Gendered work–family conflict in Germany: do self-employment and flexibility matter?

Stefanie König and Beate Cesinger
Additional contact information
Stefanie König: Mannheim Centre for European Social Research (MZES); and University of Mannheim, Germany
Beate Cesinger: Groupe Sup de Co Montpellier Business School, France

Work, Employment & Society, 2015, vol. 29, issue 4, 531-549

Abstract: Applying a demands–resource approach, the present empirical study among 1395 individuals researches how flexibility and self-employment affect work–family conflict in Germany. Specifically, gender differences regarding work interference with the family and family interference with work are examined on a strain-based and time-based level. The multivariate results reveal a differentiated but surprisingly non gendered picture of the effect of self-employment and job flexibility regarding work–family conflict. Due to greater flexibility, self-employed people perceive a slightly lower time-based work-to-family conflict while their strain-based work-to-family conflict is higher than among employees. Regarding family-to-work conflict, self-employment leads to a higher level of time-based conflict, possibly because of higher expectations regarding availability. Thus, self-employment can be seen as a demand or a resource depending on the type of conflict. This study therefore contributes to a more refined understanding of the role of flexibility and self-employment in the light of literature on demands and resources.

Keywords: family–work conflict; flexibility; gender; self-employment; strain-based conflict; time-based conflict; work–family conflict; work–life balance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0950017014545264 (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:woemps:v:29:y:2015:i:4:p:531-549

DOI: 10.1177/0950017014545264

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Work, Employment & Society from British Sociological Association
Bibliographic data for series maintained by SAGE Publications ().