Attitudes to work life balance: The challenges of crossnational comparisons

1
Attitudes to work life balanceThe challenges of
cross-national comparisons

• Jackie Scott
• University of Cambridge
• Director of ESRC Gender Equality Network (GeNet)

2
ESRC Gender Equality Network

• Research Priority Network on Gender Inequalities
  in Production Reproduction
• www.genet.ac.uk

3
9 Linked Projects3 Inter-related themes

• Pathways to Adult Attainment Life Course
  Processes
• Changing occupations and careers of women and men
  (Dex et al)
• Biographical agency and developmental outcomes
• Gendered pathways from childhood disadvantage to
  adulthood
• Gender, time allocation in paid and unpaid work
  the wage gap (Gershuny et al)
• Resources, Gender, Ethnic Class Inequalities
• Within-household inequalities in income and power
• Gender, ethnicity, migration and service
  employment
• Class gender, employment and family (Crompton
  Lyonette)
• Policy Responses to Gender Inequalities
• Addressing gender inequality through corporate
  governance
• Policy initiatives tackling inequalities in work
  and care in UK EU (Lewis et al)

4
(No Transcript)
5
Work-family balance

• Part 1 Changing gender role attitudes
• A cautionary tale for cross-time and cross-
  national comparisons
• (Scott 2008 Braun and Scott, forthcoming)
• Part 2 Exploring Work-Family Balance across
  nations using ESS Round 2 (Erikson, Gallie et al)
• (Scott and Plagnol, very preliminary findings!)
• Tentative conclusions regarding design and use of
  work attitude measures (WAM)

6
Issues

• Male breadwinner family in decline for at least
  half century
• Policy rhetoric individualised worker
• Reality more mixed women pt jobs family care
• Work-life balance relatively new rhetoric, but
  why now?

7
Back to the Kitchen Sink

• third of working mums are quitting their full
  time jobs for part time
• work or giving up altogether.
• young children whose parents work full time, may
  perform less well at school.

8
Womens changing attitudes in GB ( egalitarian
response)
9
Womens changing attitudes in GB ( egalitarian
response contd)
10
Source The US data are from the US Department
of labour. The German data are from
Statistisches Bundesamt. The British figures
come from ONS Social Trends, updated in 2004
using data from British Household Panel Study.

11
(No Transcript)
12
(No Transcript)
13
Caution needed - Trend Reversal?

• Are gender-role attitudes becoming after
  decades of egalitarian change more traditional
  again?
• Are there similar trends in western countries?
• Answer depends on
• whether gross or net change is analyzed
• which measures are used

13
14
ISSP Items

• A man's job is to earn money a woman's job is to
  look after the home and family.
• A job is alright, but what most women really want
  is a home and children.
• Being a housewife is just as fulfilling as
  working for pay.

14
15
Housewife as fulfilling dependent on Housework
Ws job
15
16
Measures Matter (ESS Round 2 2004)

• Gender Role Attitudes
• A woman should be prepared to cut down on her
  paid work for the sake of her family (reduce
  work)
• Men should take as much responsibility for the
  home and children as women (man home) possibly
  useless check cohort difference??
• Division of unpaid labour
• Id like to talk about housework as described on
  the card (specify what to include) On a typical
  weekday about how many hours in total do people
  in your household spend on housework for your
  home
• About how much of this time do you spend
  yourself? (none, lt0.25 gt0.25 and lt0.5 gt0.5 and
  lt.75 nearly all
• About how much does your partner spend on
  housework? Look for correlations across would
  expect negative correlation self and partner but
  could be different at different hours what
  about none where outsourcing?

17
Couple work strategy (Crompton)
18
Work-Life Balance Questions

• Feel too tired after work to enjoy the things you
  would like to do at home
• Find that your job prevents you from giving the
  time you want to your partner or family
• Find that your partner/family gets fed up with
  the pressure of your job
• Find it difficult to concentrate on work because
  of family responsibilities
• (Never, hardly ever, sometimes, often, always)

19
So it is my Lord, that I measure it and know
not what I measure (Paul Lazarsfeld quoting St
Augustine)

• Easy to critique.
• Paid work only
• Tautological circular reasoning
• Lacking in specificity that would allow
  examination of cultural-specific effects
• John McInnes European Societies
• Florian Pilcher Social Indicators Research

20
WAM Challenge

• Wrestle with problem of designing better measures
  use both qual and quant methodologies to
  examine constructs and equivalence
• Accept that general purpose surveys mean measures
  are general and limited in terms of dimensions
  they tap
• Maximise the analytical potential the art of
  secondary data analysis is playing to data
  strengths, while acknowledging limitations

21
Thankyou