Balancing Work and Family: Negotiating Gender Roles in the IT Sector

1. Working it out Flexible work, time pressures and negotiated family practices

2. Postmodern Lives? Family, gender, and work in ’the new economy’ Helen Peterson Christine Roman

3. Background and aims of project • Gender orders versus processes of individualization • Work-life balance and family practices among employees occupying qualified positions in IT-companies

4. Couple interviews • In depth interviews with female and male IT consultants/parents and their partners (n 20) • 17 informants worked in the IT-sector • Couples symmetrical in terms of relative economic resources • Children below 5 years old • Interview focus: Ideals, attitudes and practices concerning work, career, family, household, children and gender

5. Aspects of ”balancing work and family” • Individualized working conditions • Time pressures and stress • Time strategies • Division of work

6. Individualized working conditions • Deregulation • Flexibility: time and space • Lack of boundaries • Autonomy

7. Flexibility Synchronizing schedules ”Shift work” Compensation work at home

8. A double-edged sword Difficulties regulating work load Lack of boundaries between work and private life Work ”invades” family life Work is never done

9. Time pressures and stress Acceleration of time – an increased pace of everyday life Feelings of stress related to family life and ideals connected to family, children and couple

10. Sources of time pressure and stress • Volume: the amount of time it takes to do necessary tasks • Coordinating different time schedules • Interrupted flows • Family time • Lack of time of one’s own

11. Time strategies • Working shifts • Reducing working hours • Buying services • Engaging own parents • Rationalizations

12. Gender equality ideals • Gender equality was considered an important value, understood both in terms of justice and in terms of respect, care and love • Responsibilities for child care and household tasks were typically shared between partners, as were responsibilities for ”breadwinning” • A care ethic was important in negotiating family practices; in particular considerations about what is in the best interest of the child

13. Negotiated families • Gender influenced family practices and experiences but: • Family practices were explicitly negotiated and decided about • Renegotiation and destabilization of traditional gender roles

14. Some conclusions • Traditional gender arrangements had been renegotiated, but gender had not ceased to influence practices and experiences • Sharing responsibilities for child care and housework did not prevent feelings of severe stress and time pressure • The ”work-family balance” complex is not only a matter of time, but also of ideals concerning parenthood, family, couple etc • Individualized working conditions involve new challenges: the renegotiation of boundaries between work and private life