Launching the workplace flexibility movement: work family research and a program of social change

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's Workplace, Work Force & Working Families program was established in 1994 and ended in 2011. Over the course of its 17-year lifespan, this program – through its vision, commitment and unique, pragmatic grant-making strategies – pioneered the interdisciplinary field of work–family research and spearheaded a national movement to create more flexible workplaces that effectively meet the needs of employees and employers. The program's first strategic phase supported high-quality, multidisciplinary research to examine what was happening within working families at all stages of their lives, both at home and at work. Results from these investigations highlighted the structural mismatch between the needs of this diverse workforce – comprised increasingly of working parents and older workers – and the demands of a rigidly structured workplace requiring full-time, full-year work, with little to no flexibility in how, when, or where work gets done. After a decade of scholarly research documenting that the challenges facing American families were not private, individual problems but public, societal concerns, the Sloan Foundation designed and launched in 2003 the National Workplace Flexibility Initiative. Its goals were twofold: to make workplace flexibility a compelling national issue and to establish it as a standard of the American workplace. As a result of the collective efforts of Sloan-supported organizations and people, the stage is now set for a social movement to realign the structure of the American workplace to the needs of the twenty-first century workforce. Lessons for subsequent research-driven social movements close the article.     

Associations of eldercare and competing demands with health and work outcomes among manufacturing workers

Employees juggling eldercare and work report work–family conflicts and poor health-related outcomes, but little is known about eldercare demands (ECDs) in the context of competing demands in the manufacturing workforce. This study determines how ECDs vary by age, gender, income, and job category, and how ECDs and competing demands are associated with health-related and work-related outcomes, among manufacturing workers. Employees from six manufacturing companies completed questionnaires. ECDs were defined as providing assistance to an adult aged 65 and older due to disability or chronic illness; those with ECDs were asked how many care-hours per week and whether assistance included personal care. Workers over age 45 were more likely than younger workers to report ECDs. After adjusting for competing demands and socio-demographic characteristics, ECDs were associated with greater depressive symptoms and family-to-work conflict (FWC), providing 5 or more hours of eldercare weekly was associated with greater depressive symptoms, and providing personal care was associated with greater FWC.     

Looking at spillover from both sides: an examination of work and home flexibility and permeability

This study examined how flexibility and permeability in the boundaries surrounding the work and home domains affect the spillover from work to home and home to work. We looked at both flexibility and permeability in each of the two domains using directional and dichotomous measures of both negative and positive spillovers. Multivariate analyses and hierarchical regression showed that for 362 survey respondents, boundary flexibility reduced time- and strain-based spillover from work to home and home to work. Flexibility also was positively related to positive spillover from home to work. Permeability, on the other hand, was positively related to time-based spillover from work to home and from home to work. The results also showed support for the notion of asymmetric permeability, such that the relationships between work boundary permeability and the W→H spillovers were stronger than those between home boundary permeability and the H→W spillovers.     

Gender and work orientations in conditions of job insecurity

This paper explores women's and men's work orientations in conditions of job insecurity, arguing that it is time to move beyond essentalist conceptions of work orientations and central life interests in order to understand the significance of paid work in people's lives. Data from a qualitative study are presented which show that the significance of paid work and the priority given to home and work are affected by experiences of job insecurity, changing domestic circumstances and stage in the life cycle and that this is the case for both women and men. Conversely, the significance of paid work can affect how job insecurity is experienced and its impact on individuals and their families. The assumption that men's work orientations are homogeneous and that work is their central life interest is not supported by the findings presented here and it is argued that the significance of work in men's and women's lives is more variable than has hitherto been recognized. To capture this variability it is time to move away from the acrimony of the debate over women's work orientations and notions of a central life interest which underpin it.     

Why emotion work matters: sex,gender, and the division of household labor

Attempting to explain why biological sex remains the primary predictor of household labor allocation, gender theorists have suggested that husbands and wives perform family work in ways that facilitate culturally appropriate constructions of gender. To date, however, researchers have yet to consider the theoretical and empirical significance of emotion work in their studies of the gendered division of household labor. Using survey data from 335 employed, married parents, I examine the relative influence of economic resources, time constraints, gender ideology, sex, and gender on the performance of housework, child care, and emotion work. Results indicate that gender construction, not sex, predicts the performance of emotion work and that this performance reflects a key difference in men's and women's gendered constructions of self.     

The interference of paid work with household demands in different social policy contexts: perceived work-household conflict in Sweden, the UK, the Netherlands, Hungary, and the Czech Republic

The article explores whether people experiences a lower level of work-household conflict in a context that is characterized by extensive family policies (Sweden and to some extent Hungary and Czech Republic) aimed at facilitating participation in the labour market. This is done by studying perceived work-household conflict among women and men living in Sweden, the UK, the Netherlands, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. The analyses are based on the answers to a questionnaire distributed to nearly 6,000 randomly selected individuals within the framework of the European Union financed 'Household, Work, and Flexibility' (HWF) study. The results show that women in Sweden experience conflicts between work and household demands to a higher degree than any other category in all five countries. The differences between Swedish women and women living in the Netherlands and the UK are explained by variables indicating qualifications and workload in the main job, but the lower degree of work-household conflict among Czech and Hungarian women is still significant when controlling for household composition and working conditions. Data indicate that a possible explanation for this can be found in the interplay between men's and women's attitudes toward gender roles and the actual situation in terms of division of labour.     

In search of family-friendly careers? Professional strategies,work conditions and gender differences in work–family conflict

The aim of this paper is to investigate whether women in a dual-earner context acquire family-friendly jobs as a strategy to keep work–family conflict down. The analysis is based on a survey of newly graduated highly educated men and women in five occupations in Sweden (n?≈?2400). The sample was stratified by occupation and gender to minimize the influence of factors other than gender. The results show that women are more family-oriented, but also more career-oriented than men in their professional strategies. In their jobs, women have less control over work and schedules than men but a similar level of work demands. However, women face lower requirements for employer flexibility (e.g. frequent over time) and this is related to their professional strategies. Finally, women report a higher level of work–family conflict than men in the same occupation, but this gender difference becomes non-significant when accounting for women’s lower level of control. In sum, women in this sample clearly aim for both family and career and do not acquire family-friendly jobs, but aim to avoid ‘family-unfriendly’ requirements for constant availability. To some extent, this enables them to limit their work–family conflict but due to their lower control over work, women still experience more conflict than men in the same occupation.     

Health-life agreement: Conceptualization of a new construct and measurement

Health-life agreement (HLA) is the ability to meet demands in three life domains (i.e. work, family, and self) to the level of personal satisfaction without experiencing emotions that can affect the self or the others negatively. In this study, the authors developed a scale to measure the construct of HLA. The results of the k-means cluster analysis revealed four different profiles of HLA (i.e. harmonious, carefree, exhausted, and nonharmonious). The authors found that harmonious people scored highest in positive outcomes (i.e. health-promoting lifestyle behaviors and life satisfaction) and nonharmonious group scored highest in negative outcomes (i.e. turnover intention and aggression in relationships).     

Market Earnings and Household Work: New Tests of Gender Performance Theory

I examine the contested finding that men and women engage in gender performance through housework. Prior scholarship has found a curvilinear association between earnings share and housework that has been interpreted as evidence of gender performance. I reexamine these findings by conducting the first such analysis to use high‐quality time diary data for a U.S. sample in the contemporary period. Drawing on data on 11,868 married women and 10,770 married men in the American Time Use Survey (2003–2007), I find no evidence that married men “do gender” through housework. I do, however, find strong evidence of gender performance among women as evidenced by a curvilinear association between earnings share and women's housework time.     

Working Hard and Hardly Working: Domestic Labor and Marital Satisfaction Among Dual‐Earner Couples

This article examines the effect of domestic labor, gender ideology, work status, and economic dependency on marital satisfaction using data obtained from self‐administered questionnaires for 156 dual‐earner couples. Analytic distinctions were drawn among three aspects of domestic labor: household tasks, emotion work, and status enhancement. The effects of each of these elements of the division of domestic labor on marital satisfaction were tested. We also tested the effects of a respondent's satisfaction with the couple's division of domestic labor on marital satisfaction. Finally, we tested the effects of gender ideology, hours spent in paid work each week, and economic dependency on marital satisfaction. For women, satisfaction with the division of household tasks and emotion work and their contributions to household and status‐enhancement tasks were the most significant predictors of marital satisfaction. Satisfaction with the division of labor around both emotion work and housework were significant predictors for men's marital satisfaction. Partner's status‐enhancement work was also predictive for men. Economic dependency, paid work hours, gender ideology, partner's hours spent on housework, contributions to emotion work, and number of children and preschool‐age children had only indirect effects on women's marital satisfaction. For men, hours spent on housework, contributions to emotion work, partner's emotion work, hours spent in the paid labor force, and number of preschool children had an indirect effect on marital satisfaction.     

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.     

Race and inequality at work: An occupational perspective

Recent research on racial inequality at work offers fruitful insights on the organizational conditions that reproduce racial segregation, racial disparities in wages, and racial hierarchies in the labor market and the workplace. Much less is known, however, about the specifically occupational influences that impinge on equitable work outcomes by race. In this paper, we explore three processes at the occupational level that relate to racial segregation, racialized access to resources, and status in one's line of work. We review research on racial inequality at work over the last 20 years to elucidate what is known, and remains to be seen, about these occupational processes. First, we review how occupational members get selected, and attempt to self-select, into occupations via recruitment, licensing, credentialing, or certifications. Second, we consider how occupational incumbents teach, govern and evaluate new entrants, and with what consequences for racial inclusion/exclusion and retention in careers. Third, we examine research on client- or service-based work, and highlight how workers navigate not only their roles, but also racial dynamics, vis-a-vis clients. We conclude with suggestions for how future research can harness occupational analysis to advance understanding of racial inequality at work.     

Work–family conflict: comparing the experiences of Turkish and native Belgian women

ABSTRACT

While research has focused on a number of dimensions of work–family conflict (WFC), hardly any literature exists that analyses how differences in family systems might help to explain variations in WFC experiences. By employing Reher’s typology of strong and weak family ties to integrate existing research and identify unaddressed features, this study finds that researchers have generally understudied the role of structural family ties on WFC. Qualitative data gathered from interviews with highly educated native Belgian and Turkish immigrant women living in Belgium are used to analyse variation in the WFC experiences and coping strategies of these two groups. The results suggest that a number of interconnected factors related to family systems – including internalisation of gender roles, division of family-related responsibilities, support mechanisms and external pressures from family and society, and socialisation processes of minority women in both family structures – are highly significant in explaining variations in women’s WFC experiences.     

Does gender matter? Policies,norms and the gender gap in work-to-home and home-to-work conflict across Europe

This article examines gender differences in work-to-home conflict (WHC) and home-to-work conflict (HWC) in 10 European countries and considers to what extent such differences can be linked to the institutional/societal context. This study combines the conventional demand-resource approach and an institutional framework on work–family reconciliation policies and gender norms by using data from the European Social Survey. The analyses reveal that work and home demands affect men's and women's perceived conflict somewhat differently, and that the two conflict dimensions are gender asymmetrical and linked to patterns that result from men's and women's traditional home and work spheres. This cross-country comparative analysis shows greater gender gap in perceived conflict in countries with weaker policy support for work–family reconciliation and more traditional gender norms suggesting that individuals' perceptions of WHC and HWC are institutionally embedded.     

Coworker support as a moderator in the relationship between daily experience of workload and an individual’s experience of same-day WFC: a buffer or an intensifier?

ABSTRACT

The present study looks at the interaction between daily experiences in the workplace – daily workload and daily coworker support – and examines its influence on negative affect and its subsequent impact on same-day work–family conflict (WFC). It proposes two competing moderation hypotheses (buffering vs. intensifying). According to the COR theory, support received from coworkers represents a resource that should buffer the relationship between daily workload and same-day WFC, because it should prevent individuals from experiencing negative affect triggered by high workload episodes which represents a threatening or stressful situation. In contrast, the threat to self-esteem model posits that receiving social support may engender feelings of indebtedness or helplessness at the time such support is provided, thereby amplifying the impact of workload experience on same-day WFC via an increased negative affect. Data collected from 130 pharmacists over 5 consecutive days were analyzed through multilevel structural equation modeling. The results support the hypothesis of the intensifying conditional indirect effect, and show that when individuals are provided with coworker support while experiencing high workload, negative affect is aggravated and hence, in turn, same-day WFC increases. This challenges the mainstream hypothesis that views social support as an important resource in protecting people from stressful events.     

Bridging the work-family policy and productivity gap: A literature review

This paper uses both qualitative and quantitative methods to examine the relationship between work-family conflict and six work outcomes: performance, turnover, absenteeism, organizational commitment, job involvement, and burnout. Also reviewed are studies on the effects of employer (work-family) policies aimed at reducing such conflict. Policies to aid employees in managing work and family roles can be expensive, and studies show that they are often marginally effective. The review shows that relationships between work-family policies and organizational effectiveness is mixed and their connection to work-family conflict often under-examined. Work-family conflict is a critical link that may shed light on policy impacts. Suggestions on how future studies can build bridges between practitioners and academics and more clearly examine organizational effectiveness links are provided.     

Exploring types of interference between work and non-work: using a diary study approach

Studies of work and family issues have used predominately between-subject cross-sectional designs. While some researchers have called for more longitudinal studies, others have suggested that a more strategic way forward for the field is the use of daily diary studies (Frone, Russell, & Cooper, 1992). This study explores different types of interference between work and non-work domains, using a diary study methodology. This study consisted of a two-week diary study among 12 Irish employees. Analysis involved a two-step procedure involving both content analysis and interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). Results indicated that while individuals reported strain-based and time-based interference, evidence was also found of interference concerning persistent and intrusive thoughts. Despite some limitations to the study, this paper demonstrates that diary studies represent an opportunity for researchers to explore work and non-work experiences in a sensitive and ecologically valid way.     

A mediational model of workplace flexibility,work–family conflict,and perceived stress among caregivers of older adults

As an increasing number of employees become caregivers, the role of workplace resources in supporting caregivers has attracted the attention of researchers, employers, and policy-makers. Workplace flexibility is one type of resource that has attracted particular interest, with research exploring whether flexibility (that is, giving employees some control over when and/or where work gets done) is related to important outcomes for both employees and employers. This investigation develops and tests a mediational model explicating the process through which workplace flexibility – operationalized in three distinct ways – impacts caregiver stress among US employees. Using a sample of 211 caregivers from the National Study of the Changing Workforce (2008), results show that work-to-family conflict mediates the relationship between perceived workplace flexibility and caregiver stress as well as the relationship between access to flexible work options and caregivers stress. However, the mediational model is not supported when flexibility is operationalized as respondents’ formal use of flexible work options. Implications for employers and future research are discussed.     

Gender,work and childbearing: couple analysis of work adjustments after the transition to parenthood

This study focuses on Swedish couples' work adjustments following the transition to parenthood. Specifically, we ask whether couples' gender role attitudes influence whether they make adjustments to their work situations after the end of the parental leave. Using couple data from the Young Adult Panel Study, we find that both partners are more likely to make work adjustments when both partners hold egalitarian attitudes. It is also more likely that only the male partner will make work changes when both partners are egalitarian. When one partner holds more egalitarian attitudes than the other partner, it tends to have a stronger impact on the work adjustments of the more egalitarian partner. For example, couples with egalitarian male partners are more than three times as likely to have the male partner change his work situation as couples in which neither partner holds egalitarian attitudes. While less consistent, there is some evidence that female egalitarian attitudes increase the likelihood of female work changes.