Anne Grönlund

Rethinking work-family conflict: dual-earner policies, role conflict and role expansion in Western Europe

The aim of this article is to deepen the understanding of work—family conflict and the impact of social policies by integrating the theoretical perspectives of role conflict and role expansion. First, we present a theoretical model identifying different mechanisms through which policy may affect both role conflict and role expansion, with a particular focus on dual-earner policies. Second, we examine some of its implications, using data from the European Social Survey comprising 10,950 employees in 15 countries. In contrast to traditional theories presenting conflict and expansion as mutually exclusive, we find that work—family conflict and experiences of role expansion, measured with indicators of life satisfaction and psychological well being, may go hand in hand. The results also indicate that such a balance is more common in countries with dual-earner policies than in other countries. Women committing as strongly to work as men experience more work—family conflict, but also high levels of well being and satisfaction. The findings largely support our theoretical arguments and imply that future research should examine the conflict-expansion nexus rather than focussing on either of the two. In this context, both gender and policy need to be considered.

Devaluation, crowding or skill specificity? : Exploring the mechanisms behind the lower wages in female professions

A conspicuous finding in research on the gender wage gap is that wages are related to the percentage females in an occupation (percent F). Three mechanisms have been suggested to explain this relationship: a devaluation of womens work, a crowding of women into a limited number of occupations, and a female disadvantage in the accumulation of specific human capital. In this analysis, based on data from the Swedish Level of Living Survey of 2000 (n=2915), we distinguish between these mechanisms using measures of devaluation (Treimans prestige scale), crowding (employee dependence on current employer) and specific human capital (on-the-job training). The results show that all the indicators are related to percent F, but not in a linear fashion, and that the percent F-effect on wages is overstated and misspecified. Female-dominated occupations stand out with lower wages than both male-dominated and gender-integrated occupations and this is not explained by any of our measures. Thus, if the hypotheses on segregation and wages should be sustained, they must be further specified and new measures must be found to prove their worth.

EMPLOYEE CONTROL IN THE ERA OF FLEXIBILITY: A STRESS BUFFER OR A STRESS AMPLIFIER?

ABSTRACT Traditionally, employee control has been considered a buffer against stress, but debate about the transformation of work raises new questions. Can individual control really counteract the high demands in downsized organisations? Or does it make flexible work even more difficult to define and delimit, physically and emotionally? This article, based on survey data from 800 Swedish employees, studies the effect of job control on work hours, work-family conflict and psychological wellbeing. The results show that high job demands are associated with longer work hours, more work-family conflict and lower wellbeing, while control has positive effects, even when demands are high.

Class and work autonomy in 21 countries : A question of production regime or power resources?

Autonomy, or the extent to which employees can control their own work, is a central theme in debates on organizational flexibility and labour market stratification. Predictions of upskilling and autonomy, for manual workers too, have been a striking component in visions of post-Fordism and post-industrialism. The two main comparative labour market theories — the varieties of capitalism school and the power resources approach — suggest that both the level and the distribution of autonomy vary across production contexts, either because of national differences in skill requirements or because of the varying strength of organized labour. The objective of the article, based on the 2004 European Social Survey, is to test these two hypotheses by examining national variation regarding mean levels and class differences in autonomy among 21 countries. The main conclusion is that both mean levels and class differences in autonomy have much more to do with the strength of organized labour than with the skill requirements of production. The analysis also questions a central element of the varieties of capitalism theory, namely the notion of national production strategies based on differences in skill specificity.

A Scandinavian success story? Women’s labour market outcomes in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden

In current research, the extensive family policies of the Scandinavian countries have been problematized and described as hampering women’s careers. However, mechanisms have been little investigated and the Scandinavian countries are often regarded as a single policy model. Based on an account of institutional variety we study gender gaps in hourly wages and access to authority positions in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden and explore the importance of segregation, skills and work interruptions. The analysis uses pooled cross-sectional data from the European Social Survey (ESS) for 2004 and 2010. The results show that gender gaps vary both in size and regarding the mechanisms producing them. In particular, we find that gender segregation has a radically different impact in the four countries. The analysis suggests that the mechanisms linking family policies to labour market outcomes are more complex than envisaged in the current debate and point to the importance of comparing seemingly similar countries.

Family-friendly policies and women's wages – is there a trade-off? Skill investments, occupational segregation and the gender pay gap in Germany, Sweden and the UK

ABSTRACT Recent research has suggested that there is a trade-off between the ‘family-friendliness’ of jobs, occupations and welfare states on the one hand and womens relative wages on the other. In particular, the extensive family policies found in Scandinavia are thought to harm highly educated women by affecting occupational segregation and workplace skill development. In this article, we use pooled wage data from the European Social Survey of 2004 and 2010 to examine the mechanisms behind the gender wage gap in Germany, Sweden and the UK and compare the situation of high- and low-skilled employees. Our findings show that the gender wage gap among high-skilled employees in Sweden is larger than in the UK, but not larger than in Germany. Also, segregation and work-related training are no more important in Sweden than in the other countries. Another important finding is that the mechanisms behind the gender wage gap differ between high- and low-skilled employees in ways not predicted by the trade-off argument. In particular, the large unexplained wage gap among high-skilled employees provides new theoretical challenges.

The gender-job satisfaction paradox and the dual-earner society : are women (still) making work-family trade-offs?

BACKGROUND Despite their disadvantaged labour market position, women consistently report higher levels of job satisfaction than men. Researchers have attributed womens higher job satisfaction to their lower expectations, arguing that gender differences will fade away as womens labour market prospects improve. Others, however, argue that women are more contented than men because their jobs satisfy a need for family adaptions. OBJECTIVE In this article, we put the hypotheses of transitions and trade-offs to a strong test, by comparing men and women with comparable human capital investments living in a country where womens employment is strongly supported by policies, practices and social norms. METHODS The relationship between gender and job satisfaction is analysed with stepwise OLS regressions. The analysis is based on a survey to newly graduated highly educated men and women in five occupations in Sweden (n ≈ 2 450). RESULTS First, we show that, after controlling for a range of job characteristics, women report a higher level of job satisfaction than men. Second, although the paradox appears to be surprisingly persistent, it cannot be attributed to work-family trade-offs. CONCLUSIONS Future research should consider job satisfaction more broadly in the light of gender role socialization and persistent gender inequalities.

Workplace Skill Investments – An Early Career Glass Ceiling? Job Complexity and Wages Among Young Professionals in Sweden:

Despite higher educational investments, women fall behind men on most indicators of labour market success. This study investigates whether workplace skill investments set men and women off on different tracks in which the human capital acquired through higher education is either devalued or further developed. A survey sample of Swedish men and women who recently graduated from five educational programmes, leading to occupations with different gender composition, is analysed (N ≈ 2300). Results show that, a few years after graduation, men are more likely than women to acquire complex jobs and that this difference contributes to early career gender gaps in wages and employee bargaining power. The findings do not support the notion that child-related work interruptions provide a main mechanism for sorting women into less complex jobs.

In search of family-friendly careers? Professional strategies, work conditions and gender differences in work–family conflict

ABSTRACT The aim of this paper is to investigate whether women in a dual-earner context acquire family-friendly jobs as a strategy to keep work–family conflict down. The analysis is based on a survey of newly graduated highly educated men and women in five occupations in Sweden (n ≈ 2400). The sample was stratified by occupation and gender to minimize the influence of factors other than gender. The results show that women are more family-oriented, but also more career-oriented than men in their professional strategies. In their jobs, women have less control over work and schedules than men but a similar level of work demands. However, women face lower requirements for employer flexibility (e.g. frequent over time) and this is related to their professional strategies. Finally, women report a higher level of work–family conflict than men in the same occupation, but this gender difference becomes non-significant when accounting for women’s lower level of control. In sum, women in this sample clearly aim for both family and career and do not acquire family-friendly jobs, but aim to avoid ‘family-unfriendly’ requirements for constant availability. To some extent, this enables them to limit their work–family conflict but due to their lower control over work, women still experience more conflict than men in the same occupation.