Lecture on work-life balance by SMN prof highlights 14th University Day

A formal lecture on work-life balance and the announcement of this year’s winners of the Academic Research Awards marked the 14th University Day celebration last August 14 at the Dizon Auditorium.

Work-life balance and materialism

School of Management (SMN) assistant professor Dr. Ma. Victoria Q. Caparas delivered this year’s University Lecture entitled, “Work-Life Balance and Materialism: How the Young People Can Help their Working Parents Set the Right Priorities.”

Dr. Caparas, who earned her doctorate in management from the IESE Business School in Spain, based her lecture on a recent study, which she had conducted among 197 student-respondents from various Metro Manila universities.

Dr. Caparas delivers her lecture entitled, "Work-Life Balance and Materialism: How the Young People Can Help their Working Parents Set the Right Priorities.”

The study sought to find relationships between materialism and work-life balance. It was built on five hypotheses regarding “materialistic children” (compared to “non-materialistic children”). Dr. Caparas hypothesized that materialistic children are (1) more likely to view their parents as working too much; (2) less likely to view their parents as putting their families first before their work; (3) more likely to judge their parents as unsuccessful in managing work and family; (4) less likely to imitate their parents in managing work and family when they have a family in the future; and (5) more likely to wish for greater material benefits, given the chance to change the way their parents work.


According to Dr. Caparas, the results of the study support the first four hypotheses. Referring to the fifth hypothesis, she said, “The results were very different from expected. When I coded their answers to this open-ended question, the mean of the responses was almost the same: everyone would wish to have more time with their parents.”


Dr. Caparas said that many parents have now fallen into materialism by lavishing their children with material goods. “Guilt-ridden parents give their children material things to make up for the time they spend in the workplace or out of the family homes,” she said. “These parents care for their children’s happiness but mistakenly value material things as a source of happiness for their children.”


Dr. Caparas added: “[M]aterialistic children also wish for time with their parents like their less materialistic peers. This implies that the real happiness of the children, as well as adults, is outside the realm of material possessions, regardless of how convincingly a consumerist culture may advertise to the contrary.”