Work-life balance: national regimes, organisational policies and individual choices
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Slide 15.
Chapter 15
Work–life balance: national
regimes, organisational policies
and individual choices
Wilkinson and Redman, Contemporary Human Resource Management PowerPoints on the Web, 4th edition © Adrian Wilkinson and Tom Redman 2014
7 Nisan 14 PazartesiSlide 15.
Introduction to work–life balance (WLB)
• Paid work central to lives of most adults
– Provides sense of identity, self-worth and usefulness in the context
of society as a whole (Parent-Thirion et al., 2007).
• Increasingly impacts on family and personal life
– Lives often unbalanced, little time or energy left for other activities.
• WLB concerns work, private and family life
– Includes time for leisure, community and citizenship activity.
• Decline of the nuclear family
– Increase in number of working women/both partners.
– Pushed work–life balance up the agenda for individuals,
organisations and governments.
– Women more likely to have primary responsibility and be able to
combine work and home responsibilities.
• More men encouraged to play a greater role/share household
chores.
Wilkinson and Redman, Contemporary Human Resource Management PowerPoints on the Web, 4th edition © Adrian Wilkinson and Tom Redman 2014
7 Nisan 14 PazartesiSlide 15.
Work–life balance discourses
• WLB on agenda of many industrialised countries.
• Policies once called flexibility and later ‘family friendly’.
• Interface between paid work and other domains.
• Late1990’s, family-friendly practices evolved into WLB
– Avoided criticism that practices focused on women with children,
excluding men and women without children.
• Policies appear gender-neutral – in reality many policy
initiatives implicitly aimed at women, especially mothers,
and/or those with primary responsibility for children.
• Still marked gender pay – rational economic sense for
most households to privilege the male career!
• Issues beyond immediate family.
• Broader in scope.
Wilkinson and Redman, Contemporary Human Resource Management PowerPoints on the Web, 4th edition © Adrian Wilkinson and Tom Redman 2014
7 Nisan 14 PazartesiSlide 15.
Rationales for WLB (Pocock, 2005)
• Business case – to help with the recruitment, retention
and productivity of good staff.
• Social case – workers satisfied with their WLB are likely to
be happier social citizens, carers and parents.
• Political case – industrialised countries dependent on the
paid work of women and workers with dependents.
• Personal case – enhancement of individual well-being.
• National context of work–life balance
– State main provider of support in social democratic countries, e.g.
Sweden and former socialist countries, e.g. Bulgaria.
– Family provides support in conservative welfare states, e.g.
Germany) and southern European countries, e.g. Spain, Portugal.
– In liberal countries (e.g. the UK), the market is considered as main
provider of WLB support (Abendroth and den Dulk, 2011).
Wilkinson and Redman, Contemporary Human Resource Management PowerPoints on the Web, 4th edition © Adrian Wilkinson and Tom Redman 2014
7 Nisan 14 PazartesiSlide 15.
• Main government policies that impact on WLB include:
• Tax and benefit systems:
– Individualised tax systems, more attractive financially for both
partners to work. But, tax relief that counts both incomes can
potentially reduce financial incentive to work.
• Parental leave systems:
– Some offer up to 3 years paid support, e.g. Austria, Finland and
some offer little or none, e.g. Australia, USA (OECD, 2008).
– Main explanation is that some see care as private family
responsibility rather than for the state to provide(Craig et al., 2010).
• Childcare provision:
– State or employer subsidised childcare varies enormously.
– In neoliberal social welfare regimes (e.g. UK) costs are high.
– Dependence on informal childcare, e.g. grandparents.
– Nevertheless, increasing numbers of children use formal childcare.
Wilkinson and Redman, Contemporary Human Resource Management PowerPoints on the Web, 4th edition © Adrian Wilkinson and Tom Redman 2014
7 Nisan 14 PazartesiSlide 15.
Variability in WLB policy
• Shift in some countries to neoliberal social welfare regimes,
market-led provision and reduction of universal benefits.
• USA the only OECD country without national parental leave
policy (OECD, 2011).
• Institutional support for WLB far greater in the EU than USA.
• EU Roadmap: (i) flexible work arrangements for all; (ii) increasing
care services; and (iii) better reconciliation policies (e.g. parental
leave, part-time work) (CEC, 2006).
• Actual policies highly variable across Europe. Sweden’s
subsidised childcare and parental leave.
• Most extensive national work–life balance policies are found in
the Scandinavian countries (Abendroth and den Dulk, 2011).
• Germany best parental leave in OECD countries (OECD, 2011).
Wilkinson and Redman, Contemporary Human Resource Management PowerPoints on the Web, 4th edition © Adrian Wilkinson and Tom Redman 2014
7 Nisan 14 PazartesiSlide 15.
Other significant differences
• Length of working week: EU average length fallen from 40.5
hours (1991) to 37.5 hours (2010) but 12% of the EU
working population work 48+ hours (Parent-Thirion et al., 2007).
• Variation across countries: some have legislated for flexible
work arrangements, e.g. Netherland, UK.
• A form of flexible working – part-time work – is widespread.
EU average is 30% for women, 7% for men. In UK, 43%
women work part-time, lower than Netherlands with 76%.
• Has serious implications for returning to full-time work and
lifetime earnings. Very negative consequences for women’s
pay and income equality in short and long term particularly
when compared against male lifetime income.
• Gender regimes ensure unequal division of household and
family work means that women are typically ‘time poor’.
Wilkinson and Redman, Contemporary Human Resource Management PowerPoints on the Web, 4th edition © Adrian Wilkinson and Tom Redman 2014
7 Nisan 14 PazartesiSlide 15.
• If sound business case, why is legislation needed?
• Improved recruitment and retention, less employee ill-
health/absenteeism, more productive workforce.
• Greater employee satisfaction (Norway and Austria
greatest satisfaction and Greece lowest).
• Longer the hours worked, more likely WLB dissatisfaction
in all countries (Parent-Thirion et al., 2007).
• Gender differences – men in Europe are most likely to
report dissatisfaction in middle of their careers (30–49).
• Women generally less likely to report WLB dissatisfaction.
• Employers’ policies typically include parental and carers’
leave, compressed hours, job-sharing, part-time work,
flexi-time, home-working and childcare assistance.
Wilkinson and Redman, Contemporary Human Resource Management PowerPoints on the Web, 4th edition © Adrian Wilkinson and Tom Redman 2014
7 Nisan 14 PazartesiSlide 15.
WLB and the workplace (Continued)
• Public sector and large organisations tend to provide more
extensive WLB provision (Abendroth and den Dulk, 2011).
• The fewer national legislation, the more variation in WLB
policies offered by employers within a country.
• Business case for flexibility – usually on employer’s terms to
suit employer’s needs, e.g. opening hours, busy periods.
• Less widespread are arrangements that suit many
employees, but do not offer the same benefits to employers.
• Only 12% of organisations offer more expensive WLB policy
of childcare assistance and services, but 97% offer family
and carer’s leave (EOWA, 2008).
• In UK, large number of employers provide leave above legal
minimum (16–39% did not know though!).
Wilkinson and Redman, Contemporary Human Resource Management PowerPoints on the Web, 4th edition © Adrian Wilkinson and Tom Redman 2014
7 Nisan 14 PazartesiSlide 15.
WLB arrangements in Britain
• Does Britain cater for diverse range of employee work and
family needs, e.g. carers of older adults offered by 6% of
workplaces, workplace nurseries (3%) and child-care subsidies
(6%).
• Supportive organisational/work cultures important to encourage
employees to access flexible work arrangements.
• Flexibility can be imposed by employers to suit their needs as
well as actively sought by individual workers to suit their
personal and family needs.
• Fixed, regular, day-time work hours report greatest WLB
satisfaction. Imposed flexibility generally disliked by workers.
• McDowell (2004) unofficial British Airways strike in 2003 over
introduction of new split shifts for largely female check-in desk
workers.
Wilkinson and Redman, Contemporary Human Resource Management PowerPoints on the Web, 4th edition © Adrian Wilkinson and Tom Redman 2014
7 Nisan 14 PazartesiSlide 15.
Work flexibility
• Flexibility that extends choices to workers (e.g. flexi-time)
more favoured by workers themselves.
– Paradoxically those with greatest say in their work hours report the
greatest work–life balance dissatisfaction! Tend to work the longest
hours (e.g. self-employed people and some professional
occupations) so the availability of flexi-time is less relevant.
• Technological advances have allowed more home-working
to accommodate outside commitments and activities.
• Negative side – improved communication affects personal
life and boundaries between work and non-work time.
• Technology stimulated greater addiction to paid work and a
new kind of presenteeism (always being contactable even
outside of normal working hours).
Wilkinson and Redman, Contemporary Human Resource Management PowerPoints on the Web, 4th edition © Adrian Wilkinson and Tom Redman 2014
7 Nisan 14 PazartesiSlide 15.
• Unionised workplaces were more likely to have ‘family
friendly’ policies (Kersley et al., 2006).
• In many countries, unions considered to play an important
role in improving WLB provision at the workplace.
• TUC (2009) found 65% of UK unions had up-to-date
guidance/policy on flexible working and work–life balance,
44% reported negotiating successes.
• In European context, three opportunities encourage shift
towards WLB issues in union campaigns and bargaining:
– rise in the proportion of women union members and leaders;
– national working time regime;
– union-management relations in specific organisations (Gregory and
Milner, 2009).
Wilkinson and Redman, Contemporary Human Resource Management PowerPoints on the Web, 4th edition © Adrian Wilkinson and Tom Redman 2014
7 Nisan 14 PazartesiSlide 15.
Individual choice and WLB
• It is worth reviewing how individuals seek to achieve WLB
– Individual choice, autonomy and responsibility often pervades
individuals’ work–life balance narratives, e.g. Kirton, 2011.
• For individuals, particularly women, WLB comes into sharp
focus when they become parents
– In many countries, many highly qualified women in dual-career
couples prioritised the male partner’s career and earnings potential
once they have children (Hardill and Watson, 2004).
– Further, among such couples a traditional gender division of existed
with most women managing parenting arrangements.
• Why is this? Parenting combined with paid work is in
reference to ‘gendered moral rationalities’: gender based
moral and socially negotiated views about what behaviour is
right and proper (Duncan et al., 2003).
• Identity aspects (e.g. class and race/ethnicity) also matter.
Wilkinson and Redman, Contemporary Human Resource Management PowerPoints on the Web, 4th edition © Adrian Wilkinson and Tom Redman 2014
7 Nisan 14 PazartesiSlide 15.
National conceptions of the ‘good mother’ and
‘good’ fatherhood
• French women do not feel guilty about social norms
associated with the image of the ‘good mother’
– Choosing full-time paid work does not meet the same level of
disapproval in France (case study by Guillaume and Pochic, 2007).
• Conceptions of ‘good’ fatherhood also changing
– Dominant breadwinning conception remains prevalent, concepts of
fatherhood as self-fulfilment and caring fatherliness also developing
and forgo out-of-work activities to spend more time with their
children (Bruegel and Gray, 2005).
• Class effect evident
– Men with more education and in managerial/professional jobs
appear to spend more time on childcare (Kirton, 2011).
– Some saw family life and religious obligations as equally important
with the hope and expectation that work would be accommodating.
Wilkinson and Redman, Contemporary Human Resource Management PowerPoints on the Web, 4th edition © Adrian Wilkinson and Tom Redman 2014
7 Nisan 14 PazartesiSlide 15.
Conclusion
• Debate about WLB has influenced discussion and policy-making
of many countries.
• Despite there being a globalised discourse, national context
influences employer WLB policies and on individual WLB
orientations and choices.
• National welfare, employment, gender regimes and their
interaction provide variable contexts in which people seek to
combine paid work and other aspects of their lives.
• Gender regimes are important with work-family conflict, which is
at the heart of WLB policy-making.
• Not all industrialised countries are heading towards policy and
practice convergence.
• Individual WLB choices complicated by not just such policies, but
also ‘gendered moral rationalities’.
Wilkinson and Redman, Contemporary Human Resource Management PowerPoints on the Web, 4th edition © Adrian Wilkinson and Tom Redman 2014
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