Dan Wheatley

Work‐life balance, travel‐to‐work, and the dual career household

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to reflect on the underlying conflicts associated with current work‐life balance and travel‐to‐work policies, as employed in organisations in the UK.Design/methodology/approach – A mixed method approach is used to ascertain whether professional work‐group cultures limit the effectiveness of work‐life balance policy, and the extent to which spill‐over is present between work‐life balance and transport preferences, especially car use. These concerns are explored empirically using an in‐depth local level quantitative‐qualitative case study of Greater Nottingham (a regional employment centre in the East Midlands region of England).Findings – The evidence presented in this paper suggests: work‐group cultures prevent employees, especially women, from achieving work‐life balance; there is spill‐over between work and non‐work activities, creating time allocation challenges, and stress, for dual career households attempting to achieve desired work‐life balance; and specific c...

Good to be home? Time-use and satisfaction levels among home-based teleworkers

Home�?based teleworking (HbTW) has the potential to provide significant benefits to both employer and employee, but also presents considerable challenges. This paper considers HbTW among UK employees, specifically exploring distinctions in the time�?use of men and women home�?based teleworkers and the impacts of HbTW on employee satisfaction levels, using cross�?section fixed effects panel regression analysis of the British Household Panel Survey. Findings reveal that total time�?use in work activities among men and women home�?based teleworkers is relatively comparable, but the distribution significantly different. For women, housework represents a particular time constraint, reflecting continued presence of the ‘double�?shift’. Homeworkers report greater levels of satisfaction, yet they are more pronounced in respect to paid work than leisure time. Extensive hours of housework reported among women may explain these differences. Nevertheless, home�?based teleworkers report greater levels of satisfaction than other workers, suggesting considerable benefits especially for working mothers.

Dual Career Couples, Gender and Migration

A growing number of households in advanced capitalist countries like Germany and the UK are striving to achieve upward social mobility through the pursuit of a career (Savage 1988). In some of these households both partners are trying to build careers. These ‘dual career’ households are defined as those in which both partners (that is, two heterosexual adults living as a couple in a two person or larger household) are in managerial and administrative, professional and associated professional and technical occupations; the types of occupation which tend to place particular demands on the individual and emphasise commitment (Erikson and Goldthorpe 1992: 42). In this chapter we focus on the location and mobility decisions of heterosexual dual career households, highlighting in particular the ways in which social mobility (career advancement) and spatial mobility (geographic migration) intertwine for them.

Employee satisfaction and use of flexible working arrangements

This article considers the impact of flexible working arrangements (FWAs), using the British Household Panel Survey and Understanding Society, 2001–10/11. Results of panel logit, ANCOVA and change-score analysis are indicative of positive impacts from use of a number of FWAs, including homeworking having positive effects for men and women on job and leisure satisfaction. However, findings reveal gaps in availability and use of FWAs, and highlight the gendered nature of flexible employment. Flexi-time, the most common FWA among men, has positive effects as it facilitates management of household responsibilities while maintaining full-time employment. Part-time and homeworking are also positive, consistent with men using FWAs with a greater degree of choice. Women more often are constrained in their use of FWAs, often into working reduced hours. Consequently, FWAs have negative impacts for some women, on job (part-time when used for extended periods, flexi-time), leisure (job-share, flexi-time) and life satisfaction (job-share).

Autonomy in Paid Work and Employee Subjective Well-Being:

This article explores the relationship between different forms of autonomy, categorized into “job control” and “schedule control,” and measures of subjective well-being, using UK panel data from Understanding Society. Levels of autonomy differ considerably among UK employees. Managers report the greatest autonomy. Professionals, especially women, and less skilled occupations report substantially less. Panel probit, analysis of covariance, and change-score analysis evidence not only the positive impact of autonomy but also the differentiated and gendered relationship between autonomy and subjective well-being measures. Job control, including over tasks and pace of work, increases job and leisure satisfaction. Autonomy over work manner increases leisure and life satisfaction, but only among women. Informal schedule control has positive impacts on job (men and women) and life (men only) satisfaction.

Dual Careers, Time‐Use and Satisfaction Levels: Evidence from the British Household Panel Survey

This article empirically examines time-use and its impact on satisfaction levels among dual career households in a post-industrial economy, the UK. Analysis explores the 1993–2009 British Household Panel Survey using panel probit regression. The evidence reveals distinctions in time-use relative to gender, occupations and employment sector. Long hours persist among managers and professionals. The uneven division of household labour, further, continues to burden women with extensive amounts of housework and care. Satisfaction with working hours and amount/use of leisure time are lower among women, especially the public sector professionals. Provision of care, occupation and partner employment characteristics represent important satisfaction determinants present among women, while income (including partners income) only has relevance among men. Housework does not itself generate dissatisfaction. It is the overload of household tasks, due to inequality in the household division of labour, which constrains many highly skilled working women reducing satisfaction with time-use and life overall.

An exploration of Icelandic marketing women entrepreneurs

The phenomenon of women’s entrepreneurship has gained significant momentum across the globe. Increasingly businesses started and managed by women are contributing to job creation, innovation and wellbeing (Kelley et al. 2015). Despite the contributions women entrepreneurs have made to overall economic wellbeing, the vast majority of prior research about women entrepreneurs has taken an individualcentric approach (Pathak et al., 2013; Jennings and Brush, 2013). However, recently we are observing a shift in the focus of women’s entrepreneurship research from microlevel and individual factors to a greater focus on how mesoand macrocontextual levels impact individuals’ decisions – that is, from “gender as a variable” to research based more on feminist perspectives and the formal and informal institutional factors that influence entrepreneurial creation by women (Brush et al., 2006). Even with the shift in research interest on the influence of contextual variables on women entrepreneurs, the impact of macronational social values and cultural traditions (AlDajani and Marlow, 2010; Roomi, 2013; Zahra and Wright, 2011) and gendered social forces (Brush et al., 2009; DíazGarcía and Welter, 2013; Loscocco and Bird, 2012) remains underresearched. Because entrepreneurship is a social embedded process, connecting entrepreneurial behaviours of individuals to their context can offer a more insightful explanation of the entrepreneurial phenomenon (Davidsson 2004; Sarasvathy 2004; Zahra 2007; Welter 2011; Zahra et al., 2014). Berg (1997: 262) argues that “the material and sociocultural contexts in which entrepreneurship take place are gendered”. Therefore, women entrepreneurship research would benefit greatly from taking into consideration how macronational factors, such as cultural norms and societal expectations, and the mesoorganizational structures and institutions are

Economic Well-being and British Regions: The Problem with GDP Per Capita

Abstract Economists and policy-makers often present per capita gross domestic product (GDP) as by far the most significant indicator of economic well-being. Such measures are frequently adopted in making international comparisons, constructing time-series for particular countries and in studies of regional inequality. In this paper we challenge this view using a regional analysis of 2001 data focusing upon differences between London and the south-eastern regions, in comparison to the rest of Great Britain (GB). Initially GDP per capita is decomposed into the demographic and labour-market factors which generate it. Thereafter we broaden the notion of work-time used in productivity measures to include other necessary work-related activity, namely commuting. This leads to us to construct a new indicator which we call social productivity. Our conclusion is that our decomposition and notion of social productivity are both relevant in comparisons of regional well-being; in addition such methods may be used fruitfully in international and historical contexts.

Fire and rescue service community safety initiatives: measuring impact

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss methods of capturing the impact of fire and rescue service (FRS) community safety work which directly aims to reduce the occurrence of specific incidents. Design/methodology/approach – The impact assessment method described focuses on addressing one of the major problems with regards to attributing outcomes to FRS community safety work; the influence of external factors. This paper looked to assess the incident trends within a case study UK FRS within the context of the following external data sets: first, incident trends within other UK FRSs; second, demographic trends; and third, incident data from other public services. Findings – There were instances, either across the whole region served by the case study FRS, or within specific districts, where evidence suggested a strong likelihood of the community safety work of the case study FRS contributing towards an observed reduction in incidents. These findings were established through filtering the impact o...

The Decision to Moonlight: Does Second Job Holding by the Self‐Employed and Employed Differ?

This article considers drivers of second job holding among the self-employed in comparison with the employed. Econometric analysis of panel data explores whether the self-employed are more or less likely to take on a second job when already running their own business than their employed counterparts. The findings contribute to the literature through identification of a need-based variable—difficulty in meeting housing costs—as a key driver of movements from self-employment to hybrid entrepreneurship. Findings, further, identify different patterns of second job holding by gender, particularly among self-employed individuals.