Flexible Working and the Division of Housework and Childcare: Examining Divisions across Arrangement and Occupational Lines

Heejung Chung and Cara Booker
Additional contact information
Heejung Chung: University of Kent, UK
Cara Booker: University of Essex, UK

Work, Employment & Society, 2023, vol. 37, issue 1, 236-256

Abstract: Using the UK Household Longitudinal Study we examine how flexible working is associated with the division of housework and childcare among dual-earner heterosexual couples with young children. Although flexible working may enable better work-family integration, it can also reinforce traditional divisions of domestic labour where women perform more housework and childcare. The degree to which this occurs may vary across arrangements due to differences in the flexibility and permeability of boundaries. We also expect occupational variations but in a paradoxical manner; the constraints and resources workers have may cause the associations to conflict with assumptions based on gender role attitudes. Results show that arrangements that allow more boundary blurring, such as homeworking, are associated with more traditional divisions of childcare but not necessarily of housework. Flexitime, especially for the lower-skilled/paid occupations, enables a more egalitarian division of labour, possibly because it is used to maximise households’ working hours and income.

Keywords: childcare; division of housework; flexible working; gender roles; occupational class (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09500170221096586 (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:37:y:2023:i:1:p:236-256

DOI: 10.1177/09500170221096586

Access Statistics for this article

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