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174
7. Work–family con ict and well- being
in Northern Europe
Jacqueline Scott and Anke C. Plagnol
INTRODUCTION
Work–family con ict is a crucial issue for quality of life. Moreover, public
interest in work–family balance policies has expanded signi cantly in
recent years. From the policy- maker’s perspective the issue concerns the
extent to which the state can and should intervene to help men and women
reconcile work and family responsibilities. This issue has become urgent
because, as Esping- Andersen asserts, there is an incomplete revolution
in gender roles that threatens societal stability (Esping- Andersen 2009).
What is meant by such a claim? The idea is that in modern societies women
are facing severe problems of reconciling their dual preference for chil-
dren and careers. For a growing proportion of women and men, women’s
employment and less gender specialisation is desirable, both ideologically
and pragmatically. Thus the dual- earner based partnership is becoming
normative – it is the ‘thing to do’.
Yet, we know only too well from time- budget studies that changes in
the domestic sphere lag well behind the changing realities of women’s
employment. Women, faced with only 24 hours in a day, nd they have
to reduce the time they spend on unpaid work such as housework and
family care, when they increase their hours of paid work. While women’s
paid work activity has been on the rise, time- budget studies reveal that, on
average, men are not compensating by an equivalent take- up of unpaid
work (Gershuny and Kan, Chapter 3 in this volume). So what is the solu-
tion? While housework can be outsourced to some extent, caring implies
an ongoing presence and emotional relationship that makes paid care dif-
ferent to family care.
The fact that current debates about work–family con ict in the UK and
elsewhere in Europe have tended to focus on the relationship between paid
work, parenting and caring is understandable. As Taylor (2001) points
out, the decades since the 1970s have seen a feminisation of the UK labour
market. The greatest rise in employment in the 1990s was among mothers
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Work–family con ict and well- being in Northern Europe 175
with children aged 4 or under. At the start of the new millennium, almost
half of the country’s lone mothers are in some form of part- time work,
although only one in ve of them are in full- time employment, a much
lower proportion than in the USA or even France. This change in the
gender make- up of the workforce raises inevitable concerns about how
women and men can raise families successfully, while contributing as fully
as possible to the labour force.
Family life depends greatly on the quality of relationships between
and across generations – within partnerships and between parents and
children. Traditionally it was the woman who took responsibility for the
home, while the man provided the income on which home- life depends. As
dual- earner partnerships become increasingly common, the cost for both
men and women in terms of work–family con ict and well- being comes
under scrutiny. Do women opt out of the labour force during early moth-
erhood because work–family con icts have become unbearable? Is life less
stressful for them than for mothers who are employed? Is part- time work
the panacea that some hope, enabling a better balance of work and family
and thereby increasing well- being?
An interesting irony is that although gender relations are one of the
most important aspects of work- family con ict, much of the existing
policy rhetoric about the need to balance work and family life remains
deliberately gender neutral. Indeed, as Lewis (2009) asserts, governments
have diverse goals for promoting work- balance policies but, outside of
Scandinavia, gender inequality is rarely a priority. Lewis further suggests
that in the UK gender equality has hardly been discussed; rather, policy
documents have striven for gender neutrality. One problem is that, in the
domain of work–family balance policies, the thorny problem of ‘equality-
as- sameness’ or ‘equality- as- di erence’ is core. If the aim is sameness then
this translates into an equal division of paid and unpaid work between
men and women: a citizen worker/carer model. This position has been
championed by Fraser (1994) on the basis of philosophical arguments, and
by Gornick and Meyers (2009) on the basis of empirical work. But if, as
Orlo suggests (2009), equality consists of di erences and diversity, then
policy may seek to mitigate any detrimental consequences of caring, albeit
at the risk of perpetuating caring work as women’s responsibility. Lewis
(2009), Orlo (2009) and others, following Sen (1999), advocate that
policy should not be equality of outcome but instead focus on realisable
opportunities that allow people to put their preferences into action.
Disentangling preference from constraint is hugely di cult and beyond
the scope of this chapter. We cannot delve into the extent to which men
and women are ful lling their choices in work–family balance (our
data do not permit this). Instead we are constrained to look at how the
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176 Gendered lives
particular contexts in which individuals’ lives are situated in uence their
experience of work–family con ict (WFC) and well- being. Our goal is to
examine how WFC and well- being di er by gender and across the family
life course. We use data from the 2004 European Social Survey (ESS) to
explore these issues in seven countries: Sweden, Norway, Denmark, the
Netherlands, Germany, France and the UK. These countries are selected,
in part, because they have very di erent traditions and policies regarding
work and family reconciliation.
One of our aims is to examine whether WFC and well- being varies
between countries that di er in their support for maternal employment
and a more equitable divide of family work between men and women. We
also explore how a couple’s division of paid and unpaid work across the
family life course in uences WFC, separately by country and for all seven
countries combined. We are particularly interested in examining how both
the experience of WFC and well- being is gendered in ways that re ect,
in part, the gendered division of paid and unpaid labour that is manifest
throughout Northern Europe.
In the next section we review brie y some of the relevant background
literature and present our speci c hypotheses. We then describe our meas-
ures and the approach to the analyses before we present our results. In
the summary and concluding section we bring together our main ndings
and revisit the challenging problem of what policy can and should do to
mitigate gender di erences in WFC and how this might impinge on policy
e orts that seek to enhance citizens’ well- being.
BACKGROUND LITERATURE
There has been a veritable explosion of research on ‘work–life balance’
or ‘work–family con ict’ in the past couple of decades, and much of the
literature deals with how policy di erences across Europe a ect peo-
ple’s work–life balance and associated well- being. These literatures can
be divided into two main camps of substantive focus, although the two
interlink. The rst focus is on employment and working conditions. Many
studies have been concerned with the way employment has been chang-
ing as a result of new processes of intensi cation and exibilisation (Beck
2000; Burchell et al. 2002; Cappelli et al. 1997; Green and McIntosh 2001).
It seems plausible that these developments have severe implications both
for personal well- being and for the risks of WFC. There is now increasing
evidence that this is indeed the case (Gallie and Russell 2009; Hildebrandt
2006). The second focus is on the changing nature of the family and the
position of women, in particular. There are concerns about issues of
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Work–family con ict and well- being in Northern Europe 177
gender equality; speci cally in the way men and women divide paid and
unpaid work (Harkness 2008; Kan and Gershuny 2010; Lewis 2008).
Much of the focus has been on women’s di culties in combining full- time
paid employment with motherhood (Crompton and Lyonette 2008; Fagan
et al. 2008; McRae 2008). However, concerns that women’s employment
con icts with care for frail elderly parents are also important for ageing
societies.
In the 1990s the UK Economic and Social Research Council sponsored
a research programme, the ‘Future of Work’. A working paper by Taylor
(2001) brought together insights into the future of work–life balance. This
emphasised that a focus on the di culties of balancing paid work and
parental responsibilities is too narrow an approach for understanding
the importance of the work–life debate. It urged that a broader discus-
sion was needed looking more rigorously at the changing character of
paid employment under the pressure it is facing from intensive business
competition and technological innovation. Job intensi cation and increas-
ing job insecurity were thought likely to have negative implications for
well- being. Moreover, there was concern that this might be particularly
marked in the UK, because, until recently, the UK lacked the kind of
legally enforceable individual and collective rights at work enjoyed by our
mainland European neighbours. Taylor cites the example of Nordic coun-
tries, where policies have tilted the so- called ‘balance’ between work and
life towards the protection of the perceived interests of employees, while at
the same time bene ting corporate performance.
Gallie and Russell (2009) took up the challenge of examining WFC
and working conditions in Western Europe. They found that working
conditions make a huge di erence to WFC among married cohabiting
employees across the same seven European countries that are examined
in this chapter. They suggest that there is a clear Nordic e ect for men.
Perceived WFC is lowest in the Nordic countries where co- ordinated pro-
duction regimes and social policies are more supportive of combining paid
work and care demands. Paradoxically they found that for women ‘raw’
levels of WFC are particularly high in France, Denmark and Sweden,
where supports for reconciling work and family life are good. In the case
of France, they suggest that the high con ict is due to higher levels of
family pressures associated with household composition. However, in
Denmark and Sweden the high WFC among women appears to be asso-
ciated with long work hours. Gallie and Russell (2009) found that when
looking at seven Northern European countries combined, working condi-
tions explained almost 30 per cent of the variance in WFC for both men
and women, while ‘family variables’ explained less than 5 per cent of the
variance. The fact that length of working hours, the prevalence of asocial
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178 Gendered lives
working hours, the intensity of work and job insecurity all had strong
negative e ects for work–family con ict is not surprising. But what is
surprising is their nding that working conditions accounted for much of
the inter- country variation in WFC. This raises the question of whether
their measures are overly work- centric and fail to capture the realities of
gender- related con icts between paid and unpaid work.
One important concern is how working mothers and fathers can rear their
children while at the same time performing paid work e ectively. Lewis
(2008) argues that in the UK the balance between family and employment
responsibilities was historically considered to be a private responsibility.
This is not the case in some countries of Europe where gender equality
enters the frame as a policy goal (see also Lewis, Chapter 8 in this volume).
In Nordic countries in particular, policies have been based on the assump-
tion that men and women will be fully engaged in the labour market. The
Nordic model treats women as workers, but then makes allowance for
di erence by grafting on transfers and services in respect of care work for
partnered and unpartnered mothers alike. Hobson (2004) has described the
Swedish variant as a ‘gender participation model’ focusing as it does on
promoting gender equality in employment and providing cash support for
parental leave and services of childcare and the care of older adults. As a
result of this ‘supported adult worker model’, high proportions of women
work (long) part- time hours exercising their right to work a six- hour day
when they have pre- school children. In many European countries includ-
ing the UK, Germany and the Netherlands, part- time work remains the
main way for women to reconcile work and family demands.
In recent decades, both in the UK and in other European countries,
policies have explicitly been designed to raise employment participation
amongst women. Thus for example, in Lisbon in March 2000 the heads of
government of the European Union subscribed to the goal of raising the
employment rate of women to 60 per cent by 2010 (Lewis et al. 2008). In
the UK, the Netherlands and the Nordic countries the goal was already
met by 2000 (Boeri et al. 2005), with France and Germany also close to
the target in 2000. There have also been concerns that reduced fertility
is problematic when the population is ageing. For example, Esping-
Andersen (2009) noted that the quality of people’s retirement years will
depend on the productivity of increasingly small cohorts of workers. He
goes on to suggest that, without any need of resort to feminist arguments,
a rational utility model would point to a normative shift towards dual-
career couples. He argues that in contemporary societies welfare systems
should support a more gender equitable divide in paid and unpaid work.
This would allow men and women to reconcile the competing demands
they face as partners, parents and workers.
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Work–family con ict and well- being in Northern Europe 179
Boye (2009) studied how paid and unpaid work a ects patterns of
well- being in Europe. She found that while men’s well- being appears to
be una ected by hours of paid work and housework, women’s well- being
increases with increased paid working hours and decreases with increased
hours of housework. Gender di erences in time spent on paid work and
housework accounted for one- third of the European gender di erence in
well- being and helped to explain why women have lower well- being than
men. In a more recent paper, Boye (2011) investigated whether associa-
tions between well- being and paid work and housework di ered between
European countries with di erent family policy models, and how this
related to WFC.
Boye followed Korpi’s (2000) typology of welfare state classi -
cation and di erentiated three family models: dual- earner, tradi-
tional and market orientated. Dual- earner models are characterised by
Scandinavian policies; these have strong support for female labour force
participation as well as male participation in unpaid reproduction work
in the family,but weaker support for women as homemakers. The tradi-
tional family models (found in France, Germany and Netherlands) have
high levels of traditional family support and low levels of dual- earner
support. The market- orientated family model is typical of the UK where
reproduction work is allocated to the family or the market and ‘choices’
of how to combine family and employment are seen mainly as a private
concern. Boye nds, counter- intuitively, that countries with the tra-
ditional family policies show the most positive association between
women’s well- being and paid work hours, although this association is
concealed by WFC.
HYPOTHESES
From the literature, we derive ten hypotheses concerning the relation-
ship between gender, paid and unpaid work, and well- being in Northern
Europe. These are as follows:
H1. Full- time employed women will have higher WFC than employed
men. This is because in the UK and other developed countries
women still undertake the bulk of the housework. This ‘second
shift’ phenomenon was rst named by Hochschild (1989). While
there is some evidence that the years since 1989 have seen some
erosion of the gender gap in household labour, the overwhelming
bulk of housework is still done by women (Kan and Gershuny
2010).
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180 Gendered lives
H2. Part- time employed women will have less WFC than full- time
employed women as part- time work is often used to reconcile work
and family demands.
H3. Gender patterns of well- being will be less pronounced than for
WFC because the well- being measure does not tap directly gender
inequalities in paid and unpaid work.
H4. WFC and well- being will be negatively correlated because high
levels of con ict reduces well- being.
H5. Country di erences in both WFC and well- being will remain
strong even when individual characteristics and couple work strat-
egies and family conditions are accounted for because the di erent
welfare systems/family policies vary in their support for combining
work and family life.
H6. Work conditions will be more important predictors than family
conditions for the WFC of both men and women. Thus we expect
to con rm Gallie and Russell’s (2009) ndings, even when couples’
paid and unpaid work strategies across the life course are included
in the models.
H7. Work and family factors will explain more of the variance in WFC
than in well- being, because well- being is more individualistic. For
example, health is an important predictor of well- being (Boye
2011).
H8. There will be gender di erences in the way family life stage a ects
WFC and well- being. Mothers’ are expected to display heightened
WFC and lower levels of well- being relative to fathers’ during the
child- rearing phase, because women tend to remain the primary
carer, regardless of their employment status.
H9. There will be gender di erences in the way a couple’s paid work
strategies a ect WFC and well- being. Boye’s ndings suggest that
men’s well- being will be una ected by work hours, whereas work
hours increase women’s well- being (Boye 2011). This sounds plau-
sible because work gives women an independence, which men may
take for granted.
H10. We expect men’s WFC and well- being to be more negatively
a ected than women’s by a less traditional divide of unpaid house-
work. Theories of ‘doing gender’ (West and Zimmerman 1987)
suggest that for women but not men to engage in housework is
acting out what is seen as the ‘essential nature’ of male and female
roles. Thus engaging in housework will have an adverse e ect on
the WFC and well- being of men, but not women.
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Work–family con ict and well- being in Northern Europe 181
DATA AND MEASURES
Our data are from the ‘Family, work and well- being’ module in the
European Social Survey (ESS) (Jowell 2005), which was created for
the second round of this cross- sectional survey conducted in 2004–05.
Our main variables of interest – the questions relating to WFC – were
only asked of people who were employed at the time of the survey, and
we limit our sample to those of prime working age, aged 18 to 65. We
restrict our sample to those in partnerships as we are particularly inter-
ested in the way heterosexual couples arrange paid and unpaid work
within a household. We exclude same- sex partnerships as there was
only a very small number of same- sex couples. We further restrict our
sample to include only seven of the original 25 ESS countries, namely,
Germany, France, the Netherlands, the UK, Denmark, Norway and
Sweden. The survey’s response rates in these countries were 65 per cent
in Sweden; 66 per cent in Norway; 64 per cent in Denmark; 64 per cent
in the Netherlands; 51 per cent in Germany; 51 per cent in the UK, and
44 per cent in France. In our analysis we use both design weights and
population weights (for more details see European Social Survey 2004).
The sample characteristics of variables in our analyses are shown in the
Appendix, Table A7.1.
KEY VARIABLES
Work–Family Con ict
The ESS contains ve indicators which measure various aspects of WFC
(see Table A7.2, in the Appendix). These items are supposed to measure
work- to- family con ict as well as family- to- work con ict. However, the
wording of the items emphasise mostly paid work. Not surprisingly previ-
ous research has found that work–life con ict (or work–life balance) is
most closely associated with paid work hours (for an overview see Pichler
2009). These ve indicators are often lumped together into a composite
measure of WFC. However, we chose to include only the rst four items
in our composite measure of WFC because the last item – which asks the
respondent about their di culty to concentrate on work because of family
responsibilities – is rarely mentioned as being a problem. The responses
to each item range from ‘never’ (coded as 1) to ‘always’ (coded as 5). Our
composite measure of work–family con ict consists of the mean score
of these rst four items with values ranging from 1 to 5 (5 is the highest
amount of work family con ict).
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182 Gendered lives
Well- being (WHO- 5)
We also consider a further measure of psychological well- being which is
less work- centric than WFC. This variable is a composite measure repre-
senting the mean of ve items, which are often referred to as the WHO- 5
well- being index (Bech 1998). The WHO- 5 well- being index is constructed
to measure positive well- being such as positive mood, vitality and general
interests (Psychatric Research Unit 2008). The ve items comprising the
measure are reverse coded from the original, ranging from 1 (at no time)
to 6 (all of the time). Our composite measure of well- being consists of the
mean score of these ve items with values ranging from 1 to 6 such that a
high score re ects high well- being (Appendix, Table A7.3).
Paid Work Strategies
We are particularly interested in whether couples’ division of work
signi cantly a ects their perceived WFC. We de ne four distinct paid
work strategies which are derived from the male and female partners’
usual weekly hours of work. A couple in which both partners work 30
hours or more per week is classi ed as a ‘dual earner’ couple. ‘Modi ed
male breadwinner’ couples consists of a female partner who works part
time at less than 30 hours per week, and a male who works more hours
than the female partner. If the female partner does not do any paid
work, the couple is denoted as a ‘male breadwinner’ couple. Couples in
whichthe female partner works more weekly hours than the male partner
are ‘female breadwinner’ couples. Table 7.1 summarises our paid work
strategies.
Unpaid Work Division
Individual male and female respondents (not living together) were
asked how many hours a week are usually spent on activities such as
cooking, washing, cleaning, shopping and maintenance of property
Table 7.1 Paid work strategies
Paid work hours strategy: His weekly hours Her weekly hours
Dual earner 30 or more 30 or more
Male breadwinner Only male works 0
Modi ed male breadwinner More than female Less than 30 hours
Female breadwinner Less hours than female More hours than male
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Work–family con ict and well- being in Northern Europe 183
(but not including childcare) by members of the household. This ques-
tion is followed by the respondent’s assessment of what proportion of
this time is spent on housework by the respondent him/herself and his/
her partner. The six response categories range from ‘None or almost
none’ to ‘All or nearly all of the time’. We derive from these questions
whether the division of unpaid labour in a household is ‘balanced’,
‘mostly male’, ‘mostly female’ or whether housework is done primarily
by ‘others’. However, this measure is not very precise and respondents
tend to overestimate their own contribution to unpaid work within a
household. While most male respondents state that the housework is
done mostly by their female partner, male are still more likely than
female partners to state that the division of housework is balanced or
largely done by the male partner. (Our data do not allow us to compare
or reconcile potential di erences in male or female partners’ views about
their respective shares of unpaid work (since we only have data on one
partner’s views.)
Family Life Course
Our family life course variable has four categories – younger couples
(where the woman is aged under 45) with no dependent children; couples
with children under 5; couples with children 5 to 18; older couples (with
women aged 45 or over) with no dependent children.
In addition to these key variables our multivariate analysis,
whichwe report in the nal part of our results section, includes meas-
ures of household income (quintiles). We include several measures about
the respondents only, including their years of full- time education, log
work hours, unsocial hours and task discretion. The unsocial hours
index combines three questions that tap the frequency of weekend work,
evening work and overtime, which are combined to form a scale of 1 to
5 where 1 represents those who never engage in these three activities and
5 represents participation in all three on a weekly basis. Task discretion
is measured by a question which asks people how much ‘the manage-
ment at your work allows you: (1) to decide how your daily work is
organised, (2) to in uence policy decisions about the activities of the
organisation and (3) to choose or change your pace of work’. The result-
ing index is a scale of zero to 10 with zero no in uence and 10 complete
control.
Our analytical strategy is to rst examine the bivariate associations
between WFC, gender and work status in the seven countries. We then
examine, for descriptive purposes, country di erences in the way family
life stage and dual- earner work status are related. We also examine the
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184 Gendered lives
relationship between WFC and well- being across countries and by gender.
This initial section on work status, family life course and gender allows us
to address the rst four hypotheses. The remaining six hypotheses require
multivariate regression analyses of WFC and well- being. For each, we
introduce three models: model 1 examines country di erences only; model
2 includes both country and family variables, along with gender, age,
education and household income; and model 3 adds in characteristics of
employment along with gender interactions for family life course, couples’
paid work strategies and unpaid work division.
WORK STATUS, FAMILY LIFE COURSE AND
GENDER
In Figure 7.1 we can see the mean scores of WFC by gender and work
status across each country among this sample of employed men and
women, aged 18–65 living in heterosexual partnerships. Contrary to our
expectations in Hypothesis 1, which derived from the ‘double shift’ ideas
of Hochschild (1989), the di erence in WFC between women who work
full- time and men is very small. (We do not di erentiate in this bivari-
ate analysis between full- time and part- time work for men, because the
vast majority of employed men have full- time jobs). In accordance with
Hypothesis 2, we nd that women who work part- time have signi cantly
1.0
Male
Female FT
Female PT
1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0
Germany
Denmark
France
UK
Netherlands
Norway
Sweden
All countries
Work–family conict
Figure 7.1 Work–family con ict by country, work status and gender
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Work–family con ict and well- being in Northern Europe 185
lower WFC than women who are in full- time employment (all countries
p< 0.000, except Norway p < 0.026).
So what of this ‘double shift’ theory? In our data, as Table 7.2 shows
for the seven countries combined, women do the bulk of the unpaid
work, regardless of the couple’s paid- work strategy. It is not surprising
that housework is done by ‘mostly female’ in three- quarters of our couple
households. Perhaps more surprising is that outsourcing most of domes-
tic labour is so rare – approximately 3 per cent in total. Our de nition
of unpaid work includes cooking and shopping which are probably less
frequently outsourced than cleaning, which is also included. It may also be
the case that domestic labour is viewed as too expensive or too intrusive
by most. The reports of a ‘balanced’ division of housework are quite high
– including on e in ve of our dual- earner couple households.
Table 7.3 shows the percentage of dual- earner couples by family life-
course stage for each of the seven countries and for all countries com-
bined. In all countries combined across all stages of the family life course
50 per cent are dual- earner couples. This percentage rises to over 72 per
cent for younger couples without children. The dual- earner model is most
common in Sweden (73 per cent) and Denmark (75 per cent of all couples)
and least common in the Netherlands (30 per cent). It is clear from Table
7.3 that most women work full- time before having children and many
women cut back on their paid work hours or drop out of the labour force
altogether when they have children. However, family paid- work strategies
vary considerably across countries. In Denmark and Sweden over three-
quarters of couples with young children are dual- earner couples, com-
pared with approximately 20 per cent in Germany and the Netherlands.
France has relatively high maternal employment with dual earners making
Table 7.2 Percentage reporting division of unpaid work by paid work
strategy for all seven countries
Paid work strategy Unpaid work strategy
Balanced Mostly
female
Mostly
male
Other Total per
cent
Dual earners 19.62 68.37 8.62 3.39 100
Male breadwinner 4.97 88.10 4.14 2.79 100
Modi ed male
breadwinner
9.21 84.82 3.56 2.42 100
Female breadwinner 15.12 57.45 22.44 4.99 100
Total 14.30 74.67 7.84 3.19 100
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186 Gendered lives
up 65 per cent of couples with young children. In the UK the equivalent
is 28 per cent.
The high proportion of dual earners among couples in the child- rearing
years in Sweden and Denmark is as we would expect. The Nordic coun-
tries’ public provision of childcare is very high for under- 3- year- olds, due
to the assumption that childcare is a legal right of every child (De Henau
et al. 2008). Interestingly, France shows a much higher proportion of
dual- earner couples with children than would be expected of a country
classi ed as following the traditional family model (Boye 2011). This
classi cation needs updating as there is relatively good state provision
for childcare in France (Gallie and Russell 2009). In the Netherlands, the
UK and Germany, dual- earner families are rare when children are young.
In Germany mothers are expected to care for infants (De Henau et al.
2008), whereas in the UK childcare provision remains mostly private and
relatively expensive (Schober and Scott, forthcoming).
Figure 7.2 shows, con rming Hypothesis 3, that the gender di erentia-
tion of well- being is much less marked than for WFC across all countries.
The striking nding from this gure is the relatively low well- being of UK
men and women, compared with the other six countries. This is something
we return to in our multivariate analysis.
ASSOCIATION OF WFC AND WELL- BEING
Hypothesis 4 suggested that WFC and well- being would be negatively
correlated and this is indeed the case as we can see in Table 7.4. The cor-
relation is strongest in Denmark and weakest in France, with the UK
Table 7.3 Percentage of dual earners couples by family life stage for the
seven countries
Countries Before
children
Children
<5
Children
5–18
Older
couples
All
Germany 57.38 21.15 43.64 44.06 42.65
Denmark 73.85 75.45 82.80 65.70 74.67
France 83.08 65.38 63.89 51.88 63.49
UK 79.44 27.58 36.56 41.19 43.77
Netherlands 68.66 18.89 20.06 23.71 29.92
Norway 65.96 58.94 61.45 54.66 59.28
Sweden 73.74 74.03 77.65 66.37 72.95
All countries 72.03 42.23 49.36 45.57 50.35
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Work–family con ict and well- being in Northern Europe 187
neither strong nor weak. Possibly a relative absence of ‘Protestant work
ethic’ in France may contribute to this pattern, but the country di erences
are not large. In all countries the correlation is stronger for men than for
women, except in Norway (where the gender pattern is reversed). The
gender di erence is more pronounced in the UK, France, Germany and
the Netherlands, and somewhat less marked in Sweden and Denmark.
1.0
Male
Female
1.5 2.0 2.5 5.03.0 3.5 4.0 4.5
Germany
Denmark
France
UK
Netherlands
Norway
Sweden
All countries
Well-being
Figure 7.2 Well- being by country and gender
Table 7.4 Correlations between work–family con ict and well- being
measures
Correlation
All Male Female
Germany −0.284*** −0.330*** −0.249***
Denmark −0.424*** −0.459*** −0.373***
France −0.217*** −0.265*** −0.177**
UK −0.251*** −0.329*** −0.231***
Netherlands −0.288*** −0.336*** −0.223**
Norway −0.270*** −0.251*** −0.319***
Sweden −0.318*** −0.341*** −0.289***
All −0.265*** −0.324*** −0.221***
Note: * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001.
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188 Gendered lives
This is not surprising given the strong support in Scandinavian countries
for the citizen worker model.
MULTIVARIATE REGRESSION ANALYSIS OF WFC
AND WELL- BEING
Tables 7.5a–c show three di erent regression models for WFC and
well- being for both genders combined (Table 7.5a) and men and women
separately (Tables 7.5b and 7.5c). The country di erences are shown in
model 1; family variables along with gender, age, education and household
income are added to country dummy variables in model 2; characteristics
of employment are added in, along with gender interaction e ects with
couples’ paid work strategy, unpaid work division, and family life- course
stages in model 3. The reference categories are the UK for country di er-
ences; dual- earner couples for paid work strategies (see Table 7.1 for de -
nition); balanced housework for the division of unpaid work; and women
under 45 without children for family life course.
WORK FAMILY CONFLICT AND WELL- BEING
Our fth hypothesis predicted that country di erences in both WFC and
well- being will remain strong even after controlling for other di erences;
controls include individual characteristics, couple work strategies, and
family and employment conditions, included because the di erent welfare
systems/family policies vary in their support for combining work and
family life. It can be seen in model 1 in Table 7.5a that the Netherlands,
Norway, Sweden and Denmark have signi cantly lower WFC than the
UK (the omitted category). In Table 7.5b, which shows men only, we can
see that men in all other countries have lower WFC than UK men. Table
7.5c shows this country pattern is not the same for women, as only Dutch
women have less WFC than UK women. However, this di erence between
the Netherlands and the UK disappears in model 3, once employment
conditions are accounted for. In addition, once employment conditions
are controlled, WFC is not signi cantly di erent between France and the
UK, for either men or women. Despite the overall country patterns dif-
fering across models, the Netherlands and Scandinavian countries have
consistently lower WFC than the UK for both women and men.
A similar picture emerges as we examine psychological well- being. The
highest well- being levels are found in Denmark, Norway, Sweden and the
Netherlands. The UK is by far the lowest – signi cantly lower than any
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189
Table 7.5a OLS regressions, both genders
Work–family con ict Well- being
Model 1
Countries only
Model 2
Family variables
Model 3
Full model
Model 1
Countries only
Model 2
Family variables
Model 3
Full model
Denmark −0.146* −0.269*** −0.258*** 0.652*** 0.656*** 0.649***
(−2.11) (−3.93) (−4.16) (8.62) (8.59) (8.50)
France −0.032 −0.063* −0.009 0.358*** 0.375*** 0.370***
(−0.99) (−1.97) (−0.31) (10.26) (10.52) (10.30)
Germany −0.049 −0.118*** −0.127*** 0.356*** 0.380*** 0.389***
(−1.60) (−3.80) (−4.48) (10.59) (10.92) (11.17)
Netherlands −0.297*** −0.288*** −0.218*** 0.457*** 0.481*** 0.480***
(−6.37) (−6.24) (−5.20) (8.95) (9.33) (9.29)
Norway −0.252*** −0.331*** −0.350*** 0.625*** 0.651*** 0.639***
(−3.65) (−4.87) (−5.67) (8.28) (8.56) (8.40)
Sweden −0.152** −0.207*** −0.213*** 0.427*** 0.413*** 0.401***
(−2.82) (−3.89) (−4.40) (7.26) (6.93) (6.73)
Age 0.003 0.004* −0.001 −0.002
(1.35) (2.24) (−0.69) (−0.92)
Female −0.171*** 0.091 −0.120*** −0.123
(−6.61) (1.31) (−4.14) (−1.43)
Income quintiles 0.022* 0.002 0.052*** 0.046***
(2.11) (0.23) (4.38) (3.82)
Years of full- time
education
0.043*** 0.035*** −0.008 −0.010*
(11.33) (10.00) (−1.89) (−2.40)
Male breadwinner −0.117** −0.067 −0.013 0.002
(−3.20) (−1.89) (−0.33) (0.05)
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190
Table 7.5a (continued)
Work–family con ict Well- being
Model 1
Countries only
Model 2
Family variables
Model 3
Full model
Model 1
Countries only
Model 2
Family variables
Model 3
Full model
Modi ed male
breadwinner
−0.249*** −0.037 −0.054 −0.051
(−8.51) (−1.01) (−1.64) (−1.13)
Female breadwinner −0.015 0.009 −0.109* 0.168
(−0.34) (0.09) (−2.19) (1.31)
Mostly female 0.128*** 0.160*** −0.097** −0.150**
(3.84) (4.03) (−2.60) (−3.06)
Mostly male 0.047 0.044 −0.078 −0.061
(0.95) (0.75) (−1.39) (−0.85)
Outside help 0.002 0.056 −0.216** −0.345**
(0.03) (0.60) (−2.78) (−3.01)
Couples with children
under 5
0.050 0.012 −0.039 −0.029
(1.26) (0.25) (−0.88) (−0.48)
Couples with children
5–18
0.019 −0.038 0.020 0.028
(0.47) (−0.82) (0.46) (0.49)
Older couples (women
over 44) with no dep
children
−0.036 −0.054 0.080 0.162*
(−0.68) (−0.96) (1.36) (2.33)
Mod male breadwinner
× female
0.030 0.065
(0.50) (0.90)
Female breadwinner ×
female
0.096 −0.254
(0.87) (−1.86)
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191
Mostly female × female −0.161** 0.116
(−2.66) (1.55)
Mostly male × female −0.011 −0.052
(−0.12) (−0.45)
Mostly outside help ×
female
−0.020 0.273
(−0.15) (1.75)
Couples with child
under 5
× female
0.169* −0.015
(2.37) (−0.17)
Couples with child 5–18
× female
0.163* −0.016
(2.57) (−0.21)
Older couples × female 0.158* −0.162*
(2.47) (−2.06)
Log work hours 0.537*** 0.094
(12.74) (1.82)
Unsocial hours index 0.204*** 0.000
(21.59) (0.04)
Task discretion index 0.014*** 0.018***
(3.35) (3.54)
Constant 2.748*** 2.083*** −0.580*** 3.839*** 3.958*** 3.550***
(122.43) (23.24) (−3.37) (156.37) (39.49) (16.71)
r20.0108 0.0690 0.2380 0.0416 0.0563 0.0628
Weighted N 5151 5151 5151 5151 5151 5151
Notes:
Ref.: UK, Dual earner, balanced, no children.
* p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001.
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192
Table 7.5b OLS regressions, only men
Work–family con ict Well- being
Model 1
Countries only
Model 2
Family variables
Model 3
Full model
Model 1
Countries only
Model 2
Family variables
Model 3
Full model
Denmark −0.318*** −0.371*** −0.301*** 0.612*** 0.629*** 0.629***
(−3.43) (−4.06) (−3.56) (6.13) (6.24) (6.22)
France −0.123** −0.118** −0.013 0.299*** 0.307*** 0.313***
(−2.85) (−2.75) (−0.32) (6.45) (6.50) (6.56)
Germany −0.082* −0.152*** −0.139*** 0.254*** 0.300*** 0.299***
(−2.03) (−3.71) (−3.66) (5.85) (6.60) (6.58)
Netherlands −0.388*** −0.425*** −0.310*** 0.336*** 0.369*** 0.372***
(−6.34) (−7.02) (−5.49) (5.10) (5.52) (5.52)
Norway −0.304*** −0.335*** −0.314*** 0.539*** 0.576*** 0.571***
(−3.39) (−3.80) (−3.84) (5.57) (5.92) (5.84)
Sweden −0.278*** −0.251*** −0.220*** 0.361*** 0.336*** 0.333***
(−3.94) (−3.59) (−3.39) (4.75) (4.34) (4.29)
Age 0.004 0.005* −0.003 −0.003
(1.55) (2.48) (−1.03) (−1.09)
Income quintiles 0.039** 0.009 0.047** 0.041**
(2.86) (0.66) (3.11) (2.67)
Years of full- time
education
0.035*** 0.033*** −0.014** −0.015**
(7.30) (7.28) (−2.71) (−2.81)
Male breadwinner −0.077* −0.051 −0.010 −0.004
(−1.98) (−1.43) (−0.24) (−0.09)
Modi ed male
breadwinner
−0.024 −0.023 −0.044 −0.043
(−0.61) (−0.63) (−0.99) (−0.97)
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193
Female breadwinner −0.690*** 0.070 0.034 0.167
(−6.56) (0.62) (0.29) (1.24)
Mostly female 0.253*** 0.162*** −0.134** −0.145**
(5.90) (4.05) (−2.83) (−3.05)
Mostly male 0.113 0.050 −0.059 −0.064
(1.80) (0.87) (−0.86) (−0.92)
Outside help 0.076 0.055 −0.341** −0.339**
(0.76) (0.60) (−3.09) (−3.07)
Couples with children
under 5
0.009 0.010 −0.028 −0.025
(0.17) (0.20) (−0.48) (−0.43)
Couples with children
5–18
−0.011 −0.063 0.046 0.039
(−0.21) (−1.31) (0.79) (0.67)
Older couples (women
over 44) with no dep
children
−0.126 −0.103 0.187* 0.188*
(−1.87) (−1.65) (2.51) (2.53)
Log work hours 0.626*** 0.122
(9.28) (1.51)
Unsocial hours index 0.168*** 0.003
(12.77) (0.20)
Task discretion index 0.019** 0.010
(3.24) (1.43)
Constant 2.871*** 2.020*** −0.883*** 3.963*** 4.149*** 3.651***
(96.17) (18.09) (−3.40) (123.14) (33.63) (11.75)
r20.0207 0.0838 0.2197 0.0314 0.0489 0.0511
N 2809 2809 2809 2809 2809 2809
Notes:
Ref.: UK, Dual earner, balanced, no children.
* p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001.
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194
Table 7.5c OLS regressions, only women
Work–family con ict Well- being
Model 1
Countries only
Model 2
Family variables
Model 3
Full model
Model 1
Countries only
Model 2
Family variables
Model 3
Full model
Denmark 0.051 −0.187 −0.216* 0.702*** 0.688*** 0.669***
(0.50) (−1.87) (−2.36) (6.14) (5.91) (5.75)
France 0.079 −0.043 −0.010 0.435*** 0.444*** 0.431***
(1.67) (−0.91) (−0.24) (8.29) (8.16) (7.92)
Germany −0.029 −0.118* −0.120** 0.471*** 0.487*** 0.502***
(−0.63) (−2.54) (−2.84) (8.99) (9.02) (9.30)
Netherlands −0.195** −0.157* −0.115 0.598*** 0.615*** 0.614***
(−2.74) (−2.29) (−1.83) (7.52) (7.68) (7.67)
Norway −0.204 −0.341*** −0.402*** 0.721*** 0.737*** 0.716***
(−1.91) (−3.31) (−4.26) (6.06) (6.13) (5.96)
Sweden −0.004 −0.146 −0.208** 0.498*** 0.496*** 0.479***
(−0.05) (−1.85) (−2.86) (5.47) (5.36) (5.18)
Age 0.000 0.001 0.001 −0.000
(0.14) (0.35) (0.39) (−0.03)
Income quintiles 0.009 −0.008 0.054** 0.048**
(0.54) (−0.51) (2.91) (2.58)
Years of full- time
education
0.048*** 0.038*** 0.002 −0.000
(8.00) (6.84) (0.33) (−0.07)
Modi ed male
breadwinner
−0.467*** −0.031 −0.051 0.004
(−11.12) (−0.57) (−1.03) (0.05)
Female breadwinner 0.013 0.097* −0.104 −0.088
(0.26) (2.04) (−1.73) (−1.45)
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195
Mostly female −0.025 0.011 −0.035 −0.026
(−0.48) (0.23) (−0.59) (−0.44)
Mostly male 0.029 0.042 −0.116 −0.108
(0.37) (0.58) (−1.25) (−1.16)
Outside help −0.088 0.057 −0.078 −0.054
(−0.93) (0.65) (−0.70) (−0.48)
Couples with children
under 5
0.130* 0.198*** −0.052 −0.051
(2.21) (3.70) (−0.76) (−0.74)
Couples with children
5–18
0.104 0.174** −0.011 −0.000
(1.70) (3.11) (−0.16) (−0.01)
Older couples (women
over 44) with no dep
children
0.116 0.184* −0.055 −0.026
(1.41) (2.44) (−0.57) (−0.27)
Log work hours 0.498*** 0.072
(9.15) (1.04)
Unsocial hours index 0.238*** −0.007
(17.04) (−0.40)
Task discretion index 0.010 0.029***
(1.71) (3.67)
Constant 2.606*** 2.037*** −0.362 3.694*** 3.513*** 3.187***
(77.60) (14.83) (−1.58) (98.62) (21.91) (10.90)
r20.0087 0.1047 0.2528 0.0566 0.0660 0.0721
N 2342 2342 2342 2342 2342 2342
Notes:
Ref.: UK, Dual earner, balanced, no children.
* p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001.
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196 Gendered lives
of the other six nations, including France and Germany. This holds true
for both men and women, across all three models. In all countries, except
Sweden and Denmark, the country di erences become even more pro-
nounced in models 2 and 3 when family circumstances and employment
are accounted for.
Hypothesis 6 suggested that work conditions would be more important
predictors than family conditions for the WFC of both men and women.
This is indeed the case. If we look at the explained variance (r2) we can see
that for our total sample combined (Table 7.5a), once employment con-
ditions are introduced in model 3, we explain 23 per cent of the variance
in WFC, as compared to only 6 per cent explained by family conditions
(model 2) and less than 2 per cent by country di erences alone (model 1).
The pattern is similar for both men (Table 7.5b) and women (Table 7.5c).
Thus we can con rm Gallie and Russell’s (2009) ndings about the rela-
tive importance of employment conditions, even after couples’ paid and
unpaid work strategies and family life- course stage are included in the
models.
Hypothesis 7 suggested that work and family factors would explain
more of the variance in WFC than in well- being, because well- being
is more individualistic. This is also con rmed. Again looking at the
explained variance (r2), we can see that for the combined sample (Table
7.5a) all three models for psychological well- being explain less than 4 per
cent of the variance. The models do marginally better when broken down
by gender (explaining up to 5 per cent of the variance for men and 7 per
cent for women). However, compared with WFC, the explanatory power
of these family and employment variables is slight. This is not surpris-
ing, as psychological well- being is likely to be far more closely linked to
individual factors such as subjective health (Boye 2011).
Hypothesis 8 suggested that there would be gender di erences in the
way family life stage a ects WFC and well- being. Mothers’ WFC is
expected to be heightened and well- being reduced relative to that of fathers
during the child- rearing phase, because women tend to remain the primary
carer, regardless of their employment status. If we look at the gender
interaction e ects of family life stage, we see that women’s but not men’s
WFC increases after they have children. The same is not true however for
psychological well- being. The well- being of men, but not that of women
is enhanced for older couples without dependent children, where children
have likely left the home. Perhaps mothers, because they are primary
carers, su er ‘the empty nest syndrome’ in ways that fathers do not.
Hypothesis 9 suggested that there would be gender di erences in the
way a couple’s paid work strategies a ect WFC and well- being. Compared
with dual- earner couples, WFC is lower for men in male breadwinner
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Work–family con ict and well- being in Northern Europe 197
households and for women in modi ed male breadwinner households.
However, both of these e ects disappear when accounting for employ-
ment conditions that include work hours (model 3). Long work hours
increase the WFC for both men and for women. The same is not true for
psychological well- being. Here work hours have no discernable e ect for
either men or women. In terms of other employment conditions there are
some interesting ndings. Unsocial hours, as might be expected, increase
the WFC of both men and women. However, counter- intuitively, task
discretion also increases WFC, but only for men. This might be because
the WFC measure includes a question about ‘how often your partner/
family gets fed up with the pressure of your job’. Family disapproval of
men spending long hours at work may intensify when their task discretion
is high. For both men and women, task discretion signi cantly increases
psychological well- being (p <0.001). This is not surprising because task-
discretion is likely to boost a person’s self- esteem and sense of control
which in turn heightens well- being.
According to Hypothesis 10, we would expect men’s WFC and well-
being to be more negatively a ected than women’s by a less traditional
divide of unpaid housework. Engaging in housework may be more
demeaning for men than for women. The ndings indicate that our expec-
tation is completely wrong. Men’s but not women’s WFC is increased
when couples adopt a ‘mostly female’ division of unpaid labour compared
to a ‘balanced’ division of household labour. This average increase in
men’s WFC ranges from 0.128 (Table 7.5a, model 2) to 0.16 points (Table
7.5a, model 3) on our WFC scale (which ranges from 1 to 5). The same
gender pattern is found for psychological well- being. The well- being
of men is signi cantly reduced when the housework is done mainly by
women, but this is not the case for women. For well- being, the gender
interaction term is not signi cant, but for WFC it is signi cant (p <0.01).
This unexpected nding may re ect partners’ dissatisfaction with the
pressures of men’s jobs. Men who leave the chores to women may be
subject to more complaints than are men who do their share of home
chores. We consider other possible explanations in the concluding section
which discusses our ndings in more detail and draws out possible policy
implications. First however, we brie y review the other ndings from our
multivariate analyses that are not related to our hypotheses.
In Table 7.5a, model 2, we see that being female reduces both WFC
and well- being, but this gender e ect disappears once work indicators are
introduced in model 3. Older people experience more WFC (p <.05) once
work hours and employment conditions are included (Table 7.5a, model
3), although this only applies to men, not to women (Tables 7.5b and 7.5c).
Age has no e ect on psychological well- being for this sample of working
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198 Gendered lives
couples. Years of education are positively related to WFC for men and
women combined (Table 7.5a) and for men and women separately (Tables
7.5b and 7.5c). This may re ect the higher ambitions that are associ-
ated with higher education and the gap between aspirations and reality
may lead to greater con icts for more educated men and women. Oddly,
income increases WFC in model 2, but this disappears when employment
is controlled in model 3. However, higher levels of income markedly
increase the psychological well- being, for men and women.
SUMMARY, DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
In this chapter, one particular focus has been on how the experiences
of WFC and well- being are gendered in ways that re ect, in part, the
gendered division of paid and unpaid work in Northern Europe. We
also wanted to explore whether WFC and well- being vary between seven
countries with very di erent family policies, particularly in terms of their
support for maternal employment and for a more equitable share of family
work between men and women.
Our study is set against a background of family change. We note that
family life has changed markedly from the traditional male breadwinner
family of the past and that the rise of dual- earner couples implies both an
ideological and pragmatic move towards less gender- role specialisation.
However, we also note that there has been a structural and cultural lag
in terms of gender role change, with women still doing the bulk of the
housework and unpaid family care. We concur with Esping- Andersen
(2009) that there has been an ‘incomplete revolution in gender roles’ and
we tested ten hypotheses concerning the way the divisions of paid and
unpaid work among couples relate to each partner’s experience of WFC
and well- being.
Six of our hypotheses were con rmed by our data, one hypothesis was
partially con rmed and partially refuted, and three were not supported.
Hypotheses that were con rmed included that women who work- part
time have markedly lower WFC than women who are in full- time employ-
ment (H2). We also found that well- being is less gender di erentiated than
WFC (H3) and that WFC and well- being are negatively correlated (H4).
In addition, we con rmed the Gallie and Russell (2009) nding that work
conditions are more important predictors than family conditions for both
men and women (H6). Also, work and family factors explain more of the
variance in WFC than in well- being (H7).
We con rmed that country di erences in both WFC and well- being
remain even when individual characteristics, couple work strategies,
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Work–family con ict and well- being in Northern Europe 199
family life stage and employment conditions are accounted for (H5).
However, this nding went well beyond our expectations. It is not at all
surprising that the UK comes out signi cantly higher than Scandinavian
countries for WFC, given how much support Scandinavian countries
provide in terms of high- quality childcare and generous parental leave,
argued to reduce WFC. However, what is surprising is that the UK is
signi cantly worse than other countries for the more general well- being
measure (WHO- 5). Moreover, our analysis shows that this relatively
dismal UK well- being result remains after controlling for di erences in
gendered patterns of paid and unpaid work. Undoubtedly, this measure is
likely to be strongly in uenced by individual factors not investigated here,
such as physical and subjective health. However, the fact that UK citizens
(both men and women) in our sample have signi cantly less positive psy-
chological well- being than equivalent couples in the other six Northern
European countries is something that merits further investigation.
The hypothesis which was only partially con rmed suggested there
would be gender di erences in the way family life- course stage a ects
WFC and well- being (H8). Women’s WFC was indeed increased after they
had children, compared with when they were younger and without chil-
dren. Moreover, the e ect of family life- course variables only enhanced
the WFC of women not men. However, family life course had the reverse
gender e ect in terms of in uencing psychological well- being, enhancing
men’s but not women’s well- being.
The three hypotheses that were not supported are in many ways the
most interesting ndings. Contrary to our expectations derived from the
theories of the ‘double shift’ we expected women who worked full- time
to have more con ict than men (H1). While we found clear evidence that
regardless of paid work strategy, women remain primarily responsible
for unpaid work, we also found that women in full- time employment had
very similar levels of WFC to that of men. Our expectation, following
the research by Boye (2011), that men’s well- being is una ected by work
hours, whereas work hours bene t women’s well- being (H9) was not sup-
ported by our data. We found that long work hours a ected the WFC of
men and women in similar ways. Also, work hours did not a ect the psy-
chological well- being of either men or women in our sample. In addition,
couple’s paid work strategies did not a ect the WFC or well- being of men
or women, once employment conditions were accounted for.
This lack of a gendered e ect of paid work strategies on WFC and well-
being makes it even more surprising that the division of unpaid work does
a ect men’s, but not women’s, WFC and well- being. Our expectation that
men’s well- being would be more negatively a ected than women’s by a
less traditional divide of unpaid work (H10) was overturned. It may be
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200 Gendered lives
that women accept their ‘double shift’ as a fact of life and therefore do not
show the same reduction in WFC or increased well- being as men when
the gender division of housework is less traditional (that is, not mainly
female).
What is particularly interesting, however, is the way that Northern
European men’s WFC increases when the female partner is doing most of
the unpaid chores. The perceived con ict may result from the dissonance
of practice being at odds with normative gender equality beliefs. Or it
may be that men’s heightened WFC re ects their partners’ dissatisfac-
tions. Gershuny et al. (2005) suggest that women could adapt to changing
employment patterns in one of three di erent ways: exit, voice and su er-
ing. The three strategies concern stark choices: exiting from their marriage
or quitting their job; expressing dissatisfaction to their husband or partner
and pressing for a more equitable division of domestic labour; or su ering
their ‘second shift’ of doing both their paid job and the bulk of the unpaid
household chores. Few women would see the extreme option of quitting
their marriage or their job as feasible or desirable. Our data provide some
evidence that women combine the second and third strategies. The bulk
of the household chores are done mainly by women, even in dual- earner
couples. However, perhaps one reason that men feel increased WFC when
the housework is done mainly by women is that their partner complains. It
is also plausible that some men want a more equitable role in the home and
their well- being is reduced when the pressure of their job gets in the way.
It certainly bodes well for more equitable gender role change in Northern
Europe when men’s WFC is increased and their well- being is reduced
when the housework is left mainly to women.
No country in our sample has reached a position of gender equality.
However, our ndings are reinforcing other research that suggests that
we need to pay closer attention to the gender division of unpaid work in
order to examine how changes in family life and employment impinge
on well- being. In a recent study based on analysis of the British cohort
studies, Sigle- Rushton (2010) found that in the UK a more equitable
divide of housework o sets the enhanced risk of divorce associated with
female employment. Our study points to wider bene ts for men who do
their fair share of the housework. Change is slow and, on average, men still
play a somewhat minimal role in unpaid domestic labour. However, men
today play a far greater role in home and childcare than did their fathers
or grandfathers. It might help change move faster if the bene ts of a more
equitable divide became more widely known.
Can policies help nudge men and women towards greater gender equal-
ity in paid and unpaid work? This is a thorny issue and one that has been
discussed elsewhere (for example, Dex 2010; Scott and Dex 2009). These
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Work–family con ict and well- being in Northern Europe 201
authors conclude that the political will is often lacking for the radical
steps that would reduce gender inequalities in the division of labour.
However, in our view, token and symbolic gestures do matter and state
encouragement towards greater male participation in unpaid work could
help advance gender convergence. The UK Equality and Human Rights
Commission (2009) has also urged reform of policies that perpetuate the
traditional gender role division of labour and leave women doing the
bulk of family care and prevent men from doing a more equitable share
of parenting. The report argued the social and economic bene ts of inte-
grating work and care. It called for more nancial support for paternity
and parental leave and more a ordable childcare. In the UK, political
rhetoric is supportive, but actions to eradicate the economic inequalities
that underpin the traditional gender divide of paid and unpaid labour are
less forthcoming. Yet the logic of addressing the inequalities that arise
from what Esping- Andersen (2009) calls the ‘incomplete revolution’ gets
stronger as couples aspire to share work and parenting across the life
course. By demonstrating that gender equality in paid and unpaid work
is associated with enhanced well- being, our study hopes to strengthen the
cumulative evidence about potential costs of not tackling the pronounced
gender inequalities in employment and family care.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work was supported by a grant by the Economic and Social Research
Council (RES- 225- 25- 1001). Anke Plagnol is grateful for nancial support
from the Leverhulme Trust through an Early Career Fellowship and the
Isaac Newton Trust, Cambridge.
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204 Gendered lives
APPENDIX
Table A7.1 Sample characteristics (N = 4065; weighted N = 5151)
Variable Mean Std. dev. Min. Max.
WFC 2.68 0.82 1 5
Well- being 4.13 0.91 1 6
Age 43.10 10.17 19 65
Female 0.45 0.50 0 1
Income quintile 3.38 1.17 1 5
Years of full- time education
completed
13.35 3.27 1 30
Paid work strategy
Dual earner 0.50 0.50 0 1
Male breadwinner 0.17 0.37 0 1
Modi ed male breadwinner 0.24 0.43 0 1
Female breadwinner 0.09 0.28 0 1
Unpaid work division
Balanced 0.14 0.35 0 1
Mostly female 0.75 0.43 0 1
Mostly male 0.08 0.27 0 1
Other/outside help 0.03 0.18 0 1
Family life stage
Before children, woman <45 0.15 0.36 0 1
Couples with children under 5 0.18 0.39 0 1
Couples with children 5–18 0.35 0.48 0 1
Older couples (women >44) with
no dependent children
0.32 0.47 0 1
Log work hours 3.64 0.38 0 4.39
Unsocial hours index 2.60 1.20 1 5
Task discretion index 6.44 2.51 0 10
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Work–family con ict and well- being in Northern Europe 205
Table A7.2 Indicators of work–family con ict (WFC) in the ESS
Round2
ESS 2004/05
1. How often do you keep worrying about work problems when you are not
working?
2. How often do you feel too tired after work to enjoy the things you would like
to do at home?
3. How often do you nd that your job prevents you from giving the time you
want to your partner or family?
4. How often do you nd that your partner or family gets fed up with the
pressure of your job?
Not included in composite measure:
5. How often do you nd it di cult to concentrate on work because of your
family responsibilities?
Answer categories: Never, hardly ever, sometimes, often, always
Table A7.3 Indicators of well- being (WHO- 5) in the ESS Round 2
ESS 2004/05
I would like you to say how often you have felt like this over the last two weeks.
1. I have felt cheerful and in good spirits
2. I have felt calm and relaxed
3. I have felt active and vigorous
4. I have woken up feeling fresh and rested
5. My daily life has been lled with things that interest me
Answer categories: All of the time, most of the time, more than half of the time,
less than half of the time, some of the time, at no time
Reverse coded from the original.
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