Tuesday, June 16,
2009
If dad looks exhausted this Father's Day it could be due to his
job, suggests new research that found many male employees are now
pressured to work up to 40 hours of overtime—often unpaid— per week
to stay competitive.
Women face the same pressures, but family obligations may force
them to work fewer hours on the job, putting them at risk for
demotions or even firings.
The new findings, published in the journal Gender & Society,
add to the growing body of evidence that heightened competition in
the workplace, combined with modern business practices, are
resulting in near-unprecedented levels of overtime that may not
even be productive in the long run.
"This clearly does not ease the situation for women and men who
want to combine career and family-life," concluded lead author
Patricia van Echtelt and colleagues. "Moreover, a growing body of
literature shows that working long hours does not automatically
lead to greater productivity and effectiveness, and thus not
necessarily contributes to employers' needs but potentially harms
the well-being of employees."
The extensive study looked at the working habits of 1,114 male and
female Dutch employees. While the researchers indicate their
findings could apply to other countries, they chose to focus on the
Netherlands, where outside family support, such as childcare, has
been unable to meet the growing demands.
Van Echtelt, a Netherlands Institute for Social Research scientist,
and her team found that, among the survey respondents, 69 percent
of all men worked overtime versus 42 percent of women. Women who
work overtime do so at a rate that is about one-third lower than
that of their male colleagues.
It's "usually explained by the continuing trend for women to be
more involved in unpaid family work," the researchers noted. And
even when partners share family chores, "men often characterize
their contribution as 'helping' their wives, without feeling to
have the main responsibility."
The researchers therefore predict families with more kids and
at-home responsibilities will become "more constrained in their
opportunities to indulge the 'choice' to work overtime."
Choice is turning into expectation at most companies built upon the
"team work" model, with pressures coming from project teams,
responsibility for meeting profit or production targets, imposed
deadlines and employees left to manage their own careers. A
separate study at a software engineering firm, for example,
determined that interdependent work patterns, "a crisis mentality,"
and a reward system based on individual heroics led to "inefficient
work processes and long working hours."
Cornell University's Youngjoo Cha, who led another U.S. data-based
study accepted for publication in the American Sociological Review,
found that if a husband works more than 60 hours a week, his wife
is 42 percent more likely to leave her position.
Cha, who agrees with the Dutch findings, said, "The norm of
overwork systematically disadvantages women, who are less likely to
work long hours because of the expectation that they will have
primary caregiving responsibilities and do more housework than
men."
In future, van Echtelt and her team hope that businesses will value
their "employees more for their efficiency and relational skills
and less for their crisis mentality and working long hours."
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Sociologists for Women in Society
Thanks to Sociologists for Women
in Society for this article.
