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Home About Us Services Publications Information Publications Research Publications Codes of Practice Policy Publications Good Practice Publications Annual Reports Casework Reports Newsletters Submissions Articles All Articles Update by CEO Case Reports EU Briefings Information FAQs Events Research Equality Mainstreaming Unit Links Contact Us Translations Sitemap Gaeilge	Work Life Balance of Working Parents - A Four Country Comparative Study By Dr. Margaret Fine-Davis, Centre for Gender and Women's Studies Trinity College, Dublin "Most European countries have failed to adapt adequately to the novel challenges and the result is an increasingly serious disequilibrium. This cross-national study unambiguously shows that a truly workable and positive social equilibrium needs more than public support for mothers. It needs, somehow or other, to equalise the employment and caring roles of men and women alike... What Fathers and Mothers helps us realise is that no workable social equilibrium can materialise unless we somehow begin to also reconstruct the male life course." Gosta Esping-Andersen, author of Why We Need a New Welfare State. The increased labour force participation of European women, particularly those in the childbearing years, has been accompanied by increasing needs for childcare, flexible working arrangements and greater demands for equality in the workplace. The challenge which still faces even the most advanced of the EU member states is how to facilitate more egalitarian sharing of roles - that is, how to relieve women of the double burden of employment and domestic duties, while encouraging men to take an active part in family and domestic life, and at the same time facilitating quality of life for both. A four nation comparative study was carried out to examine these issues. The book Fathers and Mothers: Dilemmas of the Work-Life Balance, presenting the results was launched by Niall Crowley, CEO of the Equality Authority, at Trinity College in December. The study was directed by Dr. Margaret Fine-Davis, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Gender and Women's Studies, Trinity College, and the collaborators in the research were: Dr. Jeanne Fagnani, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, University of Paris; Prof. Dino Giovannini, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia; Prof. Lis Hojgaard, University of Copenhagen and Hilary Clarke, TCD. The comparative study was carried out in four major European cities (Dublin, Paris, Copenhagen and Bologna) on a sample of 400 men and women (100 per city) who were employed, living with a partner who was also employed, and had at least one child under six. The study was commissioned by the European Commission and the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform. There were significant differences between the four countries in terms of the ease or difficulty in combining work and family life. It was much easier to combine work and family in Denmark than in the other three countries - a country where childcare is a public responsibility and where flexible working arrangements are commonplace. Time was amongst the most important factors determining the ease or difficulty in combining work and family life. Commuting time was of particular importance - the longer the commute, the less time that is available to help with family commitments. Not surprisingly, the more hours a person worked per week, the more difficulty they had in combining work and family life. Another very significant predictor was the amount of help a person got with domestic responsibilities. The more help one got, the easier it was to combine work and family. Attitudes in the workplace were also very important. Most important was a feeling that one's colleagues accepted one's childcare responsibilities. Accepting attitudes on the part of managers also helped a great deal and were significantly related to ease in combining work and family. Some of the findings underpinning these conclusions were the following: Commuting The average time to get to work for all countries was just about a half hour (32 minutes). Commuting times were longest for Irish respondents (39 minutes on average, 42 minutes for men, 36 minutes for women). The great reliance on the car in Ireland relative to the other countries may be partly responsible for the longer commuting times due to traffic congestion. Those countries which relied more on trains and cycling and less on cars had shorter commuting times. As commuting time was a key predictor in successfully combining work and family, changes in transport modes may assist in this area together with staggered commuting hours. Time - with the Family and for Oneself Given the length of time working parents spend at work and in commuting, it is not surprising that so many expressed a wish for more time with the family and for more personal time. This was true of the Irish fathers in the sample, 82% of whom said they would like to spend more time with their families. Sixty-two percent of the mothers felt this way. While 58% of the men said they'd like their partners to spend more time with the family, this was true of 72% of the women. Time for oneself was also an issue. Seventy-two per cent of Irish men said they'd like to have more personal time. This was even truer of Irish women, 80% of whom would like more personal time. Sharing of Domestic Chores and Childcare in the Home It was found that women carried out significantly more of the domestic and childcare tasks in the home than men did in all of the four countries. There were also large discrepancies between male and female perceptions of who carried out the domestic tasks. Men were more likely to think both of the partners did the work, while women were more likely to report that they carried out the tasks. However men excelled in relation to taking care of the children, especially with regard to playing with the children. Workplace Attitudes and Policies and Effects on Well-Being Attitudes towards working parents who availed of work-family programmes were also explored. In relation to Ireland, relatively speaking, there were more negative perceptions toward people who participate in family friendly programmes. Both men and women who worked part-time or job shared were seen as less serious about their career, but this feeling was stronger vis a vis men. There is also a greater sense of pressure on employees in Ireland to work over and above normal hours to get ahead, adding to problems in achieving work-life balance. In this climate, it will be more difficult to promote family friendly working arrangements and a greater sharing of gender roles unless there is attitude change. The study revealed a consistent pattern of relationships indicating that the more favourable the working environment, the greater the well-being of the employees. For example, the more an employer was perceived as taking account of one's child care responsibilities, the greater not only was the employee's work satisfaction, but also the greater the satisfaction with his/her partner and with one's life in general. Not surprisingly, the greater the potential flexibility at work the greater was one's work satisfaction. Potential flexibility at work was also significantly related to the employee's satisfaction with their health and life in general. Interestingly, the study revealed that many employees were not aware of whether or not various family friendly policies were available in their workplaces. A further disturbing finding was that parents often had to use their own annual leave or sick leave if their childcare arrangements broke down - thus reducing their own entitlement to sick leave and annual leave. In the other three countries studied - Denmark, France and Italy - all had policies of "child sick days", which parents could avail of in case of child's illness. In view of the lack of paid parental leave in Ireland, it is interesting to note that a very high level of interest in this was expressed by men and women. Of those Irish working parents who had not taken up parental leave, 77% of the fathers in the study said they would have taken parental leave if it had been paid and 85% of the mothers said so. Next Steps - Nationwide Research on Work-Life Balance A major purpose of the study was to develop new social indicators to measure issues of work life balance which could be utilised in studies with larger, more representative, samples in Ireland and in Europe. The results of the 'Fathers and Mothers' research have fed into the Work-Life Balance Project of the National Flexi-Work Partnership, comprising the Centre for Gender and Women's Studies, TCD, IBEC, ICTU, FÁS, Age Action Ireland and Aware. This consortium, under the EQUAL Initiative, is piloting innovative modes of flexible working, promoting men into childcare as a means of developing egalitarian gender role attitudes at the early stages of a child's life, and gathering data on a nationwide sample concerning work-life balance in the population as a whole. These results will be available in 2005. Fathers and Mothers: Dilemmas of the Work-Life Balance is published by Kluwer Academic Publishers (now Springer) in it Social Indicators Research Series. ISBN 1 - 4020 - 1848 -7, Softback; ISBN 1 4020 - 1807 - x , Hardback. Note: This article is taken from the Spring 2005 edition of Equality News.	Search Tick the box to search just the current location and its sublocations Advanced Search

Work Life Balance of Working Parents - A Four Country Comparative Study

By Dr. Margaret Fine-Davis, Centre for Gender and Women's Studies Trinity College, Dublin

"Most European countries have failed to adapt adequately to the novel challenges and the result is an increasingly serious disequilibrium. This cross-national study unambiguously shows that a truly workable and positive social equilibrium needs more than public support for mothers. It needs, somehow or other, to equalise the employment and caring roles of men and women alike... What Fathers and Mothers helps us realise is that no workable social equilibrium can materialise unless we somehow begin to also reconstruct the male life course." Gosta Esping-Andersen, author of Why We Need a New Welfare State.

The increased labour force participation of European women, particularly those in the childbearing years, has been accompanied by increasing needs for childcare, flexible working arrangements and greater demands for equality in the workplace. The challenge which still faces even the most advanced of the EU member states is how to facilitate more egalitarian sharing of roles - that is, how to relieve women of the double burden of employment and domestic duties, while encouraging men to take an active part in family and domestic life, and at the same time facilitating quality of life for both.

A four nation comparative study was carried out to examine these issues. The book Fathers and Mothers: Dilemmas of the Work-Life Balance, presenting the results was launched by Niall Crowley, CEO of the Equality Authority, at Trinity College in December. The study was directed by Dr. Margaret Fine-Davis, Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Gender and Women's Studies, Trinity College, and the collaborators in the research were: Dr. Jeanne Fagnani, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, University of Paris; Prof. Dino Giovannini, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia; Prof. Lis Hojgaard, University of Copenhagen and Hilary Clarke, TCD.

The comparative study was carried out in four major European cities (Dublin, Paris, Copenhagen and Bologna) on a sample of 400 men and women (100 per city) who were employed, living with a partner who was also employed, and had at least one child under six. The study was commissioned by the European Commission and the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform.

There were significant differences between the four countries in terms of the ease or difficulty in combining work and family life. It was much easier to combine work and family in Denmark than in the other three countries - a country where childcare is a public responsibility and where flexible working arrangements are commonplace. Time was amongst the most important factors determining the ease or difficulty in combining work and family life. Commuting time was of particular importance - the longer the commute, the less time that is available to help with family commitments. Not surprisingly, the more hours a person worked per week, the more difficulty they had in combining work and family life.

Another very significant predictor was the amount of help a person got with domestic responsibilities. The more help one got, the easier it was to combine work and family. Attitudes in the workplace were also very important. Most important was a feeling that one's colleagues accepted one's childcare responsibilities. Accepting attitudes on the part of managers also helped a great deal and were significantly related to ease in combining work and family.

Some of the findings underpinning these conclusions were the following:

Commuting

The average time to get to work for all countries was just about a half hour (32 minutes). Commuting times were longest for Irish respondents (39 minutes on average, 42 minutes for men, 36 minutes for women). The great reliance on the car in Ireland relative to the other countries may be partly responsible for the longer commuting times due to traffic congestion. Those countries which relied more on trains and cycling and less on cars had shorter commuting times. As commuting time was a key predictor in successfully combining work and family, changes in transport modes may assist in this area together with staggered commuting hours.

Time - with the Family and for Oneself

Given the length of time working parents spend at work and in commuting, it is not surprising that so many expressed a wish for more time with the family and for more personal time. This was true of the Irish fathers in the sample, 82% of whom said they would like to spend more time with their families. Sixty-two percent of the mothers felt this way. While 58% of the men said they'd like their partners to spend more time with the family, this was true of 72% of the women. Time for oneself was also an issue. Seventy-two per cent of Irish men said they'd like to have more personal time. This was even truer of Irish women, 80% of whom would like more personal time.

Sharing of Domestic Chores and Childcare in the Home

It was found that women carried out significantly more of the domestic and childcare tasks in the home than men did in all of the four countries. There were also large discrepancies between male and female perceptions of who carried out the domestic tasks. Men were more likely to think both of the partners did the work, while women were more likely to report that they carried out the tasks. However men excelled in relation to taking care of the children, especially with regard to playing with the children.

Workplace Attitudes and Policies and Effects on Well-Being

Attitudes towards working parents who availed of work-family programmes were also explored. In relation to Ireland, relatively speaking, there were more negative perceptions toward people who participate in family friendly programmes. Both men and women who worked part-time or job shared were seen as less serious about their career, but this feeling was stronger vis a vis men. There is also a greater sense of pressure on employees in Ireland to work over and above normal hours to get ahead, adding to problems in achieving work-life balance. In this climate, it will be more difficult to promote family friendly working arrangements and a greater sharing of gender roles unless there is attitude change.

The study revealed a consistent pattern of relationships indicating that the more favourable the working environment, the greater the well-being of the employees. For example, the more an employer was perceived as taking account of one's child care responsibilities, the greater not only was the employee's work satisfaction, but also the greater the satisfaction with his/her partner and with one's life in general. Not surprisingly, the greater the potential flexibility at work the greater was one's work satisfaction. Potential flexibility at work was also significantly related to the employee's satisfaction with their health and life in general.

Interestingly, the study revealed that many employees were not aware of whether or not various family friendly policies were available in their workplaces. A further disturbing finding was that parents often had to use their own annual leave or sick leave if their childcare arrangements broke down - thus reducing their own entitlement to sick leave and annual leave. In the other three countries studied - Denmark, France and Italy - all had policies of "child sick days", which parents could avail of in case of child's illness.

In view of the lack of paid parental leave in Ireland, it is interesting to note that a very high level of interest in this was expressed by men and women. Of those Irish working parents who had not taken up parental leave, 77% of the fathers in the study said they would have taken parental leave if it had been paid and 85% of the mothers said so.

Next Steps - Nationwide Research on Work-Life Balance

A major purpose of the study was to develop new social indicators to measure issues of work life balance which could be utilised in studies with larger, more representative, samples in Ireland and in Europe. The results of the 'Fathers and Mothers' research have fed into the Work-Life Balance Project of the National Flexi-Work Partnership, comprising the Centre for Gender and Women's Studies, TCD, IBEC, ICTU, FÁS, Age Action Ireland and Aware. This consortium, under the EQUAL Initiative, is piloting innovative modes of flexible working, promoting men into childcare as a means of developing egalitarian gender role attitudes at the early stages of a child's life, and gathering data on a nationwide sample concerning work-life balance in the population as a whole. These results will be available in 2005.

Fathers and Mothers: Dilemmas of the Work-Life Balance is published by Kluwer Academic Publishers (now Springer) in it Social Indicators Research Series.
ISBN 1 - 4020 - 1848 -7, Softback;
ISBN 1 4020 - 1807 - x , Hardback.

Note: This article is taken from the Spring 2005 edition of Equality News.