Transcript Diapositiva 1

Work and Life Balance:
A Critical Perspective
Sara Moreno Colom
Research Institute of Work (IET)
Sociological Research Group of Everyday Life and Work (QUIT)
Department of Sociology
Autonomous University of Barcelona
[email protected]
The goal of this paper is twofold:
1st To analyse Work and Live Balance (WLB) policies
from a critical perspective that takes into account a
gender approach
2nd To explain the need to promote change in the
social and cultural norms with regard to the sexual
division of labour in order to provide an environment
that fosters WLB
This paper is organized in five sections:
1. Introduction
2. Reference point: EU gender policies
3. The Gap between Policy and Everyday Life
4. The Spanish case
5. Some ideas for the future…
1. Introduction
Sociological Research Group of Everyday Life and Work
(QUIT-Department of Sociology, Autonomous University of Barcelona)
QUIT research focus in WLB:
1. Research about WLB and Collective Bargaining (2004)
2. Research about men and women job history (2010)
3. Research about working conditions in new and growing
sectors (2011)
2. Reference point: EU gender policies
Approach:
• Academic and political debate about WLB from gender approach
Academic concept:
• Balance or reconciliation?
• Mediation without imposition between two opposing spheres: labour
market and everyday life
Policies:
• European Council on Employment
(Equal Opportunities Men and Women, Luxemburg 1998).
• Policies not arise in response to a social demand to improve equality
• Policies arise in response to a socio-demographic changes
- Increase female workforce
- Decrease birthrate
- Increasing ageing population
- Migration
2. Reference point: EU gender policies
Three major stages in the design and planning
of gender policies within the European setting:
 Non-discrimination policies
 Equal opportunities policies
 Gender Mainstreaming strategy
2. Reference point: EU gender policies
What can be said about the impact of WLB policies 15 years later?
The main policy target is facilitate the employment of women
The main subject is the working mother
The main sphere is the labour market
The main measure of balance is working time
But it remains some questions…
Where is the sexual division of work?
Where are other workers and, specially, the father worker?
Where is the domestic, family and personal life?
Where is the time to do domestic and care work?
3. The Gap between Policy and Everyday Life

The orientation of WLB policies have focused on
making it easier to perform domestic work and care work
without taking into account their unequal distribution
between men and women.

It affects women’s chance to participate in the job
market.

It has negative repercussions on men’s commitment
to domestic work and care for dependent persons.
3. The Gap between Policy and Everyday Life

Legal regulation has less impact than social and
cultural constraints

The adult worker model is false because women have
not got freedom of choice

Despite the increase of dual earner the male
breadwinner model persists as a social model
3. The Gap between Policy and Everyday Life
How can we explain this situation?
Different gender socialisation as a mechanism of the current
inequalities between men and women.
The lack of social and economic value given to domestic and care
work
The main role of working time in the social organisation
How can we observe these inequalities?
It’s difficult to observe empirical evidence of these explanatory
factors however its consequences are easy to measure with time
use data.
Use of time by women and men aged 20 to 74 (hours and minutes per day)
Gainful
work/study
Domestic work
Total work
Meals and personal
care
Free time
women
men
women
men
women
men
women
men
women
men
Belgium
2:07
3:30
4:32
2:38
6:39
6:08
2:43
2:40
4:50
5:22
Germany
2:05
3:35
4:11
2:21
6:16
5:56
2:43
2:33
5:24
5:52
Estonia
2:33
3:40
5:02
2:48
7:35
6:28
2:08
2:15
4:36
5:28
Spain
2:26
4:39
4:55
1:37
7:21
6:16
2:33
2:35
4:29
5:17
France
2:31
4:03
4:30
2:22
7:01
6:25
3:02
3:01
4:08
4:46
Italy
2:06
4:26
5:20
1:35
7:26
6:01
2:53
2:59
4:08
5:08
Latvia
3:41
5:09
3:56
1:50
7:37
6:59
2:10
2:10
4:09
4:48
Lithuania
3:41
4:55
4:29
2:09
8:10
7:04
2:22
2:25
3:49
4:50
Hungary
2:32
3:46
4:58
2:40
7:30
6:26
2:19
2:31
4:38
5:29
Poland
2:29
4:15
4:45
2:22
7:14
6:37
2:29
2:23
4:36
5:25
Slovenia
2:59
4:07
4:58
2:40
7:57
6:47
2:08
2:13
4:29
5:34
Finland
2:49
4:01
3:56
2:16
6:45
6:17
2:06
2:01
5:30
6:08
Sweden
3:12
4:25
3:42
2:29
6:54
6:54
2:28
2:11
5:04
5:24
UK
2:33
4:18
4:15
2:18
6:48
6:36
2:16
2:04
5:04
5:32
Norway
2:53
4:16
3:47
2:22
6:40
6:38
2:08
2:02
5:51
6:03
Aliaga (2006) Eurostat Statistics in focus 4/2006
Composite working time (hours per week) by gender (average EU27)
Source: EWCS, 2010
Source: Kan et al. 2010
Empirical data shows that ...
Male employment rate is higher than the female rate
Workplace segregation (both vertical and horizontal)
remains
Female part-time employment rate is higher than
male rate
Part-time work is more frequent among women with
children, while for men the percentage remains steady
Women spend more time in domestic and care work
than men
.
In conclusion…
 The massive incorporation of women into the labour market has
not been accompanied by a massive incorporation of men into the
domestic and family environment
So women find themselves immersed in a double commitment
system in which they accumulate work and care responsibilities in
an attempt to reconcile work, family and personal lives.
 This system serves to highlight the shortcomings in real equality
and shows the gap between the socially accepted discourse and
people’s everyday reality.
4. The Spanish case
1. Research about WLB in Collective Bargaining (2004)
Conclusions of stakeholders interviews and collective bargaining analysis:
• The legislation only regulates occasional leave, and does not take into
account daily and routine needs of domestic-care work
• More leave, services and cash benefits are offered in caring for children
than in caring for dependent adults and the elderly
• This contradicts demographic trends: population is growing older and the
birth rate has not increased
• There has been a gradual improvement in the presence of WLB in the
collective bargaining
• Negotiations considered WLB an issue of gender equality and not an issue of
working conditions.
• The law must finally be interpreted, translated and specified in collective
bargaining negotiations.
• WLB vary between sectors and workers
4. The Spanish case
1. Research about WLB in Collective Bargaining (2004)
Conclusions of case study about a pharmaceutic company
• Good practices in WLB as a condition of being recognised as a
socially responsible company
• Some measures are business practices that existed years ago,
which have been recalled (canteen boucher, parking, sport centre)
• Company proposes good practices as part of their HR departments
instead of collective bargaining negotiation. This has got some
risks:
– To offer individual solutions to a social problems
– To polarise workforce: some workers benefit from WLB and
others do not it (according gender, education level, age…)
– To improve company profits above quality of work and life
(flexibility which intensify work, management objectives)
4. The Spanish case
2. Research about men and women job history (2010)
Conclusions of comparative analysis of job histories of men and
women
• The sexual division of labour remains
• Domestic and care work is present in women’s job history and it is
absent in men’s job history
• It appears a continuum between regulated and unregulated
employment according gender and generation:
– Job history of older men: began employment in informal
economy and progress to formal economy
– Job history of women: remain in the informal economy more
because is the only way to combine work and family
responsibilities
– Job history of young people: began and remain in the informal
economy because is the only way to be employment
4. The Spanish case
3. Research about working conditions in the new and growing
sectors (2011)
Conclusions about stakeholders and workers interviews
• The catering case: the company takes in advantage women WLB
needs to intensify work: same tasks, less time to do them
– Time pressure to save staff costs and to flexible control the
workforce with a timetable change (From 11am to 16pm/ From
11am to 15pm)
– Women to maintain satisfactory WLB timetable had to accept a
more intensive working day
4. The Spanish case
Consequences of the current economic crisis:
• WLB is a privilege of whom are employment
• Public cuts in education and health increase domestic and care
work for the families (school canteens, less days in hospital…)
• Increase jobs in informal economy
• Reduce and intensify working time as an employer strategy to save
staff cost
• Increase in men unemployment because decrease jobs in male
sectors such as construction
• Increase in women with the breadwinner role
• Do these last two factors have any consequences for the gender
division of labour?
5. Some ideas for the future…
… socialisation and education are keys to bridge the gap
between Policy and Everyday life
… WLB has merit as a concept but WLB policy can be problematic
Problematic ways…
the vast majority of WLB policies have been limited to
facilitating female employment
they have done this without improving male participation in
domestic and care work
female part time working is a false solution for WLB
What happens with elder people? social care for the future…
5. Some ideas…
Successful ways…
 to promote campaigns between stakeholders that make the
social importance of domestic work and care work for the society
to promote measures to redistribute domestic and care work
between women and men
to abandon the idea that women are the only ones who have
problems combining their work and personal lives
to promote men as agents of change: compulsory paternity and
parental leave?
To promote the idea that all the workers have WLB needs.
Introduce flexibility in the job history according life cycle needs of
the workers (not only company profit): training leave, time
reduction for parental responsibilities, flexibility for social care,
part-time retirement…)
A question…
Do humans resources specialist prefer a 30 years
old man worker to a 30 years old woman
worker?
Do line managers prefer a 30 years old man
worker to a 30 years old woman worker?
Work and Life Balance:
A Critical Perspective
Sara Moreno Colom
Research Institute of Work (IET)
Sociological Research Group of Everyday Life and Work (QUIT)
Department of Sociology
Autonomous University of Barcelona
[email protected]