Introduction:

The importance of work-family balance (henceforth WFB) on life quality has been widely acknowledged by work-family scholars as well as in political agendas. Thus far, however, WFB has relatively rarely been explicitly studied, that is, defining and measuring the concept consisting of both work-family conflict and enrichment instead of regarding it just an absence of work-family conflict. In this chapter, we examine how well Finnish academic professionals (n = 1,406) have succeeded in finding WFB in their lives. Specifically, we provide a theoretical overview into con-temporary and typological approaches on WFB. Then we test the latter using latent profile analysis (LPA). We examined whether four types of WFB – beneficial, harmful, active, and passive – conceptualized and formed on the basis of role conflict and role enhancement theories can be identified via this advanced statistical method. In exploring the possible combinations of work-family conflict and enrichment we focus on both directions, that is, work-to-family and family-to-work. Furthermore, we also examine whether the WFB profiles differ in demographic factors, perceived job characteristics and subjective well-being. Finally, we present conclusions and implications based on our findings.