Institutional Perspectives on Law, Work, and Family

Abstract

Work and family scholarship increasingly focuses on how institutions constrain the choices of families struggling to balance market work with care work. Recent legal reforms, including the Family and Medical Leave Act, also focus on institutional reform to alleviate work/family conflict. This article reviews important empirical questions raised by this institutional turn in both law and social science. How have changes in the institutions of family and work contributed to work/family conflict? Have legal reforms produced more egalitarian sharing of care work between men and women? How do work organizations respond to these legal mandates? How have organizational and cultural institutions hindered or given support to laws that attempt to reform the relationship between work and family? Empirical research indicates that legal reforms have brought about important changes but that entrenched work practices and cultural norms around work, family, and gender continue to generate institutional resistance to social change.

Gender Still Matters: Effects of Workplace Discrimination on Employment Schedules of Young Professionals

“…While men and fathers are free to work long hours as often expected by employers (Thornton 2016), women are conflicted in having to make the "hard choices" (Jacobs and Gerson 2004). Employed mothers not conforming to the "appropriate" gender and parent role expectations find themselves being devalued as caretaker and in their performance and competence at work (Albiston 2007;Dowd 1989;Benard and Correll 2010;Sterling and Reichman 2016). When work is structured this way, women are confronted with gender (stereotypes) and role expectations that consequently influence their work schedule as well as their career progress.…”

“…A large body of U.S. contemporary research continues to document that women, compared to men, still face greater challenges in advancing their professional careers (Albiston 2007;Dau-Schmidt et al 2009;Epstein et al 1995;Kricheli-Katz 2012;Rhode 2011;Williams and Richardson 2010). While women in the U.S. have been entering law schools in equal proportions to men for almost 30 years, research finds evidence that women still have not made the same progress ascending to positions of leadership and partners as men (Epstein 1981;Rhode 2001;Rikleen 2015;Sterling and Reichman 2016).…”

The “State” of Equal Employment Opportunity Law and Managerial Gender Diversity

“…In fact, the federal government looks to states as the arbiters of employment equity; for example, the EEOC, who enforces federal equal employment law, relies on the findings of the state in employment discrimination cases (see Roscigno 2007). Given states' power to shape workplace norms and exert legal pressure for gender equity, it is reasonable to expect that when state laws support workplace equality, private establishments in those states respond by implementing fair employment practices (Albiston 2007). These practices can, in turn, lead to a climate less tolerant of unfair gender-based treatment and greater gender diversity within managerial ranks (Skaggs 2009).…”

The Initial Assignment Effect

“…And then, once they begin to use work-family programs, they may suffer even further because by simply using the programs they highlight their membership in traditionally disadvantaged groups and thus may invite supervisors to question their commitment, abilities, and marketability (e.g. Albiston, 2007;Blair-Loy, 2003;Epstein, Seron, Oglensky, & Saute, 1999;Ridgeway & Correll, 2004).…”

“…Since employees who are eligible for these employee rights programs suffer the same vulnerabilities as those who are eligible for work-family programs-women, minorities, or disabled employees are often perceived as less competent than other employees, and if they do use the programs, highlight their membership in traditionally disadvantaged groups and thus may invite their supervisors to question their commitment, abilities, and marketability (e.g. Albiston, 2007;Edelman, Erlanger, & Lande, 1993;Harlan & Robert, 1998;Heimer & Staffen, 1998;Morrill, 1995;Silbey, Huising, & Coslovsky, 2009) -our findings suggest that initial assignment to a powerful supervisor would likely promote positive career outcomes for users of these other kinds of employee rights programs as well. However, the timing of program use may be important.…”