Tensions Between Work and Home

Job Quality and Working Conditions in the Institutional Contexts of Germany and Spain

Bibliographic Data

ID12426318
AuthorsSonja Drobnic (0000-0002-7007-879X, corresponding author), Ana Marta Guillén Rodríguez (Oxford University Press (United Kingdom))
Year2011
Volume18
Issue2
Pages232-268
Publication date2011-05-30
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial Politics International Studies in Gender State & Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1072-4745 • E-ISSN: 1468-2893
PublisherOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1093/sp/jxr008
PMID21966699
OpenAlexW2122178467
LanguageEN
Citations received17
References cited31

Good jobs can generate capabilities that allow employees to avoid tensions between work and family/home. Following the conceptual framework of Amartya Sen, we examine how job-related demands and resources are related to the level of interference, as well as satisfaction with managing work and home in Spanish and German employees, using three different large-scale European surveys: European Quality of Life Survey and two waves of the European Social Survey. We find that long working hours systematically increase tensions between work and home, as do time pressure, job-related stress, and working hard. Job control or autonomy at work, which is hypothesized to expand individuals' capabilities and agency, tends to increase work–home interference rather than alleviate it. Family responsibilities and household demands do not seem relevant to the tensions employees experience at the work–home interface. This also holds true for women, which is a surprising result in view of the “double burden” hypothesis. Employed mothers in Germany and Spain are a select group of women, as combining employment with raising children in conservative–corporatist and conservative–familialist states may be particularly problematic. Thus while the institutional contexts of Germany and Spain curtail women's ability to reconcile employment and parenthood, the mothers (and fathers) who are employed do not experience significantly higher levels of work–family/home tensions than nonparents

Agency (philosophy · Autonomy · Demographic economics · Economics · European Social Survey · Family life · German · Job satisfaction · Political science · Politics · Quality (philosophy · Scale (ratio · Sociology · Work (physics · Working time · Employment and Welfare Studies · Psychology · Retirement, Disability, and Employment · Work-Family Balance Challenges · Gender Studies · Social Psychology

Tools

Open DOISci-HubOpen Access