Exploring the Worklife Balance Issue: From Legislation to Lived Experience

1
Exploring the Work-life Balance Issue From
Legislation to Lived Experience

• Louise Wattis
• Liverpool JMU

2
Combining Work and Family Life Removing the
Barriers to Womens Progression

• To assess the impact of UKfamily-friendly
  policy/workplace flexibility.
• Awareness availability take-up attitudes.
• Potential to alleviate the work-care conflict
  for women alleviate the childcare barrier.
• To investigate the lived experience of
  work-life balance for women.
• Explore the ways in which childcare persists as a
  barrier to employment progression.

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Work-Life Balance/Work-Care Conflicts

• Post-industrial labour markets
• Growth in womens employment
• Crisis of care (Fraser, 1994)
• Rise in one and a half earner families
• Womens labour market inequality
• Long hours cultures
• Inadequate childcare provision

4
The European Context

• 1992 Pregnant Worker Directive
• 1996 Parental Leave Directive
• 1992 Childcare Recommendations
• 1997 Part-Time Work Directive
• 2000 Resolution of the Council and the Ministers
  for Employment and Social Policy on Balanced
  Participation in Work and Family Life

5

• 1998 European Commission Report, Reconciliation
  Between Work and Family Life in Europe.
• Care and work reconciliation problematic
• Reinforces traditional gender roles
• Parental leave and care need development
• Different models of family policy in the EU
• Highly structured and legitimated Nordic
  countries and France
• Under resourced and lacking legitimation
  (Southern European, and Central and Eastern
  European countries.
• Supportive rhetoric (UK, Ireland, Germany)

6
European Gender Cultural Models

• The Male Breadwinner Model UK and Germany.
• The Dual Breadwinner/State Carer Model
  Scandinavia, France.
• The Dual Breadwinner/Dual Carer Model The
  Netherlands.
• The Dual Earner/Marketised Carer Model UK and
  USA

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UK Policy and Legislation post-1997

• National Childcare Strategy
• Parental Leave
• Time-off for Dependants
• Work-life Balance Campaign Changing Patterns in
  a Changing World (DfEE, 2000)
• Employment Act (2001)
• Flexible Working Request
• Improved Manernity Rights
• Paid Paternity Leave

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• Reveals low levels of take-up, awareness and
  availability.
• At odds with the market (Glass and Estes,
  1997).
• Improved employee performance (Dex and Smith,
  2002).
• Inconsistent availability of flexibility
  (Crompton et al. 2003).
• Discrimination against pregnant women (EOC, 2004)
• Do not tackle the incidence of crisis
  circumstances (e.g. illness and limited access to
  transport) which generate difficulties for
  combining caring and working, nor do they reflect
  how needs change over time as children grow and
  parents move in and out of the labour market.
• (McKie et al. 2002 889)

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Women, care and paid employment

• The gendered nature of care
• Part-time working
• 69 per cent of mothers - children under 5 62 per
  cent of mothers - children under 16 (WEU, 2004)
• Womens labour market inequality
• Pay gap 19 per cent (EOC, 2003)
• Occupational segregation
• Womens care and work choices.
• Women choose work or care part-time working
  demonstrates a low commitment to paid employment
  (Hakim, 1995, 1996).

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• The unpalatable truth is that a substantial
  proportion of women still accept the sexual
  division of labour which sees homemaking as
  womens principal activity and income-earning as
  mens principal activity in life. The acceptance
  of differentiated sex roles underlines
  fundamental differences between the work
  orientations, labour market behaviour and life
  goals of men and women.
• (Hakim, 1996 179)
• Womens employment behaviour is a reflection of
  the way in which women actively construct their
  work-life biographies in terms of their
  historically available opportunities and
  constraints.
• (Crompton and Harris, 1998 119)

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Themes From the Data

• Preliminary findings from twelve qualitative
  interviews
• All of the women worked flexibly
• awareness of legislation was low
• the impact flexible working practices was varied.
• Overall no real reconciliation of dual roles was
  achieved both practically and emotionally
• Denial of the interconnectedness between work and
  family (Taylor, 2002).
• The pervasiveness of gender roles.

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• I worked there every night until about eleven,
  twelve, and sometimes two, three oclock in the
  morning. If I got home at 9pm, I would have
  considered it early There is no way I could do
  it. There is no way I could do it with Maddy.
• The problem with that is, any company that I
  have experience with, what happens is that they
  would take all the big projects away that I would
  be doing because they would see that as
  compromising it. So yes they might allow it, but
  at the same time you would really feel it on a
  work level, on a professional levelI mean there
  is no way they are going to allow somebody, I can
  really see the person that negotiates for that
  suffering because of it.
• Marianne, 35, 1 4 (lone parent)

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• The hours are pretty set as in the core is 9-5,
  Monday to Friday, and thats the hours I need to
  be there. However, if I need to come in later or
  leave earlier because its no a strict 9-5, they
  are pretty flexible and its up to me to manage
  my own time. I have objectives I need to meet
  myself and the team. If theyre met, thats fine
  you can be as flexible as you need it to be, but
  then you pull out all the stops if you need to.
• And you know thinking about it in terms of the
  flexibility Ive got with work, just the fact
  that I can do the things that I want to do. If I
  didnt have that flexibility, I would think about
  going part-time.
• Katrina 38, Credit Policy Manager (ft). 1 9.

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• On average I work 45, 50 hours. Sometimes more
  depending on a deadline and usually over the
  whole month you try and pan it out so you dont
  do more than 50 hours in a week.
• And thats flexible?
• Completely. I work from home. Today Ive come in
  simply to meet with with some person and you. I
  didnt have to be here today. Tomorrow I do, Ive
  got meetings scheduled, but if I couldnt make
  the meetings I can dial in on teleconference. I
  plan my own week. But that is just as a
  consultant, in my previous role I had to, I
  covered the office.
• Aileen, 41, Service Management Consultant (ft).
  2 3 5.

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• Because I have done the right thing by my
  children. And working the hours I do, I pick them
  up after school, they dont know what I do during
  the day, so thats fine. When I worked full-time
  and somebody else picked them up, the nanny
  picked them up, they managed, they coped, and
  they were fine. I quite enjoyed it cos I would
  get home and the tea would have been cooked and
  the children were sorted out and I didnt have to
  wash out the lunch boxes. But I think I missed
  some of their issues.
• Jane 47, HR Manager (pt). 2 10 7.
• I am not going anywhere. Because I have been
  discussing with my career manager today and they
  said what are your aspirations? And I said I
  havent got any. It suits me quite happily to do
  my part-time hours. I like the job I am doing, it
  fits in well with my home life, and I think that
  I have a good work-life balance to be honest.
• Lily, 34, Computer Programmer, IT support (pt).
  2 3 4.

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• When I didnt work on a Friday theyd still ring
  me up and ask questions that I think could have
  waited and I think they make you have a certain
  amount of guilt because you are not there.
• And then we have a juggle. I have him Mondays, a
  friend of mine picks him up two days, the other
  two days I pick him up at lunchtime. I dont even
  have a lunch but I get out, and go and take him
  to a friend, Claire, I drop him over in the car
  park at work and she takes him home to play in
  the afternoon.
• Wendy, 40, Assistant Analyst (pt). 2 7 3.
• I wish we could both work less hours. Its very
  tiring. Sometimes you just feel like its one
  lifelong struggle and you only sit down to say
  hello to each other on a Saturday night because
  were alternating. In the week you dont get that
  much time.
• Aileen 41. 2 5 3.

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• You see when I leave work my heart is in my
  mouth, until I have got Teddy in my hands. Im in
  the car and Im driving and I am looking at the
  clock and I am thinking am I prepared for you
  know, and if I get stuck in a traffic jam, I
  thinking whats going on, whats going on, what
  time is it? My heart is in my mouth for like 25
  minutes.
• Lisa 33, Engineer (ft). 1 2. Lone parent.
• We do always feel we are sort of juggling the
  next six months. You know sort of constantly the
  arrangements just to sort of cope But there are
  times you know when it falls apart. Like in a
  couple of weeks time I am running a workshop in
  Chester, which is like a three hour drive, all
  day. And my husband is away on a training course.
  And I am thinking how are we going to work that
  one out? Its hard. So its constant juggling.
• Renee 50, Business Analyst (pt). 2 11 13.

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• Well to be perfectly honest with you, sometimes
  I feel like Im sort of short-changing her you
  know. And well its the same with everything,
  sometimes I feel I do bits of everythingBits of
  my job and bits of being a mum and then sort of
  trying to fit in being a wife at the end of itI
  mean she says sometimes when shes tired you know
  oh mummy I wish you were there to take me to
  school every day and then I feel awful.
• Katrina, 38. 1 9.
• Like the other day one of my sons got up early
  and he said will you get my yoghurt mummy, daddy
  always gets it? And I was I shouldnt be going
  to work. So sometimes there is that awful
  feeling that I should be at home.
• Lily, 34. 2 3 4.
• I feel guilty about the kids when I am at work
  and I feel guilty about my work when I am home
• Genevieve, 47. 3 12 8 5.

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• I enjoy the job I am doing in the sense youve
  got to be doing you like to do. Because I would
  much rather be at home looking after my little
  girl than sending her off for someone else to
  look after. And I think there is a lot of guilt
  around it as well you do feel guilty going to
  work. I leave late in the morning, my partner
  takes my daughter to my sister-in-laws, and some
  mornings she has little tears in her eyes as Im
  waving her off and I think Oh God, I have to go
  to work and leave you. And I know shes when she
  gets there, but its just that you do feel
  guilty. Have I had a child to give her away to
  somebody else and get them to look after them?
• Judith, 38, 1 2

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• I think they do have family-friendly policies
  but I also think that theyd rather if I was
  late Id probably say it was because my washing
  machine had broken down for example, rather than
  my daughter wouldnt put her tights on. You know
  that sort of thing, because I personally feel
  sometimes and you know my boss is lovely but its
  just that sort of personal detail that intrudes
  into the work environment that really sometimes
  they are not too interested in really. Speaking
  quite frankly, its probably not that interesting
  or understandable unless youre a parent.
• Katrina, 38. 1 9.
• I think you need a huge amount of strength to
  carve out the boundaries between work and home,
  and to get both things working quite well.
  Because there is a lot of tension.
• Genevieve, 47, 3 12 8 5

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• Reconciling paid work and family life means
  more than the increasing opportunities at work
  agenda, it instead implies a redistribution of
  work and status between women and men, that is
  changing the gender contract.
•  
• (Duncan, 2002 307)
• The attempt to differentiate work from life in
  public policy making threatens to establish a
  false dichotomy between the two that obfuscates
  our attitude to the changing world of paid
  employment. We need to demystify what we are
  talking about if we hope to establish a sensible
  and realistic public policy agenda that can
  reconcile the conflicting pressures of the
  workplace and the home.
• (Taylor, 2002 7)