WORK-LIFE BALANCE

BRINGING FAMILES TOGETHER AGAIN

Commuting separates neighbors and families – often destroying them. When the farmer went off to work in a textile factory, that was the beginning of the breakdown of the family. Until cars came along, people still knew their neighbors through school, work, and worship. Driving to central workplaces created "bedroom" communities and erased neighborhood links.

The reversal of work back into homes will have exactly the opposite effect. The home-based economic family unit will enhance, restore, and revitalize both family and community stability. In the future, to assure a secure and satisfying work–life blend, most of the next generation of families almost certainly will opt to work from home in city exurbs and the surrounding countryside.

The work–family divide is being replaced by a new work–family pact where the Webolution makes the home again central to society. The "Web Lifestyle" family will do most things together at home, sharing both household chores and tasks of economic production that generate family income. Many households may again employ live-in or visiting servants and caregivers of various kinds. Future households will be electronically-extended families that network with other families – next door and across the world.

As a result, there is a growing urge by people to work at home, often for themselves. For sure, the loyalty tie that bound people to employers is broken. People simply expect and demand both greater autonomy and more concern for their individual interests. While the old media still present workplace and career images for which some people still strive, the Web lets families pursue their own interests together and with like-minded people worldwide. Life becomes home-based but cyber-spaced.