What Family or Work means to Men or Women Internationally

Tools to support the navigation of work and private life have become household components in international D&I over the past two decades. Large surveys (e.g. WLPS), however, clearly showed a gap in the utilisation rates by gender, with men consistently showing less interest in work/life-programmes than women. This seems paradoxical as recent studies reveal an increasing amount of stress experienced by men. In addition, the latest Families and Work Institute report, ‘The New Male Mystique’, indicates men now experience more work-family conflict than women. To make things worse, men’s job security and earnings have declined during the economic crisis more noticeably than in prior downturns, and so has their health and education. But they still earn more than women, who now hold the majority of U. S. college degrees and are gaining parity in several high-paying professions. Women could hence contribute more – in economic terms – to family sustenance, and give men additional options to the traditional role of primary breadwinner. But what has prevented men from enthusiastically broaden their scope and strengthen the competitive advantages of their organisations at the same time?
The traditional explanation looked at women to be more identified with personal and family matters, while men would see themselves more related to work. To test this, the researcher of the study sent a questionnaire to more than 2,300 employees in six countries: Brazil, China and India (‘emerging countries’), Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States (‘developed countries’). Using two distinct measures of work and personal/family identity, the study found that work identity differed by gender in only two countries – India and Germany – where women actually scored higher on this dimension than men! As for the personal/family identity scale, men and women did not differ except for India, where women once again scored higher than men. Roughly two out of three employees in emerging countries and one out of three in developed countries reported they either directly experienced or believed they would experience repercussions for using work-life policies.
One of the possible solutions to address this situation are internal peer-to-peer campaigns showcasing successful work-life models, helping colleagues to create similar success stories. While there is evidence (c.f. IBCR story below) that establishes the bottom-line contribution of work-life integration, many managers may not have had direct experience with how workplace flexibility operates. “The real challenge is to establish new ways of working together,” comments Diversity expert Michael Stuber, “and thus changing long established routines and unwritten rules”. If there are no internal champions to draw upon, external examples will help – especially when they come from competitors. Strategies to integrate work and life must of course always be focused on contributing to solving business challenges, and create competitive advantage. This goes beyond attracting and retaining talent (c.f. previous edition #42), increasing employee loyalty and engagement, decreasing absenteeism and turnover, real estate costs, utilities and health care expenses. “Work/Life initiatives help establish a work place that is future-proof”, says Michael Stuber, “but it has to come along with a corporate cultural change, resulting from a reflection of the existing culture”. In order to do so, Diversity leaders need to more concretely connect leadership to this change process. One starting point for this is to break the myth that work/life navigation is for women only.