The Issue of Work-Life Balance in Bulgaria

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The Issue of Work-Life Balance in Bulgaria

• Siyka Kovacheva
• University of Plovdiv
• Bulgaria

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During communism

• The issues of integrating work and family life
  were largely absent from public discourse.
• The official ideology stressed womans triple
  role in society productive worker, selfless wife
  and mother, and devoted participant in public
  (political) events.
• Women worked full time and the decline of the
  birthrate since the 1960s prompted the creation
  of a network of public kindergartens and the
  introduction of paid maternity leave.

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During the transition after 1989

• The dominant anti-state ideology proclaimed the
  the end of all privileges (including those for
  women under state family policy).
• With the rising unemployment there was an
  increased pressure for a retreat to more
  traditional gender roles presented as expansion
  of choices.
• Places in public childcare declined, child
  benefits lost their value and the parental leave
  was further prolonged.

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Quality of Life Study in Bulgaria

• Part of the comparative research project Quality
  of life in a changing Europe
• Paper-based survey (spring 2007) at four
  companies (bank, hospital, supermarket, telecom)
  with 789 respondents
• In-depth interviews with managers and focus
  groups with working parents
• biographical interviews with selected men and
  women

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The concept of work-life balance

• Social construct of the combination of
  individuals multiple roles in different life
  domains.
• Not only individual perception of being able to
  manage ones roles in a self-fulfilling way but
  also wider social influences from households,
  companies, welfare state.
• Not only negative (lack of conflict) but also
  positive interface (enrichment).
• Bi-directional influence from work to family
  life but also from family care to paid work.

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Indicators of work-family balance

• Stress from work and family life
• Work-family interference
• Work-family enrichment
• Satisfaction with work-family balance

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The institutional context

• Long working hours for both men and women - 40.5
  average number of working hours per week
• Low flexibility of work (2.5 working part-time
  and 6.4 working from home)
• 410 days paid parental leave (at 90 of the
  earnings) plus 1 year parental leave paid at a
  fixed sum plus one year unpaid leave
• Parents can take up to 60 days for paid leave to
  care for a six child.
• Difficulties finding a place in public
  kindergartens and especially crèches.

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The organizational context

• Companies did not provide work-family policies in
  addition to the statutory measures.
• Employees tended to reduce the use of family
  policy to express loyalty to the company
• Cost-efficiency as dominant concern in
  organisational cultures, informal social capital
  as most important for working parents.
• OLS regression showed a strong negative impact of
  job insecurity and working overtime at a short
  notice and a positive impact of team work and
  work autonomy.

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The family context

• Satisfaction with household income, health of
  family members, availability of childcare and
  understanding partner contributed to WFB.
• Having an unemployed partner at home had a
  negative impact on WLB. The number of children
  did not make a difference.
• Both partners working full time with men expected
  to invest more in career and women more in unpaid
  care at home.
• The practice of high support with childcare from
  the extended family.

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Individual strategies
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Policy implications

• Holistic integrated approach of the policy in
  support of work-life balance and quality of life
• Flexible measures fitting diverse individual and
  family situations
• Greater involvement of trade unions and parental
  organizations in the development of these
  policies
• Programmes encouraging real social equality (many
  measures reproduce traditional gender
  inequalities)
• Concerted efforts to influence societal,
  organizational and individual values to
  acknowledge the interdependency between quality
  of work and quality of family life.