The Role of Sports in Work-Life Balance: A Systematic Review

Abstract

The relationship between sports participation and work-life balance (WLB) has attracted sustained scholarly interest, yet the mechanisms through which different categories of sporting engagement shape employees' professional and personal lives remain incompletely theorized and empirically underexplored, particularly within the Indian organizational context. This paper presents a systematic review of published empirical and theoretical studies examining the role of leisure sports, professional sports, team sports, and workplace physical activity programs in facilitating or constraining WLB among employees across sectors. Drawing on twenty-five studies identified through searches of Scopus, Web of Science, Google Scholar, and allied databases, the review synthesizes evidence on the differential effects of sporting engagement across key outcome dimensions including job satisfaction, psychological well-being, employee engagement, stress reduction, and organizational commitment. The findings indicate that leisure-time sports participation exerts a consistently positive effect on multiple dimensions of work-life balance, primarily through recovery from occupational stress, enhanced physical and psychological well-being, and the strengthening of social capital within and beyond the workplace. Professional sports present a more complex and sometimes adverse profile, with elevated mental health risks among elite athletes co-existing with transferable competencies of discipline and stress tolerance. Team sports and institutionalized workplace sport programs demonstrate particular value in building organizational cohesion and interpersonal trust, though empirical evidence of direct effects on individual WLB outcomes remains methodologically constrained. Research conducted outside India predominates in the literature, and the dearth of India-specific studies represents a material gap warranting systematic address.