The Gendered Effect of Work-Family Conflict on Opting Out, Changing Jobs, and Scaling Back

• In Event: 256 - Section on Organizations, Occupations and Work Roundtables (one-hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable: Table 17. Work and Family

Abstract

Recent studies show that men are reporting levels of work-family conflict comparable to their female counterparts—a trend that may reflect men’s increased investment in the family sphere. Given these patterns, we ask whether there are converging gender patterns with respect to the strategies than men and women use to deal with conflicting work and family experiences, and if so, are these strategies equally effective for each gender? We address these focal research questions using two-wave panel data from the Canadian Work, Stress, and Health study. We restrict our sample to married or cohabiting individuals with at least one child at either wave (N=627 fathers; 751 mothers). Contrary to expectations, we find that—as a result of work-family conflict—men and women are equally likely to opt out of paid work; stay working but change job positions; scale back on job pressures and hours; or, pursue more job flexibility. Even more surprising though, we find that men are exceedingly likely to change employment locations as a consequence of work-family conflict, compared to women. We theorize this finding to suggest that men may be pursuing family-friendly work cultures to help reduce levels of work-family conflict. We discuss the contribution of our study to research on gender, work, and family.

Author

• Marisa Christine Young, McMaster University