Occupations, class and workfamily balance

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Occupations, class and work-family balance

• Rosemary Crompton and Clare Lyonette
• City University, London
• Celebrating the 25th Anniversary of the Women and
  Employment Survey DTI December 2005

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Changes since WES

• Continuing increase in womens qualification
  levels (women now 30 of managers, and 40 of
  professionals)
• Increase in the employment of mothers of young
  children (57 of mothers with child under 5 in
  employment in 2001)
• (Irene, born 1950. Children aged 5 and 3 at the
  time of the Women and Employment Survey) Then
  it was just what you did. They didn't seem to
  work a lot like they do now When I had mine it
  wasn't the thing. You left work and that was it
  (I used to go fruit-picking in the summer because
  you could take them with you into the fields).

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Variations in extent of mothers employment by
class and education

• Couple mothers and lone parents educated to
  degree level, 81 in employment.
• Mothers with no qualifications, only 44 of
  couple mothers, and 29 of lone parents, in
  employment.
• Couple households (BHPS data) 52 professional
  and managerial, both adults work full-time, as
  compared to only 23 of unskilled manual
  households
• 43 unskilled manual households man full-time,
  woman part-time, only 26 of professional/manageri
  al households
• these patterns of couples employment will
  reproduce and even deepen material inequalities
  between households

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Table 1 Employment status of mothers with
child(ren) under 11 by occupational status³ ()
ISSP data.
³Here we use the 3-category version of the ONS-SEC
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Table 2 Reported household income per annum by
occupational status in households with child(ren)
under 11 (those respondents in employment only,
men and women)
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Work-family balance
Any sensible approach to work-life
policies cannot ignore the phenomenon of
occupational class in the amount of access and
take-up of work-life balance entitlements. Women
in managerial and professional jobs with higher
incomes and benefits are in a much better
position to achieve a balance than their much
lower-paid and insecure counterparts employed,
for example, in the retail trade and textiles
(Taylor 2002b 18).
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Work-life conflict scale four items (higher
scores higher work-life stress)

• I have come home from work too tired to do the
  chores which need to be done.
• It has been difficult for me to fulfil my family
  responsibilities because of the amount of time I
  spent on my job
• I have arrived at work too tired to function well
  because of the household work I had done
• I have found it difficult to concentrate at work
  because of my family responsibilities
• Cronbachs alpha .73

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Table 3 Work-life conflict by sex and
occupational class (those respondents in
employment only, men and women)
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Managerial and professional women feel unable to
use employer policies
Peggy (bank manager with 2 children) I keep
getting told that Id be selling myself short if
I went part-time. The bank does have flexible
hours but the higher up you go youre not
encouraged to take advantage of it Flora (bank
manager with 2 children) I think the higher up
in the bank you go, though, it just gets harder
for the bank to be family friendly. They've still
got the same policies there and I can still take
advantage of the same policies that everyone else
has, but it's harder for me to do that. It's a
lot easier when you first join. (Crompton et al
2003b).
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Table 4 Promotion aspirations by class and sex
(those respondents in employment only, men and
women)
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Attitudes and behaviour the AWE (Attitudes to
Womens Employment) scale
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Table 5 Class, attitudes to womens employment
and mothers employment behaviour (women with
child(ren) under 18 in household only) BSA/ISSP
2002
Q Did you work when child was under school age?
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Implications of class-differentiated patterns in
mothers employment behaviour and preferences

• Do these outcomes reflect the preferences of
  different types of women, as eg Hakim would
  argue?
• But if these preferences are class-differentiate
  d, dangers of endorsing culture of deprivation
  type arguments and explanations (eg recent
  debate re underclass).
• Why do individuals in intermediate/routine and
  manual jobs place a greater emphasis on family
  life and maternal care for children?

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Class differences in emphasis on employment,
family and maternal care

• Only 21 of higher professional and managerial
  employees thought of job as just a means to earn
  a living, as compared to 58 skilled manual, and
  54 semi/unskilled manual employees (Working in
  Britain survey).
• Qualitative evidence a more limited scope for
  strategic employment decisions (amongst
  poorly-qualified working-class women) is
  consistent with holding moral commitments which
  lie for much longer with the exclusive care of
  children (Irwin).
• nether the development nor the enactment of
  particular lifestyle preferences is random. Women
  with different earning capacities demonstrate
  strongly differing beliefs about mothers and
  mothering. The ability to overcome constraints is
  patterned by social structure/class whether
  manifested through differing qualifications,
  social networks, or income (McRae).

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What are the implications of preferences?

• Class differences in attitudes and behaviour
  amongst women an example of adaptive
  preferences amongst Intermediate and Routine and
  manual women?
• Men are more traditional than women in respect
  of attitudes to gender roles, family, and
  mothers employment.
• Do men still wish to retain their patriarchal
  dividend?

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Conclusions

• Better educated women/mothers, in the higher
  occupational classes, are more likely to be in
  employment.
• This pattern will serve to deepen class
  inequalities.
• Managerial and professional women report higher
  levels of work-life conflict.
• Women in lower occupational groupings are more
  family oriented and have a stronger preference
  for maternal care.
• Does this explain class-differentiated
  behaviours?
• Dangers in accepting this explanation
  individualist explanations justify continuing
  inequalities.