Home‐based Telework, Gender, and the Synchronization of Work and Family: Perspectives of Teleworkers and their Co‐residents

Sullivan, Cath; Lewis, Suzan

doi:10.1111/1468-0432.00125

Cited by 357 publications

(422 citation statements)

References 37 publications

(44 reference statements)

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“…One of the ways in which the government suggests that a balance between work and other life commitments might be achieved is by working from home (DTI, 2001a(DTI, , 2002 This forms part of a wider trend in which homeworking is presented as an antidote to the stresses of working life (Aldrich, 1982;Bulos and Chaker, 1991;Galinsky et al, 1993;Mahfood, 1992;Qvortrup, 1992;Hutchinson and Brewster, 1994;Duxbury et al, 1998;Hill et al, 1996;Mirchandani, 1998;Sullivan and Lewis, 2001). However, homeworking is being promoted in this way without a full examination of its value or limitation as a contributor to the work-life balance.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Work–life Balance and Working from Home

Crosbie¹,

Moore²

2004

Social Policy & Society

206

139

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In recent years, there has been increasing focus on the question of how to balance work and life commitments in both academic and political debates. Homeworking is one initiative that has been promoted as a way of improving the work–life balance. This paper examines the experience of homeworking drawing on a recently completed ESRC study on homeworkers. Using the data from 45 interviews and 3 focus groups with homeworkers from different socio-economic backgrounds, it explores the question of whether working (or not) from home improves people's capacity to balance their work and life commitments.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Work–life Balance and Working from Home

Crosbie¹,

Moore²

2004

Social Policy & Society

206

139

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“…In this paper, we intentionally use an inclusive definition of telework, since we are interested in all cases where an employee works from home at least some of the time. To minimize confusion, we will solely use the term 'telework' for the rest of this paper, although readers should remember that alternative terms and definitions exist (see Sullivan and Lewis, 2001;Wilks and Billsberry, 2007). We agree with Schweitzer and Duxbury's (2006) view that, whether called telework or something else, the key characteristic is that an employee spends part of his or her work hours away from the employer's traditional location, and that technological changes have made it possible to do so for individuals in many fields and occupations.…”

Section: Our Quantitative Analysis Was Based On Statistics Canada's 2mentioning

confidence: 99%

Dialing it in: A Missed Opportunity Regarding the Strategic Use of Telework?

Cooke

Chowhan

Cooper

2014

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The purpose of this paper is to examine the degree of alignment of organizational strategies with two types of telework using Statistics Canada’s 2005 Workplace and Employee Survey data. In this paper, we intentionally use the most inclusive definition of telework, because we are interested in all cases where an employee works from home at least some of the time. We consider telework to be ‘employee-oriented’ when an employee works at home to address his and her family-related or personal wants or needs, and ‘employer-oriented’ when an employee works at home due to the employer’s strategic or operational objectives. The three organizational strategies that we considered were innovation, involvement, and cost-containment. We found that employers focusing on innovation were significantly more likely than other employers to use both types of telework, with greater emphasis on employee-oriented telework, whereas employers using an involvement strategy were less likely to use either type of telework, albeit at only a weak level of significance. Moreover, we did not find a statistical relationship between the cost containment strategy and either type of telework. We hypothesized that employee-oriented telework would be more common among workers in workplaces focusing on innovation or involvement, but less common among workers in workplaces focusing on cost containment. We hypothesized the reverse situation for the incidence of employer-oriented telework. On the whole, the results suggested that employers are not universally aligning the implementation of the two types of telework with their organizational strategies. Rather, either telework is not commonly used as a strategic tool or, alternatively, the strategic implementation of these two types of telework is more contingent upon other organizational or employee factors in specific circumstances.Dans cet article nous proposons d’examiner le degré d’alignement des stratégies organisationnelles selon deux types de télétravail, et ce, à partir des données de l’Enquête sur le milieu de travail et les employés de 2005 de Statistiques Canada. Nous adoptons intentionnellement la définition la plus inclusive du télétravail qui soit parce que nous nous intéressons à toutes les situations où un employé travaille à partir de son domicile et ce, pour au moins une partie de son temps de travail. Nous considérons que le télétravail est « orienté vers l’employé » lorsqu’un employé travaille à domicile pour répondre à ses souhaits ou à ses besoins pour des raisons familiales ou personnelles, et est « orienté vers l’employeur », lorsqu’un employé travaille à domicile pour répondre à un objectif stratégique et opérationnel de son employeur. Les trois stratégies organisationnelles que nous avons retenues sont l’innovation, l’implication et le contrôle des coûts.Nos ...

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“…Mothers are less able than fathers to rely on partners for childcare while they are working (Barclays Bank 2004). Women in business also commonly trade while caring for children simultaneously or invest non-standard hours in their business, often by working from home, strategies that may not be available to employed women (Sullivan and Lewis, 2001;Loscocco and SmithHunter, 2004). 4 Fathers in business more often rely on mothers to organise the family's childcare jigsaw and to provide the majority of care work, although some fill 'gaps' in their partner's childcare jigsaw and a small minority take a greater responsibility for childcare (Baines et al, 2003).…”

Section: The Childcare Barrier To Business Tradingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Do Enterprise Support Programmes Leave Women Holding the Baby?

Rouse

Kitching

2006

Environ Plann C Gov Policy

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Using data from a longitudinal study of working-class participants on a youth enterprise start-up programme in the UK, we examine whether programmes aimed at disadvantaged groups enable parents to combine business trading with childcare responsibilities. Business planning and programme selection practices ignored childcare, rendering it a solely private matter, invisible to public scrutiny. Yet this childcare barrier became both a cause and a consequence of business failure. Participants' experiences of combining trading and childcare varied by gender. All mothers and one father had complex strategies for synchronizing trading and childcare responsibilities. However, these strategies soon collapsed, 1 contributing to business closure. Most fathers relied on the children's mother to organise and conduct continuous care but this was dependent on fathers becoming breadwinners through profitable trading which was not achieved. There is growing policy recognition of the importance of the childcare barrier to paid work for lower income families and for selfemployed women in the UK. However, despite recent initiatives, severe constraints remain for working class parents to start and manage a business.Several implications for policy are discussed.

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Home‐based Telework, Gender, and the Synchronization of Work and Family: Perspectives of Teleworkers and their Co‐residents

Cited by 357 publications

References 37 publications

Work–life Balance and Working from Home

Work–life Balance and Working from Home

Dialing it in: A Missed Opportunity Regarding the Strategic Use of Telework?

Do Enterprise Support Programmes Leave Women Holding the Baby?

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