal expectations and norms impact on men’s experiences of work-life balance in male-dominated, high-performance industries.

This paper indicates that greater attention needs to be paid to work-life balance among men in male-dominated, high-performance industries.

This paper explores men’s experiences of work-life balance in a male-dominated industry within an interpretivist paradigm.

This paper aims to investigate the idiosyncratic relationships between work and nonwork among dual-career professional couples (DCPCs) intentionally without children, considering individual members' role salience, nonwork responsibilities and care or career orientation.

Interview data from 21 Canadian and American couples (42 individuals) was used to explore the research question: How do DCPCs without children perceive their work-nonwork balance?

DCPCs without children are a heterogenous demographic. Some couples are career oriented, some care oriented, some exhibit both orientations, shaping their experience of work-nonwork balance. Unlike popular stereotypes, they do have nonwork responsibilities and interests outside of their thriving careers. Similar to their counterparts with children, they face conflicts managing work and nonwork domains.

Based on theories of role salience, work-nonwork conflict, enrichment and balance, the authors suggest that analyses of work-nonwork balance should include nonwork activities other than child caring. The authors further propose that the experience of the work-nonwork interface varies according to whether couples are careerist, conventional, non-conventional or egalitarian. The study also demonstrates that work-nonwork experiences are relational in nature and should be explored beyond a strictly individual perspective.

Work-life balance experiences of dual-career professional couples with children have received considerable attention, but there remains a paucity of research on the definitions of work-life balance among dual-career professional couples without children. This qualitative investigation sheds light on childfree couples' lives outside of work and their concomitant understanding of work-life balance.

The study draws on interviews with 21 dual-career professional couples in Canada and the US, exploring their non-work lives and how they conceive of work-life balance.

Thematic analyses demonstrate that this group, while free of child rearing responsibilities, still deals with myriad non-work obligations. These couples also defy uniform characterization. The inductive investigation uncovered four couple categories based on the individual members' career and care orientations. These included careerist, conventional, non-conventional and egalitarian couples. Definitions of work-life balance varied across couple type according to the value they placed on flexibility, autonomy and control, and their particular level of satisfaction with their work and non-work domains.

This study contributes to research at the intersection of work-life balance and various demographic groups by exploring the work-life balance of professional dual-career couples without children. Using an interpretive ontology, the study advances a typology of childfree dual-career professional couples. The findings challenge the rhetoric that these couples are primarily work-oriented but otherwise carefree. Thus, this study demonstrates ways that childfree couples are different as well as similar to those with children.