Temporal Autonomy as Multidimensional: Discerning Determinants of French Employees’ Type of Control Over Work Time

• In Event: 2451 - Section on Organizations, Occupations, and Work Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 5. Flexible and Precarious Labor

Abstract

Temporal autonomy has now been largely discussed amongst both sociologists and policy-makers. The consequences of women massively joining the labor force and parting from full-time domestic life on family life have given rise to a vast literature investigating the difficulties of reconciling work and family and how temporal autonomy might alleviate them. Yet, this literature relies on a restrictive and incomplete definition of temporal autonomy and tends to focus on who gets autonomy and why and neglects the question of who gets what kind of autonomy and why. This paper intends to bridge this gap. Using data from the French Time-Use Survey 2010 for a sample of 8100 employees, it builds a typology of temporal autonomy, ranging from accumulated constraints to total autonomy, and highlights its determinants. I find that the most precarious, less qualified workers accumulate various forms of constraints, from imposed daily hours to imposed vacation dates and a wish to work more and at different times; while the most privileged (highly educated, male, in high-paying jobs) can freely arrange their work time on a day-to-day basis as well as in the longer term. This is explained by social position and job specificity: being endowed with more cultural and economic resources increases one’s chances of accumulating different forms of autonomy, to a certain extent only. Working in specific industries such as the transportation industry, in large establishments (over 500 employees) and in the private sector is detrimental to being autonomous on all fronts.

Author

• Jeanne Liliane Elisabeth Ganault, CREST