Published papers

The below are the papers published from the WAF project. They are all open access and do not have paywalls! So please freely download it using the links provided below and share them!

• Lott, Y. & Chung, H. (2016) “Gender discrepancies in the outcomes of schedule control on overtime hours and income in Germany” European Sociological Review. 32(6):752-765

This paper looks at German longitudinal data to find that workers work longer overtime when using schedule control, but they also gain additional income from it. However, we find that there are gender differences, where women do not benefit from schedule control in terms of income as much as men do, even when they work as hard.

• Chung, H. & Meuleman, M. (2017) European parents’ attitudes towards public childcare provision. The role of current provisions, interests and ideologies. European Societies. Volume 17, Issue 1. 

This paper is based on a scoping exercise of childcare provision structures across Europe -one of the main contextual factors used in the project. The main finding of this paper shows that current provision in childcare, both perceived and actual, influences parent’s support for public childcare provision above and beyond ideological stances and interest structures.

• Chung, H. & van der Horst, M. (2018) Women’s employment patterns after childbirth and the perceived access to and use of flexitime and teleworking. Human Relations. 71(1): 47-72 /Special Issue on Flexible careers.

This paper examines the question whether flexible working arrangements can help women maintain their labour market positions after childbirth. This is done using a longitudinal household panel in the UK (Understanding Society). UK has one of the worst levels of women dropping out of the labour market and moving to (bad) part-time jobs after the birth of a child. This paper shows that being able to use flexitime, and having telework available almost halves the likelihood that women reduce their working hours significantly. Further, it also provides evidence to show that flexible working arrangements may help mothers stay in employment after the birth of their first child.

• Chung, H. (2017/forthcoming) National-level family policies and workers’ access to schedule control in a European comparative perspective: Crowding out or in, and for whom? Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis/ Special Issue on Methodological challenges for comparative welfare state research.

This paper examines whether generous national level family policies crowd out occupational level family-friendly working-time policies. This is done through the use of the European Working Conditions Survey of 2010. Results show that generous national-level family policies, in particular work-facilitating policies – childcare provision, “crowd in” company-level schedule control provisions, especially for high-skilled workers. However, very generous leave entitlements seem to crowd out schedule control provision.

• Chung, H. (2018). ‘Women’s work penalty’ and the access to flexible working arrangements across Europe. European Journal of Industrial Relations. online first.

This paper examines the question whether women and female-dominated workplaces are in fact better in their access to flexible working arrangements. This question comes from the fact that many scholars believe in the theory of compensating differentials – that is that women’s low pay can be explained through the fact that they have better working conditions/that facilitate a better work-life balance. The findings of this paper rejects this theory by providing evidence to show that female dominated job posts and sectors are in fact the worst in term of the schedule control access they provide – evidenced throughout Europe.

• Chung, H. (2018). Dualization and the access to occupational family-friendly working-time arrangements across Europe. Social Policy and Administration./ Special Issue on Occupational welfare. 

This paper examines whether there are divisions across workers in their access to family-friendly working-time arrangements. Here the major divisions were based on skill level (occupational level), contract status (permanent vs temporary), and those with subjective job insecurity. The data used is the European Working Condition Survey of 2015 across 30 European focusing on women with care responsibilities. The results show that family-friendly working time arrangements are selectively provided skilled workers and  workers in better negotiation positions/secure workers. The results further shows that although Northern European and some continental European countries are those where family-friendly working-time arrangements are more readily available, it is here where the division between insiders and outsiders are the largest.

Social Indicators Research Special Issue on Flexible Working, Work life balance and Gender Equality – edited with Tanja van der Lippe from Utrecht University.

This special issue brings together colleagues from across Europe and US and disciplines across sociology, social policy, and economics to examine the gendered outcomes of flexible working, what it means to work life balance and gender equality. Finally it examines what need to happen if flexible working is to help reduce gender gaps rather than further traditionalise gender roles.

See below for the complete list of papers – many are open access!