Enough Time for Housework? Low‐Wage Work and Desired Housework Time Adjustments

Although studies examine preferences for hours spent in paid employment, little attention has been given to preferences for hours spent in unpaid household labor. This study examines the extent to which women working in low‐paid retail jobs would prefer to spend more or less time on household work and how alignment between preferred and actual time on housework is related to characteristics of paid work. Using original survey data and company records on a sample of women working at a U.S. retail firm (N = 277), the authors found that mismatch between preferred and actual time on household work was common. Roughly 42% wanted more time on household work and 18% wanted less. Working multiple jobs, work schedule unpredictability, and nonstandard work timing contributed to wanting more time on housework. Findings add to understanding of how low‐wage, precarious employment shapes workers' ability to attend to necessary tasks of household management.     

Women's Career Success and Work–life Adaptations in the Accountancy and Medical Professions in Britain

This article examines gendered career paths in two feminizing and highly qualified professions. Quantitative data show that in medicine the profession is internally segregated by sex, as women tend to opt for the family friendly but clinically inferior specialty of general practice. In accountancy internal segregation by sex is considerably less evident but women fail to rise through organizational hierarchies. Qualitative interviews with qualified doctors and accountants suggest that sex discrimination is to some extent still an issue but that the major factor underlying these different gendered career trajectories is that women still retain the major responsibility for domestic work and caring. They also suggest that doctors have been able to exercise more control over their working hours than accountants and that even when accountants work part‐time, they work longer hours than contracted. Part‐time work is also seen as seriously career‐limiting. In our conclusions, we briefly examine the gender equality implications of these contrasting self‐regulated and market‐driven adaptations to occupational feminization.     

The Low Status of Female Part‐Time NHS Nurses: A Bed‐Pan Ceiling?

Despite increases in female participation rates into the paid working population of Britain women remain concentrated into particular sectors of the economy. Areas of the labour market where women predominate are also characterized by high levels of part‐time employment. The significance of part‐time work is that it is lower paid and offers fewer employment opportunities for women. This article examines the careers of 643 qualified female NHS nurses. It is found that respondents working part‐time are the least likely to occupy the upper echelons of NHS nursing. Explanations for this centre on the actions and strategies of managers who use negative gender role stereotypes regarding part‐time nurses to inform recruitment and promotion decisions. Managers, however, regard the low status of part‐time nurses as a reflection of their own choice strategies, thus failing to recognize the existence of gender‐based disadvantage. The resultant outcome is one where part‐time nurses are confined to the lowest qualified clinical grades, with little opportunity to progress to the higher grades. Critical labour shortages in nursing, however, may mean that the utilization of part‐timers is re‐examined as NHS management seek to retain more qualified nurses. For such a re‐examination to be successful management attitudes also need to change.     

Correlates of Voluntary vs. Involuntary Part‐time Employment among US Women

This article presents a study of the extent to which type and duration of labour force attachment add to the explanatory power of psychological, demographic, and family household characteristics to predict voluntary (n=166) vs. involuntary part‐time (n=160) employment of women in the United States. We use the terms ‘voluntary’ and ‘involuntary’ to reflect the woman's choice in accepting to work in paid part‐time employment. In this context, voluntary part‐time work is not meant to be construed as charitable, non‐paid activities, but rather is construed as individuals who are working part‐time but who would prefer to be working full‐time, if a suitable job were available. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Labor Market Experience (NLSLME), we found that labour market attachment characteristics added little to predict part‐time employment status (involuntary vs. voluntary) and had virtually no effect on the odds of any other correlates on employment status. The major exception was number of years of unemployment. The longer working women were previously unemployed, the greater the likelihood they were involuntarily employed in part‐time jobs. In addition, we found that marriage and private sector employment decreased the likelihood of involuntary part‐time employment. Findings suggest that involuntarily part‐time employed women appear to be ‘settling’ for what they can get, namely, part‐time rather than full‐time jobs and that unmarried part‐timers may be viewed as a stigmatized or marginal group more likely to be employed in the public rather than private sector. Policy implications and future research are discussed.     

Innovative Social Policies: Implications for Work–life Balance among Low‐waged Women in England

We investigated innovative social policies drawn from the European arena — universal systems of childcare, a shorter working week and shared parental leave — asking about their relevance to the work–life balance of low‐waged coupled mothers in England. While in principle the policy environment has shifted from assumptions of a male breadwinner to dual earners, in practice severe constraints on mothers' labour market attachment bring women half the lifetime earnings of men. British Household Panel Survey data for coupled low‐waged women in England show them as likely to work short part‐time hours, have low‐waged partners and low household wages while belonging to male breadwinner partnerships in terms of their contribution to household wages and unpaid work; but that few women support this model. Interviews with low‐waged mothers show evidence of limited choices, constrained by social policies which offer limited and piecemeal support for working parenthood. Given the choice, low‐waged mothers and their partners would find policies available elsewhere in Europe attractive. They see a more universal comprehensive system of childcare as enabling women's employment and improving children's quality of life; a shorter working week as enabling mothers and fathers to lead more balanced lives and a father's quota of parental leave fitting with their assumptions about sharing care.     

Chronic Presenteeism: The Multiple Dimensions to Men's Absence from Part‐Time Work

While there is considerable debate in the popular press about the changing roles of men and women, labour force statistics suggest that there has been little change in the work patterns of men and women. Despite the increasing availability of part‐time work, men in professional and managerial roles are not considering part‐time as an option for them. Rather, there are increasing organizational pressures for men to be working long hours in the paid workforce. In this paper, men's absence from part‐time work is considered from a multidisciplinary perspective. Factors operating at the individual, social and organizational levels are identified and explored in terms of their impact on men's working patterns. A model is presented that characterizes men's absence from part‐time work as a result of the mutually reinforcing nature of these factors.     

Divergent female part-time employment in Britain and Denmark and the implications for gender equity

This paper examines women's employment in Britain and Denmark, societies characterised similarly by high proportions of female employees working part‐time but by rather different gender arrangements. Part‐time working is associated with female‐carer workers; women who have reduced their hours in the labour market to bring up children and are able to do this because of the presence of an alternative source of income—usually a male breadwinner. Yet Denmark has been conceptualised as having more of ‘dual‐breadwinner’ gender arrangement than Britain. It would seem then, that part‐time working is distinctly different in these two societies. Examining this question, the paper concludes that extensive part‐time working for women, and not men, does indeed tend to reinforce a traditional male‐breadwinner model. However, the strength of this reinforcement varies, depending on the relative conditions of the part‐time labour market. These conditions vary substantially cross‐nationally and can also change rapidly within one society over time. As a result, the typical ‘role’ a part‐time job plays for women can also vary cross‐nationally and can change over time.     

Work Choices of Mothers in Families with Children with Disabilities

This study used a sample of single and married mothers with children under the age of 20 drawn from the 1992 and 1993 panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation to examine one facet of the economic implications a child with disabilities brings to a family. Specifically, the choice of women with children to work full time, part time, or not at all was estimated as a function of individual and family characteristics, including the number and ages of children with disabilities. The presence of young children, with or without disabilities, has a significant negative influence on the work choice of both single and married mothers. However, once children enter elementary school, single mothers with disabled or nondisabled children and married mothers with nondisabled children are significantly more likely to enter the labor market or increase their labor market hours than are married mothers of school‐age children with disabilities.     

Female Part‐Time Managers: Careers,Mentors and Role Models

This paper explores the careers of 27 women employed as part‐time managers in a range of UK public, private and not‐for‐profit sector organizations. Drawing upon semi‐structured interviews, the article briefly summarizes the career trajectories of these women, prior to and after a transition to part‐time working, before exploring whether and how career progression is linked to the support of role models and mentors. The part‐time managers in this sample held varied careers while working full‐time, but careers often stalled following a transition to part‐time work. Given research has identified role models and mentors as having a positive impact upon career progression, this paper explores the existence of role models and mentors within the sample of female part‐time managers. While the majority of interviewees identified role models, just over half identified these as negative role models who did little to champion part‐time working. Drawing upon Gibson's ‘positive/negative’ role model dimensions, we argue the likelihood of identifying positive and negative role models alters when an analysis takes account of gender and working hours. Few interviewees identified mentors: just four women spoke of being mentored currently, though ten others identified being mentored in the past. We argue this lack of mentors and the identification of negative role models, the majority of whom were women, exacerbates the already precarious position of these female part‐time managers. The paper concludes by commenting on the lack of support for female part‐time managers, and the paucity of influential people working part‐time in organizations, despite the rapid growth of part‐time work in the UK over the past four decades.     

Making Milk and Money: Contemporary Mothers' Orientations to Breastfeeding and Work

In most Western industrial nations, gains have been made in women's educational and occupational opportunities as part of a larger gender revolution. At the same time, contemporary mothering expectations have expanded and intensified, especially the renewed focus on breastfeeding as the “optimal” choice for infant feeding. How do women perceive the simultaneous pursuit of these activities? Prior scholarship has identified tensions in cultural models of breastfeeding as well as in women's subjective experiences, emphasizing how breastfeeding is shaped and encountered through sociocultural context, especially ideologies that position work and mothering as incompatible. Building on this, I examine how the current generation of working mothers view working and breastfeeding. Through in‐depth interviews with 32 U.S. women, I show how women espouse distinctly different orientations to breastfeeding: instrumentalist, quasi‐maternalist, and pragmatist. I argue that these different orientations both reflect and reframe existing cultural models and discourses about contemporary women's relationships to work, mothering, and breastfeeding.     

Multiple Social Roles — a Resource or a Burden: Is it Possible for Men and Women to Combine Paid Work with Family Life in a Satisfactory Way?

The aim of this article is to study whether multiple social roles can be seen as a resource or a burden, or in other words, if a strong engagement in both paid work and family life is a positive or negative experience for men and women respectively. The main data used are a data set from Statistics Sweden, the so‐called ULF (the study of living conditions), in which nearly 30,000 randomly selected individuals were interviewed. When analysing how the combined family and labour market situation is related to the number of preferred working hours and psychological distress of individuals, the results show that it is primarily cohabiting women with children who work more than 40 hours per week, who want to reduce their working hours. However, the distress level is not relatively high for this category. Results indicate that many women, and some men, who have multiple social roles express a wish to reduce their working hours, but this does not necessarily mean that the levels of distress are higher for these groups. This may be a result of the fact that the alternative resources provided by multiple social roles in some sense outweigh the stressful effects that double demands have on psychological distress.     

Nonprofit management practices and work processes to promote gender diversity

Nonprofit organizations have long provided an important space for women to establish roles in public life. Using establishment‐level data on for‐profit and nonprofit organizations, we show that the proportions of women in full‐time and mission‐critical positions are higher in nonprofits. In contrast, for‐profit businesses have more women in part‐time jobs and in jobs that are peripheral to the organizational purpose. We also demonstrate that the greater proportions of women in full‐time and mission‐critical positions in nonprofits are due to the use of inclusive work processes and transparent human resource management practices. Our findings provide evidence to pursue the aspects of nonprofit organizations that expand opportunities for working women.     

How many hours do you have to work to be integrated? Full‐time and part‐time employment of native and ethnic minority women in the Netherlands

Labour market integration of ethnic minority women is central for economic integration, as they may experience a double disadvantage: both as a woman and as a migrant. This presumed double disadvantage has recently become the focus of both Dutch integration and emancipation policy. To test several assumptions underlying this, we analyse to what extent labour market participation of different groups of women and the hours they work are influenced by human capital and household characteristics. Our results show some remarkable differences in employment patterns. Controlling for educational level, partnership and the presence of children, it was found that native women more often work in part‐time jobs than ethnic minority women. For native Dutch women, the number of children influences both the employment decision and the number of hours worked, whereas for ethnic minority women, this only effects full‐time employment.     

Nonstandard Work Schedules and Partnership Quality: Quantitative and Qualitative Findings

This article questions existing findings and provides new evidence about the consequences of nonstandard work schedules on partnership quality. Using quantitative couple data from The Netherlands Kinship Panel Study (NKPS) (N = 3,016) and semistructured qualitative interviews (N = 34), we found that, for women, schedules with varying hours resulted in greater relationship dissatisfaction than for men. Men with young children who worked varying hours had less relationship conflict and spent more time with children. Parents used nonstandard schedules for tag‐team parenting or to maintain perceptions of full‐time motherhood. The lack of negative effects, particularly for night shifts, suggests that previous findings—largely U.S. ones—are not universal and may be attributed to wider cultural, industrial relations, and economic contexts.     

In the Face of Conflict: Work‐Life Conflict and Desired Work Hour Adjustments

This study helps integrate the work‐life and work hours literatures by examining competing predictions about the relationship between work‐life conflict and the desire for paid work. Using data from the 1997 National Study of the Changing Workforce (N =2,178), I find that work‐life conflict makes women want to decrease the number of hours they work whether the conflict originates at home or at work. Men only want to decrease their hours when work‐life conflict originates at work, and some men facing frequent conflict actually want to increase their hours. I also find that having children does not increase the likelihood of wanting to work fewer hours but having a higher income does.     

The Impact of Flexible Working Arrangements on Work–life Conflict and Work Pressure in Ireland

Recent rapid economic growth in Ireland has been accompanied by a strong surge in the number of women in employment, and this has led to a significant increase in the proportion of dual‐earner families. These changes have brought the issue of reconciliation between work and care commitments to the fore. Flexible working arrangements in firms have been identified as one important means of balancing work and other commitments. In this article we investigate the relationship between four flexible working arrangements; flexitime, part‐time hours, working from home and job sharing, and two key employee outcomes; work pressure and work–life conflict, using data from the first national survey of employees in Ireland in 2003. Our results show that while part‐time work and flexitime tend to reduce work pressure and work–life conflict, working from home is associated with greater levels of both work pressure and work–life conflict. We conclude that it is important to distinguish between flexible working arrangements to discover their potential for reducing work pressure and work–life conflict.     

Beyond the Mommy Track: The Influence of New-Concept Part-Time Work for Professional Women on Work and Family

This study investigates how the option for new-concept part-time work influences the ability of mothers of preschool children working in professional occupations to successfully integrate work and family responsibilities while maintaining career opportunities. Data are from a subset of the 1996 IBM Work and Life Issues Survey in the United States (n = 687). Compared to their counterparts who worked full time, mothers who worked in these part-time positions reported significantly greater work-family balance and did not report significantly less career opportunity. The part-time group reported 47% fewer work hours and 41% lower income than the full-time group. These data support the notion that new-concept part-time work is a viable option to assist women in professional careers to successfully integrate their family career. Implications of these findings are presented.     

COVID‐19 and the gender gap in work hours

School and day care closures due to the COVID‐19 pandemic have increased caregiving responsibilities for working parents. As a result, many have changed their work hours to meet these growing demands. In this study, we use panel data from the US Current Population Survey to examine changes in mothers’ and fathers’ work hours from February through April 2020, the period of time prior to the widespread COVID‐19 outbreak in the United States and through its first peak. Using person‐level fixed effects models, we find that mothers with young children have reduced their work hours four to five times more than fathers. Consequently, the gender gap in work hours has grown by 20–50 per cent. These findings indicate yet another negative consequence of the COVID‐19 pandemic, highlighting the challenges it poses to women’s work hours and employment.     

EASING THE CONSTRAINTS OF MOTHERHOOD: THE EFFECTS OF ALL‐DAY SCHOOLS ON MOTHERS' LABOR SUPPLY

Low rates of female labor force participation (LFP) have been linked to the absence of childcare policies. This article examines the degree to which extending the school day by 3.5 hours in elementary schools, a large implicit childcare subsidy, affects LFP, the number of weekly hours worked, and the monthly earnings of females with elementary‐school‐age children. To do so, we exploit within‐individual variation in access to full‐time schools and a rotating panel of households that contains 12 years of individual‐level data on labor outcomes and sociodemographic characteristics. Results from long‐difference models show that extending the school day increases mothers' labor supply, increasing LFP by 5.5 percentage points and the number of weekly hours worked by 1.8. Moreover, these increases are accompanied by a raise in monthly earnings. (JEL I25, J13, J22)     

Making the Best of a Bad Job? Female Part‐Timers’ Orientations and Attitudes to Work

This article uses data from 50 qualitative interviews with female part‐time workers in low‐level jobs in Britain to illustrate their attitudes, orientations and aspirations towards paid work. The research reports two main findings. Firstly, even female part‐time workers at the bottom end of the occupational structure are not a homogeneous group of workers. Secondly, they are not all highly satisfied with their jobs. The article argues that many women (especially those in working‐class households) still do not have a genuine choice between ‘family work’ and ‘market work’. It concludes by presenting a theoretical model of orientations to work.