Class differences in the work schedules and daily time pressures of dual-earner parents in Britain Colette Fagan, Kath Ray, Linda McDowell, Diane Perrons and Kevin Ward Women and Employment Survey 25th anniversary conference, London, December 2005

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Class differences in the work schedules and
daily time pressures of dual-earner parents in
BritainColette Fagan, Kath Ray, Linda McDowell,
Diane Perrons and Kevin Ward Women and
Employment Survey 25th anniversary conference,
London, December 2005

• ESRC award Living and labouring in London and
  Manchester (R000239470)
• Fagan and Ward - University of Manchester, Ray
  Policy Studies Institute, McDowell University
  of Oxford, Perrons LSE

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Structure of presentation

• Introduction
• WES exposed major cohort change - emergence of
  more continuous labour market participation of
  women pivotal role of part-time work in this
  trend
• Subsequent expansion of work-family policies in
  UK particularly under Labour since 1997
• Paper focus - work patterns of mothers in
  dual-earner couples with children of pre-school
  or primary school age
• Qualitative interview material from an
  ESRC-funded project
• See handout for details of research design
  fieldwork
• Overview trends in womens employment and the
  economic policy context
• Womens employment contours of difference
• Class-based pathways of work-family
  reconciliation 4 critical cases
• Conclusions

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Overview trends in womens employment and the
economic policy context

• Growing prevalence of dual-earner patterns for
  couples in most industrialised countries
• UK distinctive working time regime in
  cross-national comparisons (Fagan 1996 and ff)
• Large proportion of full-timers work very long
  hours (men women) many want shorter hours
• Long hours in many jobs is incompatible with
  parenting
• Relatively high employment rate for women
  (dual-employed couples established practice)
• Part-time employment is dominant behaviour for
  mothers
• Limited childcare until recently reinforced
  cultural norm of PT maternal employment
• Part-time penalty (wages, career advancement)
  more pronounced in UK in contrast to better
  practice models (e.g. Sweden, NL)
• Large proportion of part-timers in short hour
  jobs want longer PT/short FT hours
• Income inequality level relatively high close
  to the US neo-liberal model than to much of
  North/West Europe

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Overview /continued

• Trends in UK (direction of change similar across
  Europe)
• Employment rate Full-time employment rate
  rising for all mothers
• Couple households increased are dual earners
  (FT/FT) or modified male breadwinners (MFT/FPT)
• Increased of households with children are lone
  parents
• Childcare and domestic work is still womens
  work
• Gershunys lagged adaptation thesis
• Social attitudes shift in favour of maternal
  employment more active involvement of men in
  domestic work
• BUT stay-at-home or part-time model for women
  is still favoured more than full-time

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Overview - The UK economic and policy context

• Recent expansion of work-family policies to
  encourage maternal employment
• Adult-worker model (Lewis) - most explicit in
  welfare to work focus for lone parents
• National Childcare strategy increased
  pre-school childcare places, some out-of-school
  provision
• Extension of statutory leave entitlements
• Statutory right for parents to request flexible
  hours (2003)
• Voluntarist emphasis in policy persuading
  employers about the business case
• Little emphasis on curtailing the practice of
  long working hours e.g.WTD opt-out
• Economic trends
• Polarisation of wages and living standards in UK
  1970s-1990s has slowed but not reversed
• Employment restructuring
• rising levels of work intensity (perceived)
  insecurity
• New economy articulation of high status,
  (usually well paid) pressured IT/knowledge jobs
  serviced by workers in poor quality jobs
• polarisation with expansion in jobs at both top
  and bottom ends
• Continued pressure of housing costs (including
  costly houses near good schools for
  middle-classes)

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Womens employment contours of difference

• Variety of differences emphasised in research on
  womens employment
• National institutions international differences
  in work-time options and practices for matched
  groups of women
• Education ? better careers and earnings
  increased propensity to pursue continuous
  full-time career (Dex Joshi, McRae)
• Occupational/ organisational career structures
  (Crompton)
• Attitudes Orientations (Hakim, Duncan
  Edwards, Scott, Rose, Dex)
• Dual FT and FT/PT couples a common device for
  capturing effect of many of these differences
• Powerful tool but limits - neglects differences
  in work-time conditions between full-timers and
  between part-timers
• Volume of hours, schedules, access to work-family
  reconciliation policy options
• Part-time teacher versus part-time sales work
• Mens full-time work conditions also neglected
• Quantitative analysis of class-based differences
  of couples joint schedules (Warren)
• Employment schedule (working hours, flexibility,
  location, commute) is key element of debates
  about work-family reconciliation WLB
• Pivotal role of volume of working hours in
  peoples sense of WLB autonomy only provides
  partial redress (Burchell and Fagan, OECD)
  working time preferences across Europe are to
  exit/avoid extremes of very short PT long FT
  hours (Fagan, Lee)

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Class-based pathways of work-family
reconciliation 4 critical cases

• Dual earner focus 4 critical cases as a lens
  for focussing on class-based differences in how
  women carve a pathway through pregnancy and the
  early years of motherhood
• Not exhaustive of all class situations and
  nuances
• Dual manual
• Clerical women
• Public sector professional/managerial women
• Private sector professional/managerial women
• Dimensions discussed
• Recent work history maternity leave and
  employment following birth
• Current work-time patterns (volume, schedule) of
  mother
• Fathering work-time and domestic involvement
• Income
• Childcare arrangements
• Mothers work-life balance assessment and
  preferences

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Conclusions

• Persistent gender division of labour class
  inequalities in work-family arrangements
• Work schedules on offer in labour market are
  segmented by class, also public/private and
  within private (firm size, industry)
• FT/FT vs FT/PT inadequate to capture and
  interpret couples arrangements (volume,
  schedule)
• Class-based analysis/typology advocated
• Developed in context income, workplace options,
  neighbourhood resources
• Different time pressures different desires to
  improve their WLB
• Discussion/reflection
• Other dimensions than work-time pertinent to WLB
  conceptualisation
• Income, childrens schedules , gender division of
  domestic labour
• School age childrens activities add to
  time/coordination pressures
• Source of stress for mothers, but also wanted to
  let their children have these opportunities
• Continued role of grandparents other informal
  childcare as buttress to formal childcare
• Government policy

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Research design and fieldwork

• End 2002/3 semi-structured interviews with
  parents with at least one child under 10 years
  old in 139 households (60-90 minutes on average)
• Focus was couple households where at least one
  person was employed
• Nearly all interviews were with mothers
• Recruited via childcare centres, playgroups and
  schools
• The fieldwork took place in two cities London
  and Manchester
• In each city parents were recruited through their
  residence in 3 different areas characterised by
  different socio-economic scores
• Study intentionally skewed to couple households
  that include formal pre-school childcare and/or
  schools in urban settings

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After-school activities in a dual full-time high
income household

• She the childminder picks them up at 3.15
  every day (). Brings them back here. Gives them
  their tea, and we arrive between 6 and 6.30.
  That's the plan. Mondays she only does until 5.30
  because it's swimming. So J or I take them
  swimming. (..) Tuesdays she picks them up at 3.45
  because they have choir after school. Wednesday
  she picks them up at normal time 3.15, but that's
  going to be later because they're going to do
  drama club at school. And then they get picked up
  by a friend of mine who takes them to brownies at
  6.00 and then I pick them up at 7.30 so that's
  quite useful because I can stay at work a bit
  later then. Then Thursday she picks them up at
  3.15, and a friend of mine picks them up at 5.30
  and takes them to a little dance class down the
  road And I pick them up at 6.45. So that again
  works well, if she does one way and I do the
  other, so that's a 3.15 pick up and 6.30 they
  come home. What I wanted was a childminder who
  would come here. Because they'd got to an age
  where, they had all these activities they wanted
  to do. And they also, they wanted to come home
  really, and you know, do a bit of homework, do a
  bit of piano practice, they have piano on a
  Friday. But she comes here, the piano teacher
  comes here. I vowed I would never be one of these
  mothers where the children do all these things,
  but it just sort of happened and, I hope we'll be
  able to pare them down a bit. But at the moment
  they do everything so.