The Flexibility Paradox: Why flexible working leads to more work and what we can do about that.

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, flexible working has become the norm for many workers. However, does flexible working really provide a better work-life balance, enhance worker’s well-being and gender equality?

Using data from across Europe and drawing from studies across the world, Dr. Heejung Chung will evidence how flexible working can lead to workers working longer and harder, with work encroaching on family life. She argues that this is largely due to our current work and work-life balance culture, where long hours work in the office is hailed as the ideal productive worker and where individuals are pushed to believe that they are the entrepreneurs of their own lives. This is compounded by the decline in workers’ bargaining power and increased levels of insecurities with the decline of the welfare state. Similarly, norms around gender roles and intensive parenting cultures shape how the patterns of exploitation manifests differently for women and men. Women end up exploiting themselves at home by increasing time spent on childcare and housework, reenforcing traditional gender roles. This, and assumptions around women’s flexible working can explain why women and mothers may especially be party to negative career consequences when working flexibly.

However, all is not lost. Dr Chung argues that changes in the way we think about work, work life balance and gender roles can help shape the outcomes of flexible working. In this talk she wants to focus on the role of social policy in help making this change. Intentional well thought out changes in social policies and national institutions can help shape these cultural norms and enable a better use of flexible working and other family-friendly arrangements. 

Click here to register for this event.

Speaker:

Dr. Heejung Chung 
Professor of Sociology and Social Policy
Director of Graduate Studies Research
School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research
University of Kent

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