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This study aims to examine how working Australian Muslim men experience work-life conflict and how gender influences their experience.

Survey questionnaires were collected, either face-to-face or online, from 403 Australian Muslim men and women.

Work-to-life conflict is more prevalent than life-to-work conflict in both sexes, and there are no gender differences in the experiences of either direction of conflict. Job demands are a stronger predictor than work hours in both sexes and the findings corroborate existing Western research on the importance of work flexibility in helping both sexes cope with conflict. As expected, non-work related antecedents have more impacts on life-to-work conflict among women than in men, but the findings question the role of religion, indicating its beneficial rather than demanding nature. Finally, work-to-life conflict is a slightly stronger negative predictor of job satisfaction in women than men, whereas life-to-work conflict is a stronger negative predictor in men but not in women.

A greater focus on the work-life experiences of non-traditional populations and a change in the direction of work-life research, one that is broadened to include other roles besides work and family, such as religion, are needed.

Workplace policies designed to mitigate the negative impact of work-life conflict need to be matched to the workforce for both the workers and workplace to gain full benefits.

This research broadens the scope of work-life knowledge, one that is predominantly based on Western societies on white, English-speaking backgrounds, to men and women of non-traditional minority populations.

The purpose of this paper is to explore work-life conflict and work-life facilitation among employed Muslim men, a growing ethno-religious minority in Australia.

The study is guided by the interpretive paradigm and is qualitative in nature. The primary data collection method was semi-structured in-depth interviews and 20 participants participated in the study.

Australian Muslim men experience both work-life conflict and facilitation simultaneously; however, facilitation is reported more frequently. Work flexibility, work and family support, and religiosity promote work-life facilitation. In contrast, workload and work hours lead to feelings of conflict, with workload being the stronger antecedent. Importantly, religious values and beliefs are an underpinning influence on participants’ experiences.

The study is conducted with a small sample and hence, lacks the power to generalise findings to the broader Muslim male population.

There is a strong need to modify the traditional western models of work-life conflict and facilitation and workplace policies designed to assist workers when dealing with minorities, such as Australian Muslims. By including religion, the research offers a fresh voice to work-life research and encourages to think about the salience of other life domains beside family, an issue of great concern within the work-life literature.

This is one of the few studies to focus on Australian Muslim men and explore how religion fits into the current understanding of work-life balance.

This study explores how Australian Muslim men cope with potential conflict and achieve feelings of balance between their work, family and religious roles.

The study is guided by the interpretive paradigm and is qualitative. Data is collected from participants via semi-structured in-depth interviews (n=20) and analysed using thematic analysis.

Personal coping strategies (e.g. making permanent changes and time management) seem more effective in coping with immediate conflict and achieving work-life balance as opposed to external ones (e.g. supervisor support). Although some of the strategies mirror existing research, their extent of use and reasons for usage by Muslim men are different. Muslim men use these strategies in a preventive manner to actively achieve work-life balance rather than just cope with episodic work-life conflict.

The study is conducted with a small sample and the findings may not be generalizable to non-practising Australian Muslim men. To date, research has not clearly articulated how people who do not experience work-life conflict, make decisions to achieve balance. This study has a positive look at a negative issue by indicating that workers can go beyond coping with conflict and explore avenues to achieve work-life balance. The findings underscore the importance of preventive coping in achieving work-life balance and caution researchers about investigating how people cope with immediate work-life conflict only.

In addition to work and family roles, this study focuses on religious commitments, with religion being a largely overlooked concept within the work-family coping literature.