This article explores work–family interface and the use of mobile technologies (MTs) among male lawyers in Quebec (French Canada) and Finland – two civil law contexts with reputations for legislation friendly toward work–family balance. Drawing on 34 interviews with male lawyers and combining two theoretical lenses, shifting ideals of fatherhood and work–family boundary theory, our study shows how men’s preferences for work–family boundary management relate to diversifying models of fatherhood and family. In Finland, male lawyers more readily embrace family responsibilities and they strive to set firm boundaries to curtail work spilling over into family life. Yet, the cultural and professional norm of men as breadwinners remains strong, especially for Canadian male lawyers whose spouses more often assume primary responsibility for childcare. Our study offers qualitative markers of boundary management styles and strategies (spatial, temporal, and psychological) of male professionals – as struggling segmentors, struggling integrators, and integrators. We observe that senior male lawyers, living in more traditional family models, frequently model integrating behaviours, such as around-the-clock availability via MTs. This modeling establishes expectations of what represents a committed professional worthy of promotion. These practices play an important role in sustaining and reproducing gender inequalities in organisations that employ professionals.

Sociologists have paid little attention to the shifting significance of gender to professional work. Nevertheless, there is evidence that the meanings attached to gender, and the gendering of work, have shifted over time, such that the experiences of newer cohorts of professionals differ from those of professionals in previous generations. In this paper, we show how combining intersectionality theory and life course approaches facilitates the exploration of inequalities by gender, class, and race/ethnicity across generations and age cohorts. We present empirical research findings to demonstrate how this approach illuminates the convergence of gender and age in the professions to confer privilege and produce disadvantage in professional workplaces. Subsequently, we introduce the concept of meta-work—hidden, invisible and laborious work performed by non-traditional and disadvantaged professionals—through which they endeavor to cope with structural inequalities embedded in the professions. As professions and professional workplaces are still designed primarily for middle-class, dominant-ethnicity men, professionals who do not fit these categories need to invest extra time and energy to develop individual strategies and tactics to cope with professional pressures in and around their work. Meta-work is intrinsically linked to the traditional and normative ideals surrounding professional roles and identities, and therefore is intimately connected with professionals’ sense of self and their feeling of belonging to professional communities. Meta-work, and the tactics and strategies that result from it, are important coping mechanisms for some professionals, enabling them to deal with rapidly changing work realities and a lack of collegial support. Finally, we highlight several areas for future research on the intersections of gender and age in the professions.

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Emerald Tieteelliset aikakauslehtiartikkelit © Emerald Publishing Limited CC BY-NC http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ http://dx. Abstract PurposeWhile previous research on opting out has been mainly about women who leave their careers altogether, this article follows a broader definition of opting out to investigate the process and experience of women developing agency as they leave masculinist career patterns to adopt alternative career solutions. Design/methodology/approachBuilding on an interdisciplinary framework and a narrative approach, this article analyses the opting out and in processes of women managers in Finland and the United States. FindingsThe article demonstrates four micro-strategies that the women used to develop individual agency in their processes of opting out of masculinist career models and opting in to alternative solutions for work. These micro-strategies are redefining career success, transcending boundaries, renegotiating working conditions, and keeping in touch with professional networks. Practical implicationsOrganisational leaders can use the knowledge of the strategies that empower women in their opting out processes when making decisions regarding working practices. In order to retain their employees, organisations should be supportive of employees' individual agency and their participation in developing work structures, as well as providing more opportunities for two-way blurring between work and family instead of the current one-way blurring where work spills over to family life, increasing work-family conflict. Originality/valueThe article develops a framework to better understand women's agency during the process of opting out of corporate careers and opting in to solutions like part-time work and selfemployment, deepening the current understanding of these solutions and presenting the micro-strategies they use to develop reflexive agency.

Nordic countries are considered international leaders in producing combinable data on their citizens' encounters with public institutions, as well as the digitalisation of public services. Publicsector professionals increasingly collaborate with private IT companies in developing data analytics products for cost saving and cost-efficiency. This article presents the results of a two-year ethnographic study of a collaboration between the Knowledge Team of a public-sector organisation and a private-sector IT company for developing and maintaining a data management system in one Finnish regional healthcare and social service organisation. The data management system is defined as a data analytics product that provides management with information about clinical and financial aspects of organisation management. We combine perspectives of science and technology studies and the sociology of professions to situate our research on the data management system as a boundary object within the broader context of professional work. Via our theoretical framework, we examine the negotiation process through which the data management system becomes a boundary object in practice. This process includes not only the accommodation of diverse epistemic cultures but also organisational and professional hierarchies that empower some experts to shape the data management system towards their visions and interests. This article applies the 'boundary object' concept to elucidate structural power differentials in public-private partnerships and multi-professional collaborations.

Family policies in Finland and French Canada (Québec) include fathers' rights to paternity and 2 parental leaves, which have resulted in more fathers using parental leave. And yet, this policy has a limited outreach to male-dominated professions, including the legal profession. In this article, we examine attitudes on paternity and parental leaves among male lawyers and the motives behind their decisions to use or not use them. We approach the issue from the perspective of the legal profession's professional ethos, which impacts lawyers' attitudes and practices regarding work-life balance. In our analysis, we draw on 20 Finnish and 18 Quebecois interviews with current and former male lawyers from private law practices in two urban civil-law contexts: Helsinki, Finland, and Montreal, Canada. The findings indicate that in traditionally male-dominated professions, it is not enough to provide men with a statutory right to paternity and parental leave. There is also a need for organisational solutions and peer encouragement in the work environment so that men feel comfortable taking leave.

This article focuses on emotions, conceptualised as emotional labour, evoked during data practices used to repurpose and enable healthcare data journeys for Finnish public healthcare. Combined approaches from critical data studies and the sociology of emotions were used to contribute to a better understanding of the mundane but often invisible work of the emotions of experts involved in data practices, such as facilitating data journeys and building data technologies. The article is based on a two-and-a-half-year ethnographic study conducted in a Finnish regional public healthcare and social service organisation. The study results were derived from the analysis of 39 interviews and fieldnotes produced by observing 170 h of various meetings, events and work activities performed by experts. The results were organised into three forms of observed experts’ emotional labour related to three phases of healthcare data journeys: (a) caring for data production and preparing data for travel, (b) managing excitement and frustration in data processing for continually building the data management system, and (c) reassuring users in making sense of obtained data analytics. The results contribute to a greater understanding of the emotions and emotional labour generated by healthcare data journeys and in relation to the volatile nature of healthcare data and the collaborative character of data practices. This work advocates for a better recognition of the emotional aspects of data practices and their implications on data-based knowledge and datafication processes in healthcare.