Work time control and flexibility are beneficial for workers, but many low-income, hourly workers face rigid expectations to be available for all scheduled shifts without modification. This study examines an understudied dimension of work-time control: punitive time and attendance policies. Many companies apply these 'point systems' in which points are used as sanctions for time and attendance policy violations. When points accumulate, they lead to increasingly serious consequences with the potential to exacerbate inequality for workers with caregiving responsibilities or health problems. Recent prior research has relied on content analysis of points policies or on single-company surveys. In this paper, we provide the first large-scale examination of inequalities in point systems. We draw on novel survey data collected by the Shift Project from 4,209 service sector workers to document the prevalence and consequences of point systems in the U.S. We find that point systems affect more than 2 of 5 hourly workers at large service sector firms, and those in poor health are disproportionately penalized under point systems. Further, workers penalized through point systems have worse employment and well-being outcomes, raising concerns that point systems may compound disadvantages faced by workers with disabilities or chronic health conditions.
This research examines how bicultural socialisation shapes the work-family balance of second-generation devout Muslim Turkish women in Germany. Rather than treating 'German individualism' and 'Turkish collectivism' as fixed cultural blocks, we analyse how participants reinterpret, blend and at times reject the norms attached to each. The study draws on two months of ethnographic participant observation in a workplace with a high concentration of Turkish-origin women in Germany and ten in-depth, semi-structured interviews. Three findings complicate existing literature. First, 'family' here is intergenerational and transnational, including ageing first-generation parents whose unfinished settlement work is delegated to their daughters; this generates a form of family interference with work that nuclear-family models do not register. Second, religious devotion functions as lived, negotiated practice that shapes which jobs feel morally liveable. Third, strategies such as part-time and dual part-time work are best read as constrained accommodations rather than free preferences. The study extends intersectional and feminist analyses of work-family conflict to bicultural devout Muslim women, complicates preference-based and assimilationist accounts, and informs more granular workplace and welfare policy responses.
This study explores the intricate interplay between professional identity and domestic obligations among Taiwanese women seafarers, a token minority in a hyper-masculine industry. Drawing on Feminist Standpoint Theory, the research employs a qualitative triangulation approach, integrating data from a women seafarers' workshop (N = 20), a ten-day ethnographic shipboard observation, and in-depth narrative interviews. The findings reveal a profound work-family self-divergence, where participants navigate the tension between a rigorous working self on board and a traditional family self ashore. Central to this experience is the phenomenon of ambiguous loss - a psychological state characterized by being physically absent but psychologically present (or vice versa), which exacerbates the relational strain on family ties. The study proposes a gender-modulated loss model to illustrate how structural insularity and gendered expectations intensify these psychological costs. By deconstructing the systemic barriers to career retention, this research offers critical insights into the necessity of gender-responsive maritime policies and enhanced social support systems to mitigate the professional and personal trauma faced by women in seafaring careers.
Work-family research has traditionally focused on people's goals and performance within these two domains and their intersection. However, this narrow lens tends to overlook the reality and complexity that individuals generally participate in a number of other life domains, each with its own valued goals. Therefore, individuals' work-family management likely depends on how these other goals are related to (i.e. constrain or facilitate) their work and family goals. To address this oversight, in this Voices piece, we introduce work-family scholars to the multiple-goal system perspective. Specifically, we clarify how contextualizing work and family's positions within individuals' broader goal system - and moving beyond a dual-goal approach - has the potential for myriad benefits in studying the work-family interface.
This study seeks to examine a new process underlying the positive correlation between work-family conflict and employee deviance behavior. Specifically, based on the self-determination theory, it was hypothesized that autonomy frustration, competence frustration, and relatedness frustration would elucidate the association between work-family conflict and employee deviance behavior. Data were gathered from 344 employees at two different time points from companies in China. Structural equation modeling results indicated that autonomy frustration, competence frustration, and relatedness frustration served as mediators in the association between work-family conflict and employee deviance behavior. Supervisor autonomy support negatively moderated the impact of work-family conflict on one's competence frustration. The findings of this study contribute to a deeper understanding of the underlying mechanisms and boundary conditions through which work-family conflict influences employees' deviance behavior. In addition, they offer valuable theoretical insights and practical implications for organizations and employees aiming to address such conflicts through evidence-based and effective management strategies.
Despite the growing prevalence of nonstandard work schedules, their association with parental mental health remains underexplored, and the mechanisms underlying gender differences are poorly understood. Using data from the French Working Conditions Survey, this study examines the associations between specific types of nonstandard schedules (night, evening, morning, Saturday, and Sunday work) and major depressive episode (MDE), and test whether social support moderates these associations. Logistic regression models were estimated separately for mothers and fathers. Results show a positive and significant association between mothers' weekend work and MDE, while no associations were observed between father's schedule and MDE. Social support was associated with lower odds of MDE for both mothers and fathers. Managerial support had the strongest association for fathers, whereas both managerial and family support had the largest effects for mothers. Support from colleagues was significant only for mothers, although its effect was smaller than other forms of support. However, the interaction between social support and NSWS was not statistically significant, suggesting that while social support is important for mental health overall, it may not specifically buffer the impact of NSWS. These findings highlight gender-specific dynamics and implications for targeted mental health interventions.
This study examines how educational attainment and the presence of young children are associated with household employment arrangements in Turkey. While existing research typically focuses on individual-level labor supply, this paper adopts a household-level perspective to analyze couples' joint employment behavior. Using the nationally representative Turkish Household Labor Force Survey data for 2004-2023, we construct a 20-year pooled dataset containing approximately 10 million observations. We estimate a multinomial logistic regression model and compute predicted probabilities. The results show that the wife's educational attainment is the strongest predictor of couples' employment behavior. However, this association weakened over time, and a notable convergence occurred between highly educated and low-educated couples, driven by the erosion of the dual-earner model among the former and the strengthening of it among the latter. The presence of young children - especially infants and toddlers - remains a decisive factor reinforcing the male breadwinner model. Moreover, the association between having a child aged 0-2 and adopting the male breadwinner model has intensified over time among couples in which the wife is highly educated. Overall, the transition away from the male breadwinner model appears to be gradual and uneven.
Work-life balance (WLB) has been a widely researched topic for over five decades. Despite the great amount of knowledge accumulated on balancing work and personal life roles and responsibilities, noteworthy gaps remain to be addressed, especially regarding groups with intersectional identities such as Latina emerging adults (EAs). This population is important to study because of their forecasted increase in the US job market. Qualitative methods were utilised to analyse how Latinas between the age of 18 and 29 perceive WLB and influencing factors. The content analysis found that Latina EAs perceive balance as the ability to effectively perform their work and non-work roles. Ideally, Latina EAs prefer their work and nonwork domains to remain separate, seek uninterrupted time for themselves and their meaningful relationships, and place high value on maintaining their mental health. WLB is stressed by their environment as being essential, but it is portrayed as something difficult to achieve. Latina EAs may find it challenging to craft balance without valued resources like flexibility. This highlights the importance of considering the needs of intersectional employees when designing organisational policies.
The present study aims to investigate the associations between Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and the work and health and well-being outcomes of a group of young workers in Singapore. We explore the associations between ACEs and workers' work-related psychological resources (i.e. self-efficacy, optimism, and job security) through the mediating effects of physical health and mental health, operationalized as depressive symptoms. By examining both health and work-related outcomes, this study provides a comprehensive understanding of how ACEs may influence the overall life outcomes of young workers in their professional environment. Approximately 59% reported experiencing at least one ACE, and the ACE prevalence was higher among workers with lower education levels, low-wage earners, females, and younger age workers. ACEs were found to be associated with poorer workers' physical health and mental health. Impaired physical health was in turn associated with lower self-efficacy, while impaired mental health was linked to lower levels of optimism and job security. The study highlights the importance of understanding ACEs' long-term associations with workers' well-being and functioning, offering valuable insights for employers to consider developing programs or targeted strategies such as trauma-informed care and stress management training to promote a healthier and more productive workforce.
This work explores the identity construction of Tradwives, twenty-first century women who embrace traditional gender roles and prioritize domestic life. We argue that these women navigate seemingly contradictory ideologies of traditionalism and feminism. To achieve our aim, we analyze publically available YouTube videos of self-identifying Tradwives. We use Marcia's identity theory as a framework for examining and understanding exploration and commitment processes that underlie their identity construction. We found that the women actively explore and question experiences of work pressure and its intersection with feminism. They come to use conceptualizations of gendered complementary and gender essentialism to regain a positive sense of self in their ultimate commitment to traditionalism to remedy the stress and expectations associated with modern roles. At the same time, their narratives echo key elements of feminism, including empowerment, agency, self-worth, choice, and continuous learning. Overall, Tradwives integrate and navigate these paradoxes, constructing a positive identity that offers a sense of stability and fulfillment. We discuss how the principles that underlie the Tradwife identity nevertheless bring notions of freedom and autonomy within traditionalism into question.
How do workers manage the increasingly blurred boundary between work and nonwork domains? Who is more likely to manage the boundary successfully in terms of perceived control over the boundary, job satisfaction and psychological well-being? We draw on a nationally representative sample of U.S. workers who spent at least some time working remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic to address these questions. Through inductive coding of responses to an open-ended question on how respondents manage the boundary between work and home, we identify four strategies used by workers - behavioral, temporal, physical and communicative. Additionally, we identify a group that does not perceive work-nonwork conflict, a group that reports employing no strategy, and a group that reports unsuccessful boundary management. Caregivers are the most likely to express a sense of failure in managing the boundary, and Black and Hispanic respondents are more likely to report not using any strategy. Workers who use physical tactics tend to exhibit the most favorable outcomes across the board - including the highest levels of boundary control, job satisfaction, and psychological well-being.
While overnight work-travel (OWT) declined significantly in 2020, it has steadily rebounded and remains a common job demand. Yet despite its continued relevance, few studies have examined how features of OWT - such as its duration - are associated with travelers' well-being. Using data from a cross-sectional sample of employed heterosexual U.S. respondents (N = 183) in dual-earning, married or cohabiting relationships who travel for work, this study examines (1) whether the association between OWT duration and psychological distress is moderated by a family-based demand: the traveler's perception of their partner's work interfering with the partner's family life (partner work-to-family conflict), and (2) whether this moderated association is explained by heightened spousal conflict and family-to-work conflict. Multivariate results indicate that longer OWT is associated with higher distress only among those perceiving high partner work-to-family conflict. Moreover, this association is explained by higher spousal conflict and family-to-work conflict. As OWT becomes more common in a post-pandemic world, these findings underscore the importance of relational dynamics in shaping mental health outcomes for employees who travel for work, and call for replication in more diverse populations and across diverse family and couple structures.
When we work from home, the physical space in which we do so plays a crucial role in shaping our well-being. Features such as natural light, workspace size, or having a dedicated room all matter. Yet there is another, often overlooked aspect: the home workspace is also where interactions unfold with household members and colleagues, through discussions, mentoring, interruptions, or monitoring, processes that can foster support but also generate conflict. We still know little about how home workspace characteristics intersect with these relational dynamics and, ultimately, with well-being. This paper helps fill that gap. Using data from 2834 teleworkers in four European countries, we find a direct positive effect of better-quality home workspaces on multiple dimensions of well-being (work-life balance, burnout, work engagement). Moreover, drawing on more than 18000 personal ties with colleagues and household members, we show that this effect is partly explained by relational processes: higher-quality workspace are associated with a lower rate of conflictual interactions, which in turn relates to higher well-being. By contrast, we do not find evidence that positive interactions and social support mediate this association. Overall, the paper demonstrates that the home workspace matters for well-being and that social relationships play a meaningful role in this link.
How do mothers navigate work to sustain professional careers? The current study explores formal and informal strategies women use to navigate motherhood bias in professional work. Previous research finds that mothers face bias in the workplace that results in lower wages, fewer opportunities, and blocked mobility. While these barriers lead some women to leave the labor force, mothers' labor force participation rates continue to climb. Drawing on survey data and forty-seven in-depth interviews with women lawyers and judges in Utah, we identify three broad strategies highly skilled professional mothers use to sustain careers over time. These strategies include downplaying motherhood in high status jobs to evade negative career consequences, downscaling to more flexible jobs to sustain full time work, and downgrading to part-time jobs to maximize flexibility. We find that each strategy leads to tradeoffs in terms of career advancement, career rewards, and well-being. We conclude by considering the implications of our findings for equitable workplace policies and practices.
Drawing on intersectionality and the concept of care circuits, this article reframes work-family conflict (WFC) as a collective, political, and structural phenomenon rather than an individual dilemma. It examines the illustrative case of Carla, a Black Brazilian domestic worker and single mother, whose efforts to reconcile care and livelihood are shaped by racism, patriarchy, and labour precarity. Through an intersectional narrative analysis, the article shows how Carla's everyday strategies both resist and reproduce these inequalities, revealing the complex dynamics that sustain them over time. Her life story illustrates how the care circuit - involving care as obligation, profession, and help - is organised relationally and transmitted across generations. In doing so, the article demonstrates that WFC is socially distributed and rooted in unequal structures of care. By situating Carla's trajectory within the frameworks of intersectionality and care circuits, the study foregrounds the experiences of women whose labour sustains the possibility of balance for others, while often undermining their own. Although Carla's story is singular, it symbolises broader work-family challenges experienced by many women in Brazil and beyond. The article thus offers an analytical and ethical contribution to debates on care, work, family, and inequality.
A common notion in the literature on labor market gender inequality is that women compromise their wage and career prospects by choosing jobs that make room for care responsibilities. The article investigated whether such trade-offs have a geographic dimension. Based on survey data of individuals raised in small towns/rural municipalities in Sweden (n approximate to 2200), the study analyzed how gender gaps in wages on the one hand and work-family conflict on the other differed between individuals who remained in small towns/rural areas and those who moved to large cities. The results show that the gender gap in wages was larger among stayers, while the opposite was true for work-family conflict. Thus, work-family trade-offs are linked to the choice of geographic context. Meanwhile, initial occupational priorities were more complex than suggested in the literature. Female stayers prioritized family-friendly work conditions higher than male stayers and female movers, but were not less career-oriented, and occupational choices did not explain their lower wages and work-family conflict. At the same time, female stayers worked fewer hours than other groups, and such adaptations accounted for the geographic variation in gender gaps.
Fathers' involvement in childcare has increased in recent decades. This study investigates the macro- and micro-level circumstances of relationships that divide childcare duties and parental leave in a society with rather traditional gender norms in Hungary. It involves twenty qualitative interviews with stay-at-home fathers. The interviews showed that cooperative behaviour at the relationship level resulted in more balanced relationships. Couples' behaviour was motivated by cooperative intentions in line with egalitarian norms, which led to positive partnership outcomes. However, stay-at-home fathers felt internally conflicted about leaving the breadwinner role behind because of prevailing gender norms. Therefore, Hungarian stay-at-home fathers seem to differ from the Scandinavian type of involved fathers, as their choice is not primarily to foster gender equality but rather to act in a child-centred way. This attitude might correspond to a traditional family-centered view, and to a type of caring masculinity, namely blended masculinity.
Rapidly shifting economic, technological, and personal factors that threaten employees' well-being at work have triggered a growing interest in sustainable careers, broadly construed as careers that provide individuals with long-term positive experiences at work. Although the literature has identified a variety of home-domain factors that influence the development of a sustainable career, it has failed to provide an integrative and comprehensive perspective of exactly how these factors combine to influence career sustainability. The purpose of this article is to address the following 'Big Question' in work-family scholarship: What are the multiple mechanisms by which the home domain affects the development of a sustainable career? To do so, we propose a family inclusive conceptual framework, identify an array of mechanisms by which individuals' home life may affect the sustainability of their career, classify these mechanisms into three overarching and interrelated processes - action, change, and spillover - and propose an agenda for future research. We close with consideration of the practical implications of our framework for individuals, couples, organizations, and societies.
Digital labour platforms in Taiwan promote work flexibility, but this flexibility can blur boundaries between work and family responsibilities. This study examines work-to-family conflict (WFC) and family-to-work conflict (FWC) among Taiwanese platform workers, focusing on gender differences. Using the Job Demands-Resources framework, we analysed survey data from July 2024. Findings show workload increases WFC and FWC for all workers, while household tasks reduce both conflicts. Female platform workers with more school-age children/teenagers and adult dependents had greater WFC and FWC. Job and family financial resources alleviate some conflicts for men but not women. However, instrumental family support benefits both genders. Despite available resources, all platform workers remain vulnerable to job demands, while female workers face issues of caring responsibilities due to family demands. This study underscores the tension between work flexibility and job pressures, calling for greater attention to their work-family challenges.
