Work-life Balance: From Legislation to Lived Experience

1. Work-life Balance: From Legislation to Lived Experience Louise Wattis and Susanna Lloyd

2. Overview of Session • The Work-Life Balance Issue • Overview of Research • Group Discussion • Preliminary Findings

3. Work Life Balance • Having a family, participating in the labour market. (Pillinger, 2001). • Getting the right balance. • The reason this reconciliation of work and family life is increasingly important to people and governments, is that it is hoped that getting the right balance will promote all sorts of other goals of society; less relationship break downs, better child development, more stable families and secure sources of income. (OECD, 2002) • ‘Best of both worlds’ (Plantenga, 2002).

4. Modern life - stress and misbalance between work, care and leisure (Ester et al, 2002). • Increasing time pressures (Allan and Grow, 2001). People should not have to choose between pursuing a career (the way people express themselves, form social interactions, main source of material resources) and their family life (whether, when and how many children they have, and spending time with these children. (OCED, 2002) Work Family

5. Why is work life balance an issue? • Women's increased labour market participation • Increased entry latter half of the 20th century. • The rise in ‘dual earner’ families. • ‘Crisis of care’ (Fraser, 1994). • Renegotiation of care and domestic responsibilities. • Conflicting demands of family and paid work. • Succeed, progress VS. family time. • Increase stress – productivity and performance.

6. Why is work life balance an issue? • Caring responsibilities • Gendered towards women. • Bulk of childcare and domestic tasks (Gershury, 1997). • Current disparity between caring responsibilities and demands of working hours (EOC, 2004). • Care not valued (Land, 1999).

7. Why is work life balance an issue? • Unsubstantial childcare facilities Over ½ of mothers with children under 5 are now working, with over ¾ of women whose youngest child is 11 or more are now employment (EOC, 2004). • Demand ‘5.1 million (under 8) – only 830,000 childcare places’ (Dti,1998)

8. Childcare in the UK • Significant gap in UK • “family as private not a public responsibility”(Auer, 2002). • Acute shortage of affordable, available childcare. • Free state nurseries – 2 ½ hours. • Effects on women • Strong influence – labour market decisions • Effects participation and progression

9. Gender, Work and Care • Women’s unequal labour market position. • Gender pay gap - 19 per cent; income gap - 48 per cent (EOC, 2003). • Occupational segregation: women concentrated within two industrial sectors - public administration, education and health, and distribution, hotels and catering (WEU, 2003). • Care - a key factor contributing to women’s unequal labour market position. • Women often work part-time to manage work and family; • Part-time work - low pay/low status/feminised; • Part-time work – little training or career progression.

10. ‘Family-Friendly’ Policy • Parental Leave Request • Flexible Working Request • Enhanced Maternity Leave • Paternity Leave • 1998 National Childcare Strategy • Working Families Tax Credit/Child Tax Credit

11. Our Project Combining Work and Family Life: Removing the Barriers to Women’s Progression. A Comparison of the UK and the Netherlands

12. Project Aims • To assess the impact of UK‘family-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.

13. Methods: • Mainly qualitative – face-to-face/telephone interviews with women in London, the Southeast and the Northwest of England. • Life history interviews. • Secondary analysis of large-scale quantitative data: LFS, Time Use Survey; Household Panel Survey etc.

14. Project Aim three "To identify examples of good practice from the Netherlands.“ Why the Netherlands? • Netherlands - reduction and reorganisation of working time, to achieve equality and sharing of work and family life (Pillinger, 2001). • World leader in part-time work (Van der Heijden, 1998). • "Polder Model"- mix of flexibility & security.

15. Employer-provided family benefits. • Care and Work law- balance between employment and care responsibilities - flexible working time, able to work part-time, leave. • Child- illness • Emergency. • Relative illness. • Maternity Leave. • 16 weeks paid leave - paid by government, toped up by employers • 6 months entitled to work only half hours, 75% of original wage (OECD, 2003). • Adjustment of working hours - request to work more or less hours. • Taken with maternity/paternal leave. • Developing and improving childcare facilities. • Netherlands – potential example of good practice.

16. Previous Research: • Reveals indicates low levels of awareness, availability and take-up. Considerable latent demand from employees for the adoption of more flexible working time arrangements’. (Hogarth et al., 2001: 16) • Ineffective due to voluntarism; • inconsistent across sectors; • hostility of business, employers. 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: 899)

17. Themes/Issues from the Pilot • Discussion based on four pilot interviews with women working in the voluntary sector. • Supports previous research - low levels of awareness of legislation. • Legislation lacking. • Flexible working arranged at the local level. • Workplace flexibility did appear to help manage work and family. • Voluntary sector employment good source of flexibility. • Work and care a source of stress and conflict.

18. Honestly it’s terrifying. I was actually, I mean I know it sounds ridiculous but I was actually at the open day for him going to school and I actually almost physically had a panic attack after the open day cos I started thinking ‘what am I going to do?’ I really felt physically ill afterwards because they used to have an after school club there but it’s stopped and I just thought ‘oh my God what am I going to do?’ That is a real stress. Stella 42: Four year old son I will go through periods where I beat myself up big time, where I think I’m the most horrendous parent and I get really down. Generally though I have a balance but I can lose the plot at home every now and then. Like for example if I forget something my daughter told me the week before, it can make me feel inadequate. But I think a lot of working mums go through that. Denise 39: Twelve year old daughter

19. I enjoy the job I am doing in the sense you’ve got to be doing something 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 as well. You do feel guilty going to work. I leave late in the morning, my partner takes my daughter to my sister-in-law’s, and some mornings she has little tears in her eyes as I’m waving her off and I think ‘oh God I have to go to work and leave you’. And I know she’s fine when she gets there but it’s 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: Two year old daughter

20. Summary • Flexible working arranged locally and informally. • Awareness of legislation was low. • Legislation appeared to have little impact on women’s lives. • Workplace flexibility was some help but did not alleviate the stress of work and care responsibilities - both practically and emotionally. • Strong preferences towards care over paid employment.