Navigating Life Under a 4-Day Workweek: Gendered Life Course Examination of Boundary Strategies and Work-Life Fit

• In Event: 20455 - Gender and Racial Inequality in Organizations

Abstract

The combination of technological and organizational policy changes is upending work at a pace not seen since the Industrial Revolution, with organizational experiments around a four-day work week (32 hours, full pay) one of the latest emerging innovations. We examine the time-work boundary strategies of workers navigating the work-life nexus when employers enable more time for life outside work. How do workers strategize work-life boundaries in light of an extra non-workday? How are different strategies distributed across life stages and gender, and which best facilitates a sense of work-life fit? Drawing on qualitative data on 42 employees in three organizations and supplemented by quantitative data on 518 employees in 48 companies -- all of which are conducting 4-day workweek trials in the U.S. and Canada -- we examine workers’ shifting time-work strategies in managing boundaries between their jobs and the rest of life. We theorize these strategies vary at the intersections of gender and life stage. In-depth interviews reveal three time-work strategies: 1) sharp boundaries, 2) selective flexibility, and 3) blurred boundaries. Quantitative and qualitative analyses reveal differences in strategies at the intersections between gender and life stage, with younger workers and women being more likely to establish sharp boundaries. Quantitative analysis also finds work-life fit improves most significantly for those who do not work at all on the weekday off.

Authors

• Youngmin Chu, University of Minnesota

• Phyllis Moen, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities

• Wen Fan, Boston College

• Juliet B. Schor, Boston College