Gendered Time Schedules: P&id Work in Great Britain

Transcription

1 COLETTE FACAN Gendered Time Schedules: P&id Work in Great Britain The concept of standard working hours has existed in most industrialized societies since the 190s. While the extent and type of regulations on standard working hours has always varied across countries, the first two postwar decades brought consistent reductions in the length of the full-time working week. These reductions were accompanied by increased holiday entitlements that further reduced the duration of the workweek. At the same time, the norm of standard hoursusually daytime hours, Monday through Fridaywas consolidated through the establishment of regulatory limits and premium payments for "unsocial" or nonstandard hours (e.g., night and weekend work hours). From the 1970s onward, in the wake of recession and concern about lower rates of economic growth, however, this notion of a standard work schedule has been increasingly challenged by employer and government demands for increased "working-time flexibility" (Bosch, Dawkins, and Michon 1993). Such flexibility usually entails an increased resort to variable and unsocial hours (Michon 1987). Employers' efforts at flexibility may involve matching labor time to fluctuations in the demand for goods and services, occurring during predictable days, Weeks, or seasons (e.g., lunchtime, pre-christmas) or at irregular intervals (e.g., overtime to meet an unexpected order). Or they may involve providing extended operating or opening hours. Flexibility may also have implications for the length of the workweek, if the weekly or monthly basis for calculating hours is replaced by a longer time unit, such as annualized hours. Social Politics Spring 199 O 199 by the Board of Trustee* of the Univertity of Illinois

2 Gendered Schedules in Great Britain 73 Working-time flexibility may also be used to reduce wage costs. This happens, for example, if overtime and nonsocial hours are redefined as normal working hours that no longer attract special premium pay. Thus, the actual pattern of hours worked may stay the same or even increase, but the total wage may be lower (Bosch et al. 1993, 2). As well as increasing productivity by tailoring hours to production needs, further productivity may be gained by extracting more effort per hour, for example through short periods of intensive activity. Where working-time flexibility is spreading, it is undermining the notion of standard and nonstandard work schedules. In addition, such flexibility is challenging the regulatory practices in place since the postwar years. Workers, both women and men, have also had to adjust their everyday practices, in die workplace, at home, and in leisure. The abandonment or redefinition of the concept of a standard work schedule has the potential, in other words, of both provoking significant social change and reopening the question of how to achieve equality of opportunity between women and men. Over the past two decades die move toward "flexibility" has differed across countries, depending on the economic situation, existing regulations, and the industrial relations system (Bosch et al. 1993; Rubery, Fagan, and Smith 199). Legislation to promote working-time flexibility has been passed, or is pending, even in many countries with a strong regulatory tradition. Nonetheless, the degree of deregulation in these countries stops short of that found in countries with a weak tradition of labor regulations, where few legal rules on working time existed in the previous decades, such as in the United Kingdom and United States. In some countries, the move toward increased flexibility has been accompanied by the establishment of new regulatory standards, such as pro rata conditions for part-timers or wage compensations for fulltimers. Moreover, unions have continued to win reductions in full-time hours, although these have been harder to negotiate and have generally been achieved by accepting flexibility concessions in exchange. Here, too, there are cross-national differences. In some cases, actual hours worked have been reduced as part of a concerted campaign to promote worksharing (e.g., in the Netherlands, Germany, and Belgium), while elsewhere increased overtime has been substituted (as in the United Kingdom) because wages remain low and there are shortages of skilled labor. An important recent development in the working-time debate is the 1993 Working-time Directive of the European Union that all member states must implement by November 199 (Directive 93/10/EC). It prescribes a maximum workweek of forty-eight hours (including overtime), sets limits on night and shift work, and establishes minimum entitlements to daily and weekly rest periods and annual holidays. It

3 7 Fagan also appears to establish a principle whereby working-time reorganization should be guided by the goal of "humanizing" work, adapting flexibility to the needs of workers. Finally, the Directive provides a major role for collective bargaining (or social dialogue) at the European level in connection with any future reforms. This provision could have some influence in member states where unions are weak (Bercusson 199). The Directive also to some extent acknowledges that working-time arrangements have implications for achieving equal opportunity. These matters have been long debated within the feminist movement and some unions. Many have argued that a reduction in the length of full-time hours would make it easier for women to enter male-dominated jobs currently characterized by long hours commitments, as well as be conducive to a redistribution of unpaid domestic work between women and men (e.g., Marsh 1991; Hewitt 1993). The proposal to expand part-time work in an effort to promote equal opportunities has been much more controversial. Across Western Europe, part-time jobs are disproportionately feminized and concentrated in the low-paid, lowstatus service occupations (Rubery and Fagan 1993). Given the poor quality of many part-time jobs, one strategy for equal opportunity is to oppose the expansion of this working-time arrangement. An alternative approach is to campaign both for a diversification of the types of jobs available on a part-time basis and for an improvement in the conditions of part-time employment. The means of improving part-time work conditions include minimum wage provisions and establishment of contractual equivalence with full-timers through pro rata employment conditions and equal pay for equal work (comparable worth). The United Kingdom is a useful case with which to examine the potential implications of various working-time patterns for gender relations and equal opportunity. This article does so through an analysis of the detailed Hours of Work Survey conducted in Great Britain (exclusive of Northern Ireland) in 1989 for the Equal Opportunities Commission (for further details, see appendix). In order to locate these British data in a comparative perspective, it is helpful to begin by examining the general labor market situation and other aspects of British social policy, comparing them to situations in the other countries of the European Union. 1 The United Kingdom has one of the least regulated labor markets in the European Union. The system of collective bargaining is fragmented and unions are much weaker than those of most other European countries. Few statutory regulations compensate for this lack of voluntary regulation (Rubery and Fagan 199). Indeed, over the last couple of decades the always minimal statutory protection and collective bargaining rights have been further weakened by legislative reform. In

4 Gendered Schedules in Great Britain 7 particular, Britain is one of only two countries in the European Union (the other is Ireland) without a general minimum wage system (CERC 1991 ). 2 The lack of a minimum wage coexists with the lack of legislation to set a ceiling on the length of the workweek or to limit unsocial hours of work. In other words, Britain has no statutory regulations for either wages or hours. In principle, therefore, implementation of the EU Directive should have an important regulatory influence in the United Kingdom. As well as having a highly deregulated labor market, Britain also has one of the least developed systems of public provision and subsidies for child care in the European Union (ECCN 1990). In all Western European countries, women have responsibility for the bulk of unpaid domestic and child-care work, regardless of how many hours they spend in paid employment. The lack of public child-care support in the United Kingdom means that when mothers are not looking after their children themselves, riiey rely on the school system, their partners, and other relatives (Martin and Roberts 198). Given these constraints, women must consider not only their own hours but also those of the men with whom they live. Juggling paid work with unpaid domestic labor and family activities means that for women it is not just the number but the pattern of employment hours that are important considerations. The impact of the United Kingdom's lack of labor market regulation and a highly privatized system of child care can be strikingly illustrated by three employment indicators. First, men work longer hours in the United Kingdom than in other EU countries (Marsh 1991; Rubery et al. 199). Second, while the employment rate for women is comparatively high, over 0 percent of employed women work parttime. Only in the Netherlands is women's part-time work more extensive. Becoming a mother is the main reason for entering part-time jobs in the United Kingdom. For example, 8 percent of wqmen aged without children under age fifteen were employed in 1991, of which only 13 percent worked part-time, while 3 percent of the women with children under age fifteen were employed, two-thirds of whom worked part-time (Rubery et al. 199, 29). Finally, the United Kingdom (together with Ireland and Spain) has the highest proportion of full-time employees who are low paid (defined as less than two-thirds of national median hourly earnings) (CERC 1991). Women's wages are much lower than men's. When they work full-time, they are twice as likely to be low paid, and on average women full-timers only earned 79 percent of the male full-time hourly wage in This gender wage gap in average full-time earnings is one of the largest in the European Union (Rubery and Fagan 199). Women fare even worse if they work parttime. This contrasts with the situation in other countries, such as the Netherlands and Germany, where the gap between part-timers' and full-

5 7 Fagan timers' pay is much less marked (Fagan, Plantenga, and Rubery 199; Rubery 1992). Some jobs may require more flexible or nonstandard hours than others. For example, extended operating hours and flexible schedules are more common in services such as health care and hotels than in schools. Even within a sector such as health care, flexible schedules are more common for some workers (e.g., doctors, janitors) than for others (e.g., clerical workers). But production needs do not determine work schedules. The existence of regulations on working time obviously have an effect. So too does the regulation of wage and nonwage costs that are associated with different working-time arrangements. Examples of these are overtime premium pay and lower social insurance contributions for part-timers employed below an hours or earnings threshold. Inertia is also an important influence, for if the existing workplace practices are perceived as satisfactory, then continuity is less disruptive than change. Working-time practices are also closely related to the gender of the workforce. Research has shown that employers' perceptions of the hours that women and men are willing to work reflect the current utilization of male and female workers. In manufacturing, for example, women are less involved in overtime and unsocial hours than men, and managers presume that in general women do not want to work these hours. But this view is not held by service sector managers, reflecting the extensive use of women for these schedules in service jobs. Furthermore, the actual or presumed working-time preferences of the existing workforce may be a more important influence than technical or organizational factors on whether employers use part-time, shift, or overtime arrangements to meet their requirements for extended or flexible coverage (Horrell and Rubery 1991; Hunter, McGregor, Mac- Innes, and Sproull 1993). Nonetheless, long or unsocial work schedules are not the primary reason for gendered job segregation. While overtime and shift work is more common in male-dominated jobs and part-time hours and different types of shifts are more prevalent in female-dominated jobs, women participate in all types of working-time patterns. The schedules attached to the employment area they work in, rather than the hours of work, mainly account for women's working-time patterns. For example, while few women work shifts in manufacturing, they are more likely to do so in hotels or hospitals (Rubery et al. 199; Horrell and Rubery 1991). Nevertheless, women tend to work shorter hours and are less likely to work unsocial hours than men (Marsh 1991; Rubery et al. 199). Moreover, it may be the case that certain groups of women avoid jobs with unsocial schedules because they would find these hours impossi-

6 Gendered Schedules in Great Britain 77 ble to manage due to their specific household situation (Horrell and Rubery 1991). On the other hand, some women may have to work those hours if it is the only time in which partners (or other family members and friends) are available to care for the children. Therefore, it is likely that employment decisions for some womenor women at certain stages in their life cycleare heavily influenced by working-time considerations. In other words, they are constrained to gendered time schedules. Men's long work hours and their low level of involvement in part-time work also suggest that men are in a particular type of gendered time schedule associated with the "breadwinner" role. Nonetheless, their lower time input into domestic responsibilities means that they are likely to be less constrained than women from adjusting to different time schedules, with the exception of entering part-time work. Therefore, although the number and pattern of hours attached to any job are ultimately determined by the demand-side of the labor market, it is also important to understand the supply-side influences on the work schedules of women and men. Data from the particularly detailed 1989 Hours of Work Survey (EOC 1991) allow us to observe these supply-side factors and the resultant construction of gendered time schedules. In the next section, the number of hours spent at work by women and men is analyzed in relation to their desired labor supply at their current rate of pay and their levels of nonfinancial work commitment. Next I examine the working-time patterns of both genders, including their involvement in work at unsocial hours. Switching to a focus on employees living with partners (married or cohabiting), I will examine the association between individuals' work schedules, the employment status of their partners, and their parental responsibilities. Having established the kind of work schedules women and men are involved in, I look at people's perceptions of the convenience of their current work schedules. This section also explores the extent to which household constraints channel women into specific work schedules by examining how convenient they consider it would be to switch to alternative work schedules. The Number of Working Hours Full details of the hours of work in a reference week were collected from respondents using a time sheet. This provided a picture of the actual workweek. Respondents were then asked whether diat week had involved them "working less, more, or the same number of hours as you are contracted to work, including any contracted overtime." Only percent of employed respondents said that this question did not apply to them. This is probably the best estimate we can obtain of

7 78 Fagan the proportion of employees for whom the notion of a "normal" week was irrelevant. The majority of employees ( percent of men and 70 percent of women full-timers; 78 percent of women part-timers) said that the hours actually worked in that week were the same as what they usually worked, while 22 percent of men, 21 percent of women fulltimers, and 13 percent of women part-rimers stated that their actual hours of work were greater than their contracted hours. Among women full- and part-timers who had worked longer than their contracted hours, over 0 percent had worked up to five extra hours. The extra hours worked by men were even longer: 3 percent of those who had exceeded their contractual arrangement worked an extra six to ten hours, and another 30 percent had worked eleven or more additional hours that week. Evidently, measures of contracted hours of work significantly underestimate the number of hours actually worked by a substantial proportion of employees. It is important to examine the characteristics of an actual workweek. Too often analyses take the average workweek as a point of departure. If hours worked made child care or social life impossible in one week, it is poor consolation to know that "on average" things were slightly better (Marsh 1991, 37). The length of the actual workweek was defined to include all the hours spent at the workplace in the reference week. Work breaksboth short "tea" breaks and longer meal breaks were included because this time is still structured by the job and is part of the workday. The analysis also included the minority of people whose main workplace is their home. 3 A visible gender difference in the length of the "work period" is evident in table 1. Over 0 percent of men spent more than forty-five hours at their workplace, compared to 10 percent of women. In contrast, 3 percent of women worked thirty hours or less at paid work, compared to percent of men. This thirty-hour threshold was closely correlated with a woman's self-definition as either a full- or part-time employee, because 92 percent of women full-timers worked more than thirty hours and 91 percent of women part-timers worked less than Table 1. Employees' Hours Spent at the Workplace in Reference Week Hours 1-1 >1-30 >30-0 >0- + N Men (% Women ) 2 (%) (70) (9) Source: Author's calculations using the 1989 Hours of Work Survey, commissioned by the Equal Opportunities Commission.

8 Gendered Schedules in Great Britain 79 thirty hours. Therefore, women's working time will be disaggregated by status (full7part-time) for the analyses of the patterns of hours. Actual and Desired Hours of Work The neoclassical theory of labor supply predicts that the number of hours that people want to work is affected by their wages, other household income, and preexisting "tastes and preferences" (Killingsworth 1983). Respondents were asked, "If you were looking for another job at the same hourly rate of pay, would you go for one with shorter hours and so less total pay, about the same hours and pay, or longer hours and so more total pay?" Three-quarters of both men and women workers wanted to continue working the same number of hours that they currently worked at their existing wages. However, 19 percent of men and 1 percent of women wanted to work longer hours, while only 8 percent of men and 10 percent of women would trade a pay cut for a shorter workweek. Nearly one-third of women who worked less than sixteen hours a week wanted to work longer hours. This wish was also expressed by 1 percent of women part-timers who worked more than sixteen hours, as well as by percent of male part-timers. In Britain, strong institutional incentives exist for employers to design part-time jobs with few hours. Employers and employees are exempt from paying social security contributions when the wage falls below the lower earnings threshold in the National Insurance system. This is equivalent to 12-1 hours per week on the basis of average hourly pay for part-timers. Furthermore, statutory protection against dismissal and redundancy for those working less than sixteen hours a week was significantly weaker until a legal ruling in 199 (all those working more than eight hours per week are now accorded equal treatment). Whether these institutional arrangements actually have a strong impact on limiting the number of hours worked by some part-timers, or whether these jobs are designed as multiples of four- or five-hour work periods to meet production needs (Hakim 1989), it is nonetheless clear that many part-timers have been compelled to work fewer hours than desired. This suggests that many part-time jobs are designed to meet labor demand rather than labor supply requirements.. Ten percent of men and 27 percent of women who worked more than forty-five hours a week wanted to work shorter hours. Implementation of the EU Directive would reduce the "long hours trap" for this group of employees. However, 18 percent of men and 19 percent of women who worked very long hours wanted to work even more hours in order to increase their income, suggesting that they had either above average household financial needs or below average wage rates. Working-time reductions that result in lower take-home pay for this group

9 80 Fagan of employees may result in either a collusion with the employer to avoid regulations or increased "moonlighting" in second jobs in order to minimize financial hardship. Thus, the low wages for many employees in Britain is likely to undermine the ability of the directive to curtail excessive working time unless this is coordinated with an increase in minimum hourly wage rates. Work Commitment and Hours of Work In addition to the financial returns from employment, people also gain some degree of nonfinancial benefit from being employed. This includes enhanced social status and other rewards intrinsic to the job, as well as mental well-being. Indeed, for some people these nonfinancial rewards are as important as the financial ones, an attitude that can be defined as a strong nonfinancial commitment to work. Research has shown that a valid measure of work commitment is achieved by asking people whether they would give up work if they could afford to do so (Martin and Roberts 198; Warr 1987). Table 2 presents the percentages of employees who expressed a definite preference to continue in employment even if they could afford to stop (strong work commitment) or to stop if they could afford to (weak work commitment). The remaining employees fall between these two extremes be- Table 2. Levels of Employees' Work Commitment Levels of Work Commitment Men (%) Strong Weak Moderate/ uncertain N Women (%) Strong Weak Moderate/ uncertain N (98) Hours Spent at the Workplace >1-30 3' 31 1 (32) (13) > (10) (11) > (222) (138) (29) (7) All employees (99) (3) Source: Author's calculations using the 1989 Hours of Work Survey, commissioned by the Equal Opportunities Commission. a. This column includes men who worked thirty hours or less.

10 Gendered Schedules in Great Britain 81 cause they were less certain about what they would do. This table shows that on average 29 percent of men and 2 percent of women have a strong work commitment, while around a third of both sexes have low levels of work commitment. Commitment for men varies at both ends of the hours distribution. The minority of men who work part-time have particularly high levels of work commitment. Commitment is also high for men working more than forty-five hours a week, but 29 percent of this group would give up work if they could afford to do so. Women part-rimers were the most likely to state that they would not work if they no longer-needed the money. A supply-side interpretation of this issue is that fewer hours are devoted to employment by those with a low level of work commitment. Indeed, Gary Becker's "new household economics" theorizes that the gendered division of labor fundamentally rests upon preexisting and different "tastes" for employment and domestic work, which leads women and men to make different "human capital" investment decisions over the life cycle and for women to supply fewer hours to paid employment than men (1981). In a similar vein, Catherine Hakim has recently argued that women opt for either a traditional female "domestic" career or a male "employment" career while still teenagers and that a "domestic" career is associated with a low work commitment and an involvement in part-time rather than full-time jobs (1991). Such an emphasis on a supply-side interpretation of work commitment has been criticized by many researchers as overly voluntaristic (e.g., Devine 199). An alternative interpretation is that work commitment interacts with, and is affected by, the employment experience and demand-side constraints in an adaptive process (Dex 1988). From this perspective, levels of work commitment are understood to change over the life cycle and to be affected by the quality of the job and other aspects of the individual's work history. More broadly, behavior and attitudes develop and are embedded within a wider social context (Granovetter 198). Following this alternative argument, the weaker level of work commitment of a significant share of women part-timers can only be understood by taking into account the way in which they engage in parttime work and the quality of those jobs. In Britain, women tend to enter part-time employment after an interruption for childbirth and after their children have started school, not least because of the paucity of childcare facilities (Martin and Roberts 198; ECCN 1990). Furthermore, part-time jobs are concentrated in the lower levels of the occupational hierarchy and are lower paid than full-time jobs. Thus, a return to parttime work is closely connected with downward occupational mobility. Women who enter part-time work rarely recover their previous occupational status (Brannen and Moss 1991; Dex 1987; Dex and

11 82 Fagan Walters 1989; McRae 1991). Some women may have actively chosen part-time employment to fit in with the priority that they attach to their "domestic career" (Hakim 1991), but for others the existing societal constraints on combining full-time employment with caring for a young family will have channeled them toward part-time employment. Once situated in part-time jobs, the inferior employment conditions may well be conducive to a reduction in their work commitment over time and to the adoption of a "domestic career," given that an "employment career" remains beyond their reach. While some women part-timers have a weak work commitment, another group of women part-timers have a strong one. One-fourth of those working between sixteen and thirty hours a week reported a strong work commitment, similar to that for women working full-time and to men employed 30- hours a week. Even among women working shorter part-time hours (sixteen hours or less), 20 percent had a strong commitment to employment. This calls into question Hakim's suggestion that part-time status can be used as a proxy for a low level of work commitment (1991). There are stark gender differences in the length of the workweek in Britain, with very long weekly hours (+) worked by over 0 percent of men. A significant share of both men and women who worked these very long hours would like a shorter workweek and so would benefit from the introduction of working-time regulations. On the other hand, some people working very long hours wanted to work even longer to increase their total earnings. This ambition is probably influenced by the low wages received by many British workers and suggests that wage rates have to be addressed if working-time regulations are to be effectively implemented. Many part-timers also wanted to work longer hours at their current wage than was possible in their current job. A strong work commitment was expressed by 29 percent of men and 2 percent of women; for women this varied little according to the number of hours worked. If over 0 percent of women part-timers would give up their paid jobs if they could afford to, so too would one-third of men. Clearly, a diversity of employment orientations exists within both the male and female labor force. Work Schedules Having examined the length of die workweek, in this section we will look at working-time patterns of women and men. Table 3 summarizes several dimensions to the weekly pattern of work in Britain. The Monday-Friday worker is less common in Britain than many popular media images would suggest. While 8 percent of women full-timers

12 Gendered Schedules in Great Britain 83 work this pattern, only half of male employees follow this routine. Not surprisingly only percent of part-timers work this schedule. Table 3. Employees' Working-time Patterns A. All Employees Work shifts (%) Pattern of days (%) Monday-Friday < days days + weekend > days Involved in weekend work (%) Saturday or Sunday Both days N Men B. Source of Variation in Start and FinishTimes by Shift Work Status Shift Workers (N) Start/finish varies (%) Source of variation (%) Self Employer Sometimes either N Nonshift Workers (N) Start/finish varies (%) Source of variation (%) Self Employer Sometimes either N Men (12) (11) (9) (272) Women Full-timers Women () (3) (17) (208) Women Part-timers 1 23 Source: Author's calculations using the 1989 Hours of Work Survey, commissioned by the Equal Opportunities Commission.

13 8 Fagan Weekend work is common in Britain. A debate about the desirability of this working-time pattern has been stimulated by the recent campaign to extend shop opening hours to Sunday. While a five-day week involving weekend work is rare, nearly a third of men and 1 percent of women full-timers work more than five days (although some of them may work fewer days in other weeks). The involvement in weekend work is even higher if we ignore the number of days worked. A total of 2 percent of men, 27 percent of women full-timers, and 22 percent of women part-timers work weekends. Most weekend work involves either Saturday or Sunday, although 1 percent of men work on both days. In the survey, shift work was defined as "a pattern of hours which change regularly after a fixed period of time." In other words, some nonstandard hours arrangements that are traditionally classified as shift work are excluded (for example, anyone working nights on a permanent basis). One-fifth of men worked rotating shifts. Of these, a third worked a pattern of three rotating shifts, a third alternated between an early day and late day shift, and one-fifth worked an alternating pattern of days and nights. Fewer women worked shifts, and early day and late day shifts were more common than rotating shifts among women (7 percent early and late day compared with 2 percent rotating shifts). Only percent of women alternated between days and nights. Do people have some control over when they start and finish work? Start and finish times varied for 80 percent of shift workers, and employers controlled most of this variation (table 3). Such variation was also recorded for 8 percent of men and 0 percent of women who did not work shifts. Among these non-shiftworkers, it appears that men had more control over this variation in hours than did women (1 percent compared with 1 percent), a result probably associated with the greater autonomy attached to higher level managerial jobs. Nevertheless, for both women and men, the majority had some control over whether they varied their start and finish times. Perhaps not surprisingly, women part-timers varied their start and finish times less than women full-timers (Marsh 1991,-7). Less than half of women parttimers whose start and finish times varied could control this fluctuation while 1 percent changed their working-time arrangements at the employers' instigation. Table illustrates the unsocial hours worked over a four-week period. Respondents were asked whether and how often they had worked each type of hours arrangement. The resulting categories are therefore not exclusive. Not surprisingly, male shift workers were more likely to work unsocial hours than male nonshift workers. Even when we ex-

14 Gendered Schedules in Great Britain 8 elude the 20 percent of men who are shift workers, we see that working during unsocial hours is still likely among men (although the share who work at night is much lower). Table. Unsocial Hours Worked by Employees in a Four-week Period Men Women Type of Schedule Worked at Least Once Start before 8 A.M. 11+ times Work after P.M. 11+ rimes Work after 11 P.M. + times Work overnight + rimes Away overnight + rimes Work Saturdays + times Work Sundays +rimes Work extra hours at short notice + times Vary start/finish times at short notice + rimes All (%) Shift (%) Number of different schedules worked Total N (711) (1) Nonshift (%) (3) Full-time (%) (319) Part-time (%) (23) Source: Author's calculations using the 1989 Hours of Work Survey, commissioned by the Equal Opportunities Commission. Notes: This develops an earlier table in Marsh (1991, 8). Analysis of female shift workers was precluded by the small absolute numbers.

15 8 Fagan Moreover, table reveals a strong gender pattern. Men were the most likely and women part-timers the least likely to work each unsocial arrangement. One-third of women full-timers and part-timers were not involved in any of these unsocial working-time arrangements, while 87 percent of men had experienced at least one of these patterns in the past four weeks and only 13 percent had not worked any of these schedules. Over 0 percent of men were involved in four or more of the listed patterns (82 percent of shift workers and nearly a third of nonshift workers). Working overnight (either rotating shifts or permanent night work) or being away from home overnight (e.g., on a business trip) were the least common working-time patterns for both women and men. Two-thirds of those who stated that they worked after 11 P.M. had also worked overnight. Among those working unsocial hours, the most common patterns for men were working before 8 A.M., after P.M., and on Saturdays. For women, working after P.M. and on Saturdays were more common than early morning starts. This section has presented some of the different dimensions to work schedules in Britain. Weekend work is common for both women and men. For 1 percent of men this was because they worked seven days in the reference week. Most of the respondents had variable hours, including 20 percent of men who worked rotating shifts and over 0 percent of nonshift workers of both sexes whose start and finish times sometimes varied. For men, variable working times represented some degree of autonomy, while for women, variations were more likely to be instigated by employers. Gender is a key factor in the type of working-time pattern. Men are more likely to be involved in shift work and unsocial working-time patterns than women, but men appear to have more autonomy in the choice of working times. The Household Context of Work Schedules We now turn to the working-time patterns of employees living with partners (whether married or cohabiting). Only percent of female employees in these households had an inactive spouse, compared to 1 percent of men. This lack of symmetry reflects die traditional "breadwinner" role for men that is reinforced by various institutions. For example, the social security system actually creates strong financial incentives for women to leave employment if their spouse is made unemployed (Dilnot and Kell 1987). Therefore, while the analysis explores the relationship between working time and parenthood for both sexes, the employment status of the spouse is only analyzed for male employees. In this cross-sectional data, it is difficult to disentangle the causal relationships. For example, men may work certain work schedules

16 Gendered Schedules in Great Britain 87 because they provide the sole wage for the household or the fact that they work these hours may constrain their partners' employment decisions. (In the next section I will explore these relationships further by examining the perceived convenience of switching to alternative work schedules for both sexes.) Men with dependent children under age sixteen have longer workweeks (+ hours) than men without children under age sixteen, although there is some indication that some fathers with a child under age five reduce their hours to 300 per week since there is some "hollowing out" of the 1^-hour band for this group of men (table a). Men with children under age sixteen are also more involved in weekend work, with more than a third having worked six or seven days. Saturday work over a four-week period was particularly common for those with young children (2 percent) (table b). Most of this weekend work was probably overtime, for fathers were much more likely to work extra hours at short notice (more than a third compared to 12 percent of men without children under age sixteen). Evening and night work was largely unaffected by parental responsibilities, but fathers, particularly those with young children, were less involved in overnight work. Those with a preschool child (under agefive) were also the least likely to start work before 8 A.M. but those with children at school (aged -1) were the most likely to have an early morning start. The relationship between men's work schedules and the employment status of their partners is complex. It might be expected that men spend the longest time at work when they are the sole wage earner, especially since further analysis shows that 80 percent of these households have the additional costs of raising children. However, 70 percent of men with partners working part-time also had dependent children, and in this household context men work the longest hours: half had worked for more than forty-five hours and 39 percent had worked for more than five days. Part of the explanation may be related to their children's ages. More men whose partners were employed part-time had children aged -1; the financial pressures of fatherhood are likely to be greater at this stage in the life cycle, even when a second wage exists. But other possible explanations cannot be ruled out. For example, women may not participate in paid work because of a lack of local employment opportunities or because their partners' earnings are sufficiently high to reduce the financial pressure for them to work. Men were least likely to work long weeks in households with a second full-time salary. But 0 percent of these dual-earner households included no children under age sixteen. This factor, in conjunction with the second full-time salary, may have reduced the financial pressure on men to take on overtime hours. Men's involvement in some unsocial hours (early morning starts,

17 88 Fagan Table. Household Circumstances and Men's Work Schedules in Couple Households Age of Youngest Child None under School- Preschool 1 Years age (under ) Employment Status of Partner No Job Part-time Full-time A. Reference Week Schedule Hours at workplace (%) <30 > > Pattern of days (%) Monday-Friday < days 9 days with weekend > days 29 Weekend work (%) Saturday or Sunday 23 Both days 1 Rotating shifts (%) 22 N (20) B. Unsocial Hours in Four-Week Period Start before 8 A.M. 9 Work after P.M. 2 9 Work after 11 P.M. 2 2 Work overnight Work away overnight Work Saturdays 3 3 Work Sundays Extra hours at short notice 12 3 Vary start/finish times at short notice 23 N (20) (182) (18) (182) (18) (221) (1) (18) (221) (1) (18) Source: Author's calculations using the 1989 Hours of Work Survey, commissioned by the Equal Opportunities Commission. Note: Part A refers to the schedule worked in one particular week; part B refers to a four-week period. A low incidence of one element may coexist with a higher incidence over the longer period.

18 Gendered Schedules in Great Britain 89 working after P.M., Sundays, and variable hours at short notice) was unaffected by whether their partners worked full- or pan-time. Instead, involvement in these unsocial hours of work was more common for men with employed partners than for those with nonemployed partners. Working Saturdays and extra hours at short notice was slightly different. Men in households with two full-time salaries were the least likely to have gone to work on Saturdays, but the most likely to have worked extra hours at short notice, presumably on weekdays. Finally, men with partners employed full-time are the most likely to work rotating shifts. This is closely associated with their higher involvement in working after 11 P.M. at night, and on both weekend days. That their partners manage to work full-time while living with a shift worker may reflect financial pressures on the household, for shift work is more common among men in manual rather than the high-paid nonmanual jobs. But this may also be a reflection of the fact that more than half of these couples do not have to juggle complex work schedules with raising children under age sixteen. The impact of parenthood on work schedules is much more dramatic for women than for men. Not only are fewer women employed if they a preschool child, but the majority of all employed mothers work parttime (table a). Part-time work is also common among women without children under sixteen. Most of these part-timers would have had the responsibilities of caring for younger children in the past, and the effect of having worked only part-time in earlier years lingers. Among women part-timers, the hours worked are much shorter if they have a preschool child: 3 percent of these mothers work sixteen hours or less per week compared with 2 percent of part-timers without children under age sixteen. Few mothers with a preschool child work full-time, so we can only compare full-time work schedules for women with school-age children and those with no children under sixteen years. Mothers who work full-time and have children aged -1 are more involved in working very long workweeks (22 percent work + hours) than those without children under age sixteen (1 percent). Full-time employment for some mothers may be a result of the financial pressures of raising a family, but for others it may indicate that they are following a "male employment career path" in professional and high-level occupations that demand a long workweek commitment. On the one hand, the dominance of part-time employment for mothers is reflected in their working fewer than five days per week, particularly those with a preschool child ( percent). On the other hand, mothers with children under age five are more likely to have weekend work times. Thirty-four percent of part-timers with a child under age five worked one weekend day, compared with about 1 percent of other female employees. Full-time working mothers with older children were

19 Table. The Impact of Motherhood on Women's Work Schedules in Couple Households Women Workers with No Children under 1 Years Women Workers with No School-age Children Women Workers with No Preschool Children Full-time Part-time All Full-time Part-time All Full-time Part-time All A. Female Employment Rate and Work Schedules for Reference Week Employment rate Hours at workplace 1-1 >1-30 >30-0 >0- + Pattern of days Monday-Friday < days days with weekend > days Weekend work Saturday or Sunday Both days N (19) (70) (220) () (10) (10) (1) (0) ()

20 B. Unsocial hours in Four-week Period Start before 8 A.M. Work after P.M. Work after 11 P.M. Work overnight Work away overnight Work Saturdays Work Sundays Extra hours at short notice Vary start/finish times at short notice N (19) (70) (220) () (10) (10) (1) (0) () Source: Author's calculations using the 1989 Hours of Work Survey, commissioned by the Equal Opportunities Commission, and from Employment Department, "Women in the Labour Market: Results from the 1989 Labour Force Survey," Employment Gazette (Dec. 1990, 19-3). a. The employment rate is the percentage of all adult women who were employed at the time of the survey according to the Labour Force Survey; the data for mothers excludes lone parents.

21 92 Fagan the most likely to work both weekend days (1 percent), and overall, 2 percent had worked more than five days in the reference week. At the same time, they were also more likely to compress their full-time week into four days than women without children under age sixteen (12 percent compared to percent). Women are less involved in unsocial hours of work than men, regardless of their household circumstances (table b and b). But it is ironic that employed women without children under age sixteen are generally less involved in unsocial hours than mothers, with two exceptions. Women without children under age sixteen are more likely to make an early morning start (before 8 A.M.), even if they work parttime; women with younger children are less likely to do so probably because they are getting the children ready for school. Similarly, they are less likely to vary their start and finish times: again, this is probably because women with children under age sixteen have a tighter domestic schedule to manage. However, women with children under age five are the most likely to have unsocial work hours: percent worked after P.M., 1 percent after 11 P.M. more than a third worked weekends, and a quarter worked extra hours at short notice. Most of these women work part-time, but these jobs involve more weekend and evening work than the part-time jobs held by women with older or no dependent children. Part-timers are most likely to work extra or variable hours at short notice if they have a school-age child. Among those women without a preschool child, it is full-time work that is associated with working more unsocial hours, but even for this category of workers, it is women with school-age children who seem to have the most unsocial work hours. Looking at dual-earner couples, we find a gendered distribution. Table 7 shows that there is no simple relationship between men's and women's working hours, except that a "role reversal" pattern of men employed part-time and women full-time is rare. In 3 percent of dualearner couples, men work forty-six hours or more; in these households, women are just as likely to be employed full-time as part-time. Conversely, a total of 28 percent of dual-earner households include women employed for 30-0 hours per week, and about a third of each live with men working "moderate" (9 percent), "long" (9 percent) and "very long" (10 percent) hours. Table 8 clarifies the work schedules in dual-earner households. Respondents were asked to select a diagram of working times most representative of their family's arrangements. The most common pattern selected was that in which one person worked a shorter day, starting after and finishing before the working day of their partners (category C in table 8). In most households, this shorter schedule was done by women. The second most common pattern was for one partner to both

22 Gendered Schedules in Great Britain 93 Table 7. Total Number of Hours Worked by Dual-earner Couples Type of Combined Schedule Frequency of Schedule (%) "Role reversal" (men employed part-time) "Moderate" male hours (30 <0) + women <1 8 + women women women >0 10 Total 39 "Long" male hours (0-) + women <1 + women women women >0 2 Total 21 "Very long" male hours (+) + women<1 8 + women women women >0 7 Total 3 Source: Author's calculations using the 1989 Hours of Work Survey, commissioned by the Equal Opportunities Commission. start and finish later than the other, but for their work schedules to largely overlap (category D). When these households include young children, the mother is more likely to start later and to work evening hours. Scheduling women's paid work hours into the part of the day where the fathers can take over some child care is also evident in the greater involvement of women part-timers than full-timers in working completely different parts of the day than do their partners (categories E and F). In this section I have explored the work schedules of women and men living with partners. The longer hours worked by fathers, usually through overtime and weekend work after a five-day week, indicates the financial pressures of raising a family. The variation in men's work schedules associated with the employment status of their partners is complex and may be explained by an interaction with other factors, such as the presence and age of children, as well as men's wages. Cer-

23 9 Fagan Table 8. Patterns of Work Schedules for Dual-eamer Couples Women Women Men Full-timers Part-timers Schedule (%) (%) (%) A B C D E F N ) (207) (203) Source: Author's calculations using the 1989 Hours of Work Survey, commissioned by the Equal Opportunities Commission. Note: Multiple answers were possible for shift workers so percentage distribution does not add to 100. tainly having employed partners does not mean men work fewer hours. If anything, men are more involved in unsocial hours of work when their partners are employed (except for Saturday work). Motherhood has a strong impact on women's employment, primarily through women moving into part-time employment. Women work longer part-time hours when their children are older or no longer dependent. In terms of hours worked, women in full-time employment with school-age children are more involved in working long hours than women without children under age sixteen. Mothers with children under age sixteen are actually more likely to work unsocial hours than women without children under sixteen. If women want to combine employment with motherhood in the context of limited child-care facilities in Britain, they deploy a combination of strategies. First, they work part-time, although they try to increase their hours when the children are older. Second, school attendance is the main form of public child care, so the hours women may