Work–Life Balance: A Case of Technical Disempowerment?

Work–life balance (WLB) is an emblematic strategy to achieve well-being for Third Way governments around the world and an exercise in nurturing self-actualizing and entrepreneurial citizens. By reading a case study of New Zealand's Labour WLB project through a poststructuralist perspective, I demonstrate that Third Way WLB policy projects are technical exercises in ethicalization. These practices serve to de-contextualize and de-politicize the terrain of well-being. This analysis highlights a contradiction in Third Way agendas to address the well-being of the needy because they disempower those they seek to empower.