When the past comes back to haunt you: The enduring influence of upbringing on the work–family decisions of professional parents

Abstract

Research on work-family balance decisions generally presents them as an individual's rational choice between alternatives. The anticipatory socialisation literature highlights the role that early formative experiences play in shaping work and parenting decisions. We go further to emphasise the role of habitus -historically constituted dispositions -in workfamily balance decisions. This relational approach explores how the entrenched and historically formed dispositions of individuals interact dynamically with contextual (i.e. organizational) imperatives. Numerous studies have highlighted the difficulties of reconciling the intense demands of professional careers with family lives. Drawing on 148 interviews with 78 male and female professionals, our study looks at much deeper rooted causes of work-family conflict in professional service firms than have previously been considered. We identify four broad patterns of response to the work-family conflict: professionals may willingly reproduce their parental model, reproduce their parental model against their will, willingly distance themselves from their parental model, and distance themselves from the parental model against their will. We show that the impediments to greater equality lie not only in organizational and societal structures, but within individuals themselves in the form of historically constituted dispositions which contribute towards the maintenance and reproduction of those structures.

Diversity in the work–life interface: introduction to the special issue

“…; differences in work-family conflict and its impact according to geographical region (Drummond et al, 2017;Masuda et al, 2019); tactics for establishing and maintaining boundaries between work and family domains (Cruz and Meisenbach, 2018); decision making about work-family issues (Lupu et al, 2018); and organizational and legislative policy and practices designed to help workers fulfil dual roles (Cannizzo et al, 2019;Kossek et al, 2010). This body of research has generated important empirical and theoretical insights suggesting that work-life negotiations largely remain a struggle for individual workers, and also produced valuable and much-needed recommendations for organisations and policy makers.…”

L' harmonisation travail-vie personnelle des gestionnaires du réseau de la santé : exploration des défis et des stratégies

“…Cela fait en sorte que des rôles qui peuvent paraître difficilement conciliables (p. ex. : parent et gestionnaire) sont à l'origine de conflits, surtout lorsque les demandes d'un rôle interfèrent avec les capacités individuelles à atteindre les objectifs désirés (Lupu et al, 2018).…”

Women in accounting: Revolution, where art thou?

“…They chart their own course and define which goals best fit their lives, values and dreams (Sandberg, 2013). The perceptions that contribute to the maintenance and reproduction of gendered structures are also held by the women affected by them, at least to a degree (Lupu et al, 2018). Getting women managers to senior executive and board levels can at least be partly achieved by women taking more responsibility for and ownership of their own career development (Holton and Dent, 2016), characteristics that would seem to be necessary to Goldin's (2006) view of a revolution.…”