Annual RECWOWE Integration Week
Utrecht. June 2009
T03.22 Job Quality and Tensions Between
Work and Private Life
RECW
WE
RECONCILING WORK AND WELFARE IN EUROPE
Tensions between work and private life in
Spanish dual-income couples
Sandra Dema Moreno
University of Oviedo (Spain)
Tensions between quantity and quality of
jobs: Implications from the gender
perspective
Women’s access to the labour market has increased in a
continuous and sustainable way, however it is still lower
than men’s.
Women labour conditions are worse than men’s: low
quality and low paid jobs.
The household and caring work in many ways condition
the presence of women in the labour market.
Tensions between work and private life
in Spanish dual-income couples
Processes and tensions that appear in dual-income
couples when trying to reconcile job and
family/personal life
Strategies that couples use to solve the identified
tensions.
Relation between these tensions and the Spanish
welfare regime.
Methodology
Qualitative methodology: International Project “Couples, money
and invidualization”
48 In-depth interviews to Spanish couples:
– 16 couple interviews
– 32 individual interviews
Couples with and without children
Newly created relationships and consolidated couples
Two age groups: from 20-39 and from 40-60
Comparative case study approach + team analysis
Spanish society:
some changes in gender relations
Women’s access to education and greater involvement in politics
Women’s access to paid work (but still lower rates than EU average.
75% of women work full-time).
– Spanish women’s activity rate: 51.2%. Spanish men’s activity rate:
75.2%
– EU women’s activity rate: 56.3%. EU men’s activity rate: 71.3%
Sharp decrease in birth rates.
New family models and democratization of family values
Dual-income couples:
– In 1992: 33% of Spanish households
– In 2000: 45% of Spanish households
Welfare regime: familism
‘Hard choices’
or ‘Structural ambivalence’
Women have to choose between their work and their
partner/family.
Both choices imply a trap:
– Family first?
– Work first?
An example of ‘hard choices’
or ‘structural ambivalence’:
The case of Fátima and Fernando
Fatima when finishing her
degree moves to another town
to do her training and she
obtained a good, stable job.
Fátima prizes
maintainin
g her
partner
over her
job
Fernando, her boyfriend at
that time, moved to live with
her and tried to find a job, but
since he couldn’t he went
back home within a few
months.
Fernando
places his
career over
his partner
Women who place building their own autonomy
over their life in a couple:
The case of Lidia and Luis
Some women place their financial independence first:
– Lidia decided to go away to look for a job. The separation caused
a conflict in the couple. Luis moved to live with her. After a period
of time they returned to their home town together
Men and ‘hard choices’
Men are not usually confronted by problematic choices.
Whatever they choose, they do not damage their independence.
When there is a tension between the family and themselves it is
generally solved by placing men’s interests before those of the
family.
Publications
Janet Stocks, Capitolina Díaz Martínez and Björn
Hallerod (Eds) (2007): Modern Couples Sharing
Money, Sharing Life. Houndmills, Basingstoke,
Hampshire and New York, Palgrave Macmillan.
Sandra Dema Moreno (2009): “Behind the
Threshold of Negotiation: Financial Decision-Making
Processes in Spanish Dual-Income Couples”.
Feminist Economics 15(1):27-56.
Annual RECWOWE Integration Week
Utrecht. June 2009
T03.22 Job Quality and Tensions Between
Work and Private Life
RECW
WE
RECONCILING WORK AND WELFARE IN EUROPE
Tensions between work and private life in
Spanish dual-income couples
Sandra Dema Moreno
University of Oviedo (Spain)