Work-Life Balance and Everyday Challenges Faced by Working Women in Urban Areas

The expansion of women’s participation in urban employment has transformed households, workplaces, and city life, yet paid work has not been accompanied by an equal redistribution of unpaid domestic and care responsibilities. This paper examines work-life balance and the everyday challenges faced by working women in urban India through a narrative review of research, official statistics, policy reports, and legal documents. Work-life balance is treated not as a perfect division of time but as the capacity to participate in paid work, family life, care, rest, and personal development without persistent role conflict or serious harm to well-being. The review shows that women’s daily difficulties emerge from the interaction of long and inflexible working hours, unequal household labour, childcare and eldercare, unsafe or costly commuting, workplace discrimination and harassment, digital connectivity, and the high cost of urban living. These pressures vary sharply by occupation, class, marital status, motherhood, family structure, and access to support. Flexible work can reduce commuting and increase control, but it may also extend paid work into domestic time and intensify women’s availability for care. The paper argues that work-life imbalance is not primarily an individual failure of time management; it is a structural outcome of gender norms, employment practices, care deficits, and urban design. Sustainable improvement therefore requires shared care within households, family-supportive workplaces, safe and affordable mobility, reliable care services, effective enforcement of labour protections, and greater recognition of informal and precarious workers.