The interference of paid work with household demands in different social policy contexts: perceived work–household conflict in Sweden, the UK, the Netherlands, Hungary, and the Czech Republic

Abstract

The article explores whether people experiences a lower level of work-household conflict in a context that is characterized by extensive family policies (Sweden and to some extent Hungary and Czech Republic) aimed at facilitating participation in the labour market. This is done by studying perceived work-household conflict among women and men living in Sweden, the UK, the Netherlands, Hungary, and the Czech Republic. The analyses are based on the answers to a questionnaire distributed to nearly 6,000 randomly selected individuals within the framework of the European Union financed 'Household, Work, and Flexibility' (HWF) study. The results show that women in Sweden experience conflicts between work and household demands to a higher degree than any other category in all five countries. The differences between Swedish women and women living in the Netherlands and the UK are explained by variables indicating qualifications and workload in the main job, but the lower degree of work-household conflict among Czech and Hungarian women is still significant when controlling for household composition and working conditions. Data indicate that a possible explanation for this can be found in the interplay between men's and women's attitudes toward gender roles and the actual situation in terms of division of labour.

The Importance of Job and Family Satisfaction for Happiness among Women and Men in Different Gender Regimes

“…This means that they are more inclined to support the idea that women should bear the main responsibility for the household while men should be the main breadwinners. The results also show that household work is generally and to a great extent divided according to a traditional gender pattern [27,28]. As a result, one can argue that countries in this part of Europe also represent a relatively conservative gender regime.…”

“…Even in this case, there are few state-financed family policy measures with the aim of facilitating continued work for mothers (and fathers; however, there are women who have the main responsibility for childcare). Liberal countries normally stress the importance of a strong work ethic among both men and women; however, paid and unpaid work still remain more traditionally divided than in the Nordic countries [19,23,24,27,29].…”

Work–home interference and its prospective relation to major depression and treatment with antidepressants

“…A general trend is that the boundaries between work and non-work continue to change, and dual-earning families have become more prevalent (9). The Nordic countries have a tradition of relatively equal employment participation, but despite development of family-friendly policies, it has been reported that women in Sweden experience a higher degree of conflict between work and household demands than women in some other European countries (10). In a representative Swedish sample, as much as 25% of all men and 31% of all women reported WFC at some time during a week 2004 (11).…”

Comparing Work-Life Conflict in Europe: Evidence from the European Social Survey

“…The studies that do exist have stressed the importance of considering the full range of mediating institutional-level factors (Crompton and Lyonette 2006;Scherer and Steiber 2007). These include welfare regime and the extent of reconciliation or 'family-friendly' policies such as the availability of parental leave, the right to flexible working arrangements, and the costs and coverage of childcare provision (Strandh and Nordenmark 2006;Van der Lippe et al 2006;Gornick 2007). A recent special issue investigates the effect of policies on work-life balance from a theoretical/policy perspective (Gornick 2006).…”

“…The next paper considers the supposition that work-life conflict is all part of a new West European culture of 'busyness' (e.g., Strandh and Nordenmark 2006). Drawing on debates from the time-use literature that busyness is a privileged position (Gershuny 2005) and that much time poverty is 'yuppie kvetch' or complaining (Hammermesh and Lee 2007), Frances McGinnity and Emma Calvert explore the relationship between worklife conflict and social inequality in eight West European countries: Germany, France, Spain, UK, Ireland, The Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden.…”