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Myths, Drivers and Work-Life Balance University of Sydney 2009

Myths, Drivers and Work-Life Balance University of Sydney 2009. ‘. Chris Warhurst Scottish Centre for Employment Research University of Strathclyde. In the beginning …. Introduction. Good science starts with scepticism.

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Myths, Drivers and Work-Life Balance University of Sydney 2009

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  1. Myths, Drivers and Work-Life Balance University of Sydney 2009 ‘ Chris Warhurst Scottish Centre for Employment Research University of Strathclyde

  2. In the beginning …

  3. Introduction • Good science starts with scepticism. • WLB embedded in public, practitioner and academic discourse – and practice. • Intuitively sympathetic – from degradation of work to satisfaction in and through jobs. • Problem: the claims for and assumptions underpinning WLB are weak; at odds with the legacy of ‘industrial sociology’; yet do resonate with traditional sociological concerns.

  4. The Myths Myth #1: long working hours culture • E.g. Schor The Overworked American; Bunting Willing Slaves. • Slippery statements: ‘large part of … employees spend more hours at work than they say they would prefer’ (Echtelt et al.) quickly recast as a ‘burgeoning demand’ for WLB (Bolchover) • The new British disease of long working hours (Green).

  5. What the data shows • Only small minority work ‘long hours’ (>48 hrs pw): 11% in the UK (ONS). • Clear sex and life cycle variations: • Mostly men, mostly aged 30-49 and with children. • Men tend to be satisfied, seeing benefits in pay and prospects. • Though women suffer more; more likely to report poor health, stress and dissatisfaction.

  6. Moreover, working hours reducing. LFS plus time budget data: UK males of spend far less time in paid work in 2001 than in 1961 (Roberts) -109 minutes; women +20 minutes. • ‘… there is no country, not even the US, in which there is uncontested evidence of an overall lengthening of work schedules in the late-twentieth century.’ • ‘Downward trend’ across the EU since 1983 and into 2000s (EC). • Long working hours reducing in UK workplaces for non-managers from 15% (2003) to 9% (2009); managers from 25% to 21% (BERR)

  7. EU av. 39hrs per week, though longer for men due to overtime, shorter for women due to part-time work. • Demand for less not huge. • only 3.7 hours, shorter full-time (strip out overtime?); women want least change. (BB&W). • Though note: workforce split 49:51 over less and same/more hours. • Other evidence (4th EWCS) states 4/5 workers satisfied with current working time arrangements. Little difference between men and women and those with/out dependent children.

  8. Paradox if hours still too long - can go part-time but don’t. • Vast majority of full-time men (75%) and women (63%) do not want part-time hours. Just want slightly shorter existing hours (BBW). • Trade-off: working hours and pay vs lifestyle needs/wants; ‘downshifters’ more topical than typical – social rationality approach. • When do express desire for part-time hours, want it for personal indulgence (77%) not care reasons (BB&W). Any ‘time squeeze’ is on ‘my time’ not family time (also Roberts).

  9. Myth #2: that work is bad • Always been ‘hidden injuries of work’ – Studs Terkel. • But I love my job! 4/5 of workers satisfied/very satisfied with their job, and consistent over last 10 years (4th EWCS). Better than sex according to Trinca and Fox. • The unemployed suffer without work; materially, socially and psychologically: F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1930s to Jahoda in 1980s. • Contrary to Bauman’s claim that work is decentred, there is a ‘cult of work’ (Bradley et al.)

  10. A cult that government and some academics have joined: • Welfare to work schemes • Demands for full employment • Interesting that with the credit crunch, job loses not being cast as liberation from work; that in 1968 French students demonstrated against ‘work’, in 2006 demonstrated to demand ‘lock-in’ jobs –the ‘precariate protests’.

  11. Myth # 3: that work and life are separate/able • Collective amnesia: they aren’t and we’ve always known that they aren’t – physically or psychologically. • Work still a source of identity – despite what Bauman claims, we are not what we buy. Even low wage workers ‘borrow prestige’ from work (Sherman). • Communities in occupations; occupations in communities. From police to jazz players, from shipyards to coalfields, even IT workers: ‘If you have a language outside work, then you have a language inside work’ (kibbutz member)

  12. E.g. Scargill during miners strike: ‘You’re fighting for your loyalty, your dignity and your self-respect as human beings’. Legacy of the strike: women's raised consciousness (Bradley). • Used by workers as solidarity against management; by management as social control – remember ‘corporate culture’ and the new moral order (Peters/Willmott)?. • If anything, link strengthened now with creative industries’ claim of blurring of lifestyle and work and vanguard claim for creative industries (Eikhof and Haunschild).

  13. So what are the drivers? • ‘Neo-liberalism ploy’ (e.g. Fleetwood) • Deregulation of employment with: • End of the standard working day/working week • Individualisation of the employee relationship • Rhetoric of WLB for employees but practice different: on management’s terms. • Rehabilitates and masks ‘flexibility’; end of unsocial working hours, evening/weekend working. • (However most ‘right to request’ granted, though true that better family-friendly workplaces limited.)

  14. Response to demographic crisis and ‘labour market shrinkage’ (e.g. MacInnes) • Not better lives but breeding new lives • EU concerned about baby crisis. 2003 EU population increased by 1.2m but of which births accounted for only 0.2m. • Hence family-friendly policies dominate WLB agenda • (Possibly why CIPD detects resentment backlash from childless workers.)

  15. Outcome of the dual burden and ‘second shift’ (e.g. Hochschild; Pocock) • Female part-time hours are rising hence household paid working time is rising but male intransigence when it comes to domestic labour. • Even in more egalitarian Sweden, strong division of household labour remains (Fangel and Aaløkke). • Might account for why Australian women at least are happier with shorter working hours (Booth and van Ours). • Note: work also more interesting and more social than nappies and four walls: the ‘flight to work’ of Hochschild.

  16. Consequence of rise in consumption (Schor). • In the past kept up with the Jones’ now spending like our Friends; different socio-economic group. Ratcheting up of expectations. • Link to designification; marble kitchen tops, not plastic. • Need to work more to meet own demands – and recognise the link. It’s debt/credit (Ritzer) or putting in the hours ‘to get on in life’ (Cowling). • Manual workers long hours accounted for by paid overtime ‘to increase pay’ (Kodz et al.) and fight to keep it.

  17. Outcome of work intensification not time ‘time extendification’ (e.g. Roberts) • Doing more in the same time: ‘chained to desk’ • Doing more with less: ‘lean organisations’ • More stress/increasing pressures at work (BSAS) • ‘More to do in the same hours than three years ago’ • First order problem is heavy workloads, hours follow. Focus currently on symptom, not cause.

  18. But not the full story… • Stimulated by the chattering classes lament? • ‘the higher the average level of human capital, the greater … the preference for shorter working hours’ (BBW). Suggested reasons: working conditions and new performance requirements. • Long and unsocial hours working a long feature of working class jobs e.g. car, dock and warehouse workers. These workers continue to work long hours and defend doing so (ONS). Reason: paid overtime makes difference between scrapping by and decent life.

  19. Now spreading to middle classes: • 2/3 of long-hours M&P do so unpaid cf. other long-hours workers. • with expanded service economy with ‘customer culture’ e.g. doctors and the ‘9-5’ dissolving. • ICT connectivity e.g. civil servants; ‘crackberry’ addition. More accountable (autonomy). • M&P typically work longest hours, also more stressed at work (BSAS). Amongst long-hours women, 2/3 are M&P (ONS). Same true for US; Schor too blunt (Jacobs and Gerson). • Suggestion from Haworth and Lewis that part of professional identity (also Stone); ‘badge of honour’ but cf. presenteeism.

  20. Three developments within the professions • M&P spatial and temporal ‘availability’ an issue; work/life more permeable (Bergman and Gardiner). Work always more portable for M&P, now with ITC M&P more accessible (control). • Shift from time to task driven work (Pocock et al.): ‘clock lost its authority’ cf. E.P. Thompson. • Work intensification with ‘over-demanding jobs’ in US (Jacobs and Gerson); in UK more to do now - 38% non-M&P workers, 64% M&P workers (BERR).

  21. Three developments across the professions • Expansion but also fragmentation of higher or traditional professional jobs with polarised work • Emergent new professions are a ‘precariate’, with famine and feast project work • Expansion of lower or associate professions but ‘means to ends work’ not ‘way of life work’ • Work life balance is the middle classes elevating personal crises as public concern? Have ‘form’: cf. 1980s ‘IR problem’ & 1990s ‘death of the job’; 2000s ‘new traditionalists’ (Stone).

  22. Have come full circle …

  23. Concluding Remarks • Need for better evaluation of public discourse. It’s currently a policy unsupported by the evidence. • No doubt some workers, in some occupations in some industries in some countries want reduced working hours, but for a variety of reasons. • But need to distinguish presence from prevalence. Long hours not prevalent. • Most workers content with WLB and ‘balance’ not a useful articulation of the relationship between work and life

  24. Signals the need for new research agendas • Apply life cycle analysis, overlaying transitional labour markets (Schmid) to issue of WLB. • Developing better conceptualisation of the relationship between work and life. • Boundary and beyond? (Warhurst et al.) • Return to traditional sociological concerns – low pay, work intensification, gendered divisions of labour, different regulatory regimes. • Final point: a difference between ethical neutrality - i.e. scepticism – and moral indifference (Eldridge).

  25. Journal special and edited book Doris Eikhof, Chris Warhurst and Axel Haunschild (2007) guest editors special issue ‘Critical Reflections on the Work-Life Balance Debate’, Employee Relations, 29:4. Chris Warhurst, Doris Eikhof and Axel Haunschild (eds) (2008) Work Less Live More? Critical Analyses of the Work-Life Relationship, London: Palgrave

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