Does Identity Distancing Beget Work-Life Boundary Segmentation? An Examination of Lesbian, gay & Bisexual Employees

Though all workers must consider how to best manage boundaries between work and life spheres, employees facing workplace prejudice grounded in invisible identity standing may face additional considerations; to the extent that bringing one’s home life to the office exposes an employee to stigma at work, that employee may prefer to segment (versus integrate) life aspects to avoid such prejudice. Via a time-lagged survey of 216 lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) employees, we found that identity distancing was indirectly related to enacted work-life boundaries through boundary management preferences, with identity distancing at least partially determined by perceptions of organizational diversity climate. Accordingly, we advance theory related to boundary enactment via the identification of individual and environmental circumstances related to boundary preferences. Practically, we highlight the pervasiveness of stigma as informative to the core relationships employees form between work and life spheres, underscoring the benefits of a positive organizational diversity climate.