Cláudia Andrade

Work–Family Conflict and Perceived Justice as Mediators of Outcomes of Women's Multiple Workload

Negative impacts of work–family conflicts and the imbalanced division of family work on womens relationship satisfaction and well-being have gained substantial attention from the literature over the last years. The current research adds to the literature by testing the experience of work–family conflicts and perceived justice in the division of family work as possible mediators between womens workloads resulting from the familial and professional tasks and womens relationship satisfaction and well-being. The analysis involves both work-to-family and family-to-work conflicts as well as perceptions of procedural and distributive justice in the division of family work. Structural equation modeling analyses of data were performed with a sample of 1,512 women from dual-earner couples with young children taken from seven European countries. Results support the importance of womens family-to-work conflict and perceptions of justice of childcare and household labor as mediator variables between family workloads, relationship satisfaction, and well-being. Time spent on paid work proved to have an effect on womens well-being, via work-to-family conflict.

Transição para a Idade Adulta e Adultez Emergente: Adaptação do Questionário de Marcadores da Adultez junto de Jovens Portugueses

O presente artigo tem como principal objectivo adaptar o instrumento Questionnaire of Markers of Adulthood -QMA (Arnett, 2001), junto de jovens portugueses. Inspirado no conceito de Adultez Emergente, um conjunto de marcadores psicologicos, biologicos, sociais e contextuais de transicao para a idade adulta foram avaliados a partir de 37 itens, junto de uma amostra de 224 estudantes universitarios. Analises factoriais exploratorias e confirmatorias evidenciaram uma estrutura com cinco factores. Os resultados deste estudo confirmam a importância dos marcadores psicologicos como elementos nucleares na definicao da idade adulta. Adicionalmente, para os jovens que ainda nao se percepcionam completamente adultos, a independencia financeira surge como um elemento crucial na sua definicao da idade adulta. Este estudo reforca a importância atribuida, por outros autores contemporâneos, a esta fase emergente da vida e oferece um instrumento capaz de avaliar, de forma fiavel e valida, a importância relativa dos marcadores de transicao na conceptualizacao da idade adulta em Portugal.

Not for everyone: intra-organisational divides and the stratification of access to work–life policies

ABSTRACT Prior research documented a number of factors pertaining to employees or to organisational cultures that can prevent employees from accessing employer-driven work–life policies (WLP). Our study focuses on factors originating in the jobs themselves. We conducted 98 in-depth employee interviews in two multinational companies based in Europe and led feedback sessions with human resources executives. Three mechanisms explained the observed stratification of access to WLP across jobs: (1) the intra-organisational digital divide prevented ‘less digital’ employees from collecting information about WLP on the intranet and thus impaired awareness of the policies; (2) the divide in worksite size prevented employees on smaller worksites from accessing childcare centres, sports or health facilities and (3) the divide in job types restricted access to WLP for specific occupations. The stratification of access to WLP was not strategically driven by human resources; rather the divides were largely unintentional. Our study uncovers inequalities of access originating in the jobs themselves and provides a theoretical integration of the various sets of factors that may promote or hinder employee awareness of WLP. Our findings suggest that organisations should strive to identify these inequalities and to provide ways to cope for these, for instance by offering other forms of support.

Adding School to Work-Family Balance: The Role of Support for Portuguese Working Mothers Attending a Master's Degree.

This qualitative study examines the work, family, and study experiences of Portuguese professional women in two different career stages: early career and mid-career. Using semi-structured interviews with a sample of 22 working mothers enrolled in a master’s degree, this study explores their experiences of combining the roles of mother, worker and student and the role of support for a successful integration of work–family and school. Support from peers was found to be a critical factor for successfully integrating work–family and school responsibilities. Differences in the use of partner and family support were found between early and mid-career women. Lack of or limited support from the workplace was a barrier that emerged in both groups.