1
Balancing Job Mobility and Family Life: Effects on household division
of labour
Meil, Gerardo
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Dpt. Sociology
Prof. in Sociology
Web page: www.uam.es/gerardo.meil
E-mail: [email protected]
Introduction
With the development of ‘flexible capitalism’, demands for greater spatial job mobility
by workers have increased; in fact, more than half the European workforce has been
confronted with mobility demands at some time in their working biography, if we
consider spatial job mobility to be much more than migration and to encompass other
forms of “recurring mobility” such as commuting over long distances or sleeping away
from home for job-related reasons (Schneider/Meil 2008). These mobility demands of
individuals conflict with other demands stemming from the embeddedness of people in
the geographical and social context where they live. When individuals have a partner,
these demands especially conflict with the life and professional projects of the partner.
With the disappearance of the traditional bourgeois family, where family roles were
defined along clear gender lines, female partners are ever more reluctant to follow their
partners when they have to work far from home and relocate to a new place.
As a result of improvement in the means and infrastructure of transportation and
communication, together with other social changes such as individualisation (Beck
1999) and development of the ‘fusional family’ into the ‘associative family’ (Roussel
1989), other forms of spatial mobility have become more attractive and frequent.
Commuting over long distances as well as staying away from home during the week,
returning on weekends or periodically from time to time, have become valuable
alternatives to relocation, but all types of spatial mobility, including relocation as well
2
as different forms of recurring mobility, have important consequences for family life
projects of individuals as well as for their quality of life. Together with long working
hours, the different types of recurring mobility require long travel time to the workplace
and/or frequent absence from home, which reinforces the problem of balancing work
and family (Schneider/Limmer/Ruchdeschel 2002; Limmer 2005; Bonnet/Collet/
Maurines 2006a; Bonnet/Collet/Maurines 2006b; Bonnet/Collet/Maurines 2007).
Relocation has mainly disruptive effects on the social relations of various family
members as well as on other dimensions of family dynamics (Green/Canny 2003;
Tessina 2008).
Research question
This work examines the question of how job-related spatial mobility affects gender
equality between partners. Two main aspects in this context will be discussed here: the
effects of mobility on working patterns of the partners, and the effects of mobility on
sharing of housework and childcare between partners. In this discussion we will pay
special attention to the hypothesis that men´s job spatial mobility fosters a
retraditionalisation of gender roles in families as their mobility is possible mainly
because of a traditional or semi-traditional division of household labour, forcing women
to stay home or work reduced hours and assume more housework and childcare duties
in order to balance work, mobility, and family demands.
Data and conceptual background
This study is based on the multinational, multidisciplinary research project titled “Job
Mobilities and Family Lives in Europe. Modern Mobile Living and its Relation to
Quality
of
Life”
(www.jobmob-and-famlives.eu;
Schneider/Meil
2008;
Schneider/Collet 2009), financially supported by the Sixth Framework Programme for
Research and Technological Development of the European Union (contract 028349).
Data that will be presented and analysed are drawn from a survey conducted in the six
countries involved in the project (Germany, France, Spain, Switzerland, Poland, and
Belgium) during summer 2007. In total a randomized sample of 7 153 people were
interviewed, aged 25–54, including 5 552 in a first wave and, as the cases were
insufficient for analysing our target population, 400 in each country in a second wave.
3
Through a randomised screening process, an additional 1 601 mobile people were
interviewed, out of 17 125 screening interviews. The entire sample analysed in this
communication has been weighted in order to neutralise the effects of oversampling job
mobile people, sample biases derived from household size, age, sex, and educational
level, as well as the different population size of each country. As a result, the sample is
representative of the population aged 25–54 of the six European countries as a whole as
well as that of each individual country, with weighting of population size of each. The
weighted sample for EU-6 includes 4 456 interviews, while the subsample of job mobile
people weighted for oversampling mobile people includes 1 365 interviews. It was
found that 18% of men compared with 10% of women aged 25–54 are job mobile
according to our definition, and the percentage of job mobile people who live together
with a partner in a household is 63%, compared with 74% among non-mobile people.
The concept of spatial job mobility on which this work relies, as mentioned, is
broader than the traditional understanding of spatial mobility as migration and
encompasses additional ways of overcoming long distances between work and living
places. Based on the conceptual work of Schneider, Limmer, and Ruckdeschel (2002),
two main forms of mobility can be distinguished. One is residential mobility, which
means changing one’s main residence once (or a few times) for mainly job-related
reasons. This type of mobility includes migrants (relocation across a national border),
movers (operationalised as relocation within a country over a distance of at least 50
km), and expatriates (relocation with the intention of returning). We will also refer to
this type of job mobility as relocation; because it can take place at different moments in
individual biographies, we will consider people who relocated between 2004 and 2007
to be actually mobile and describe them as Recent Relocators, while those who
relocated before 2004 we consider mobiles in the past. A second type of mobility is
recurring mobility, occurring repeatedly between two or more places, such as home,
one’s (main) workplace, and various customers. This type of mobility also includes
several different forms such as Long Distance Commuters (operationalised as daily
commute taking at least two hours each way, at least three times per week) and
Overnighters (operationalised as at least 60 overnights per year away from home, for
job reasons). People who were mobile as one of these types in the past but not when the
survey was conducted are labeled mobiles in the past, while people with experience in
more than one type of mobility are labeled Multi-Mobiles.
4
Results
1. The effects of men’s job mobility on partners’ paid work
The first question we want to analyse is whether job mobility of men has a negative
impact on their partners’ chances to gain paid employment. The proportion of dualearner couples does not change when working conditions of men imply high mobility;
in any case, the proportion of partners with paid work is three out of four (72%);
therefore, men’s mobility does not mean that their partners have paid work, and this is
the case irrespective of mobility type. Among both recurringly mobile and Recent
Relocators, this proportion is rather the same (69–73%, p=.90), with the implication that
men do not tend to engage in work that requires relocation of their families if their
partners have no possibility of somehow continuing with their careers.
Table 1 Percentage of dual-earner couples by mobility status, mobility type, gender, and family status of
those interviewed
Working non Mobile
LDC
Ov.
RR
MM
mobile
Men without children
85
81
75
80
82
84
Men with children
68
67
68
66
66
69
All Men
72
72
70
69
73
75
Women without children
91
97
97
100
93
97
Women with children
94
92
94
94
81
93
All Women
93
94
95
96
87*
98
Legend: Each cell represents the percentage of dual-earner couples among people with corresponding
socioeconomic characteristics. For example, 85% of all couples in which men have paid work that does
not require mobility and have no children are dual-earner
Notes: LDC = Long Distance Commuter, Ov. = Overnighter, RR = Recent Relocator, MM = MultiMobiles. V Cramer’s differences are significant at * p< .05
These results hold not only when children are not involved in the relationship but also
when a couple has children, although in this case the proportion of dual-earner couples
is much lower as a consequence of the difficulties and/or preferences of combining
family and working lives. Thus, partnerships with children where the male partner is job
mobile are dual-earner in the same proportion as when he is not mobile (67%). It seems
that mobility would not make balancing work and family lives more difficult, but it is
difficult to imagine, at least among recurringly Mobiles. A solution that would allow
both partners to have a job could be that men’s partners reduce their working hours and
take on part-time jobs. Is this a widespread solution for balancing work and family
when men are job mobile?
5
Although mobile men tend to work longer hours than non-mobile ones1, and in the
case of recurringly Mobiles must invest more time in transportation, their partners do
not more often work part-time or reduced hours than Non-Mobiles (cp. table 2). This
holds for all mobility types, and among Long Distance Relationships and Multi-Mobiles
the proportion of partners with full-time work is even greater.
In families with at least one child and a job-mobile father, only one out of four
partners works part-time (24% work fewer than 35 hours a week), and in nearly one out
of two the partner works full-time (43%), while one-third (33%) have no paid work.
Among the same type of families, but with a father who is not job mobile, these
proportions are roughly the same (22%, 44%, and 34%, respectively) (cp. table 2).
Although the proportion of partners who work part-time increases with the number of
children, this is the case for both groups without significant differences. Therefore, job
mobility of men does not imply that their partners must work part-time in order to
balance working and family obligations. However, this does not necessarily imply that
men’s mobility does not come at a cost to their partners’ professional careers.
Table 2: Working time of men’s partners by mobility status and family situation
Non-Mobile men without children
Non-Mobile men with children
All Non-Mobile men
Mobile men without children
Mobile men with children
All Mobile men
Part-time
(<35 h.)
10
22
19
9
24
20
Full-time
72
44
50
69
43
50
Not working
for pay
34
34
31
22
33
30
Total
100
100
100
100
100
100
The proportion of dual-earner couples and the time devoted to paid work by mothers
varies significantly from one country to another (Parent-Thirion et al. 2007), but the
patterns we have found at the aggregate (European) level also hold for each country;
thus, even when the proportion of dual-earner couples ranges from 75% in France to
68% in Poland (Schneider/Meil 2008), in no country does men’s mobility imply that
their partners cannot have paid work (that is, there are no significant differences when
men are mobile). Further, even the proportion of partners of working men who work
part-time varies greatly, from 38% in Switzerland to 9% in Poland, but in none of the
1
While Mobiles work a weekly mean of 43.7 hours, non-mobile occupied persons work an average of
39.3 hours (p=.000), and Shuttlers, Vari-Mobiles, and Migrants work slightly more than 49 hours a week,
among those who work longer hours. This longer work week occurs not only because among Mobiles
there are nearly no part-time workers, but also because nearly half work more than 42 hours a week (43%
vs. 28%).
6
countries does men’s mobility imply that their partners work more frequently part-time
than if they were not mobile, whether or not they have children.
Women’s mobility, as can be expected, has no impact either on their partners’
working status or on their working hours. This is the case in all countries and among all
mobility types.
2. The division of household labour among partners
If men’s job mobility does not imply that their partners have to leave the labour market
or reduce the time devoted to paid work, as we have seen, how do they balance work
obligations against family ones? For balancing work and family obligations, people
have various resources they can combine in different ways according to circumstances
and preferences. One of the most important of these is cooperation between partners. In
this section we will focus on differences in division of housework and childcare in
couples where men are mobile compared with those where they are not mobile. In
particular, we will examine the question whether men’s mobility reinforces the
traditional division of household labour, as has been shown in other studies (Schneider/
Limmer/
Ruchdeschel
2002;
Limmer
2005;
Bonnet/Collet/Maurines
2006a;
Bonnet/Collet/Maurines 2006b; Bonnet/Collet/Maurines 2007). In the same vein, we
will address the question whether women’s mobility fosters a more egalitarian division
of domestic responsibilities between partners, as this same literature also states, or,
rather, whether mobile women are doubly burdened by paid and unpaid work plus the
overload of mobility.
In order to measure the division of housework and childcare between partners, we
have the subjective evaluations of participants of which partner does these duties,
whether only he/she, mainly he/she, or shared equally. It is well known that men tend to
overestimate their own collaboration, or perhaps it is that women tend to underestimate
their partner’s involvement in household labour (Coltrane 2000; Kamo 2000). It is
therefore necessary to differentiate between the two sources of information and compare
them when possible. In our case, we count not only evaluations by mobile men
themselves, but also evaluations by women cohabiting with a mobile partner, so we are
able to compare both evaluations. In any case, our focus will not be so much on the
question of the degree of egalitarianism in mobile couples as on the effect of mobility
on gender equality in this area. We will show that at the European level there is
7
empirical support for men’s mobility reinforcing the traditional division of household
labour among partners when young children are present, but not in other stages of the
family life cycle, while women’s mobility fosters gender equality in families.
2.1 The effects of men’s job mobility on the division of household labour between
partners
Half of mobile men are of the opinion that they share equally in or do more housework
than their partners, almost exactly the same proportion of working men who are not
mobile (50% and 53%, respectively, p=.49). Nevertheless it would be misleading to
conclude that mobility in the age of gender equality no longer has traditionalising
effects, as the socio-demographic characteristics of mobile people are quite different
from those of people who are not mobile2 (Schneider/Meil 2008). In fact, strong
differences exist in sharing of household labour according to the stage of the family life
cycle as well as the working status of the partners, as has been widely shown in the
literature (Farkas 1976; Coverman 1985; Coltrane/Ishii-Kuntz 1992; Meil 1998; Shanon
2004).
Let us first consider the main stages in the family life cycle and men’s evaluations.
Among couples without children, of which most are dual-earner couples (79%),
housework is shared in most cases equally, and a sizeable proportion of men feel that
they do even more than their partner3 (together 75%). Men’s mobility in these
circumstances has no impact on the ways in which housework is shared (p=.90) (cp.
table 3).
If children require care, the proportion of men involved in housework decreases
sharply irrespective of mobility status, and even more so when the partner has no paid
work. Mobile men tend to be less involved in housework than non-mobile ones when
the partner has no paid work, but when both have paid work, no difference is found. The
traditionalising effect of men’s mobility is stronger for childcare than for housework,
among both one-earner couples and dual-earners, and particularly strong among
Overnighters and Multi-Mobiles but also important among Recent Relocators and Long
2
Mobile people are more often male (66% versus 48% among Non-Mobiles), young (43% are younger than 35 versus 30%),
childless (45% versus 27%), and better educated (37% have a tertiary degree versus 21%).
3
For reasons of simplicity, we consider housework or childcare to be performed ‘equally’ when it is thus stated by interviewees, but
also when it is the male partner who mostly or always does these chores. Further, we compare the answers of job mobile and nonmobile people working for pay, excluding the cases when they are homemakers.
8
Distance Commuters (cp. table 3). In fact, most mobile fathers complained about having
too little time for their children (55%), and this is one of the most cited disadvantages of
mobility. Yet among dual-earner couples, mobile men are much more involved in
childcare and housework when the partner is a homemaker, which shows that mobility
is not necessarily incompatible with equal sharing of household tasks.
Couples with older children are not more egalitarian than those with younger ones,
and mobility does not seem to foster a more unequal division of housework among
partners, as the proportion of egalitarian couples among Non-Mobiles is as widespread
as among Mobiles.
Table 3: Proportion of couples who share equally or where the man does more household labour than the
woman by stage in the family life cycle, type of household labour, and mobility type. Male sample.
Men are
Working non
mobile
All
mobile
LDC
Ov.
RR
MM
Childless couples
Housework dual-earner
76
79
78
80
75
71
Couples with children younger than 14
One-earner couples
Housework
32
17*
20
13++
24
15
Childcare
31
20++
13+
7*
53++
33
Dual-earner couples:
Housework
58
51
66
38+
41
46
Childcare
65
44***
56
32**
46++
29*
Couples with all children 14 or more years old
Housework one-earner
36
22
31
14+
:
:
Housework dual-earner
51
54
57
46
67
75
Notes: HW = Housework, CC = Childcare, : = insufficient cases. One-earner childless couples have not
been included because there are not enough cases among mobile people. Significance level of mobility
types refers to the comparison to working non-mobile men.
V Cramer’s differences are significant at ++ p<.15, + p<.10, * p<.05, **, p<.01, *** p<.001
If we rely on men’s evaluations, we can conclude that men’s mobility, although
implying in most cases long working hours, does not always foster a more traditional
division of household labour, but only during the child-rearing phase of the family
project. Further, this traditionalising effect is more frequent with childcare than with
housework and among one-earner couples, but much less when the partner has paid
work.
Therefore men’s mobility does not appear to have unambiguous traditionalising
effects on the division of household labour among partners as it depends on the life
stage, the type of household labour, and whether the partner has paid work. For many
women, starting a family implies that they will have to take on a greater share of
housework, in addition to childcare, and if we argue on the basis of men’s own
9
statements, this would be more frequently the case when the partner is highly mobile, at
least while children are young. Put in another way, balancing mobility, work, and
family is in many cases possible only because women assume a greater share of family
responsibilities, with the traditionalising effects of mobility.
Yet this traditionalising effect is not caused by all types of mobility with the same
intensity (see table 3). Long Distance Commuters tend to be less involved in childcare,
but in the case of dual-earner couples the differences are statistically insignificant,
though they point in the same direction (56% compared with 65% among non-mobiles,
p=.45). In the case of housework, the differences are not statistically significant. Once
children are grown up, families where the man is a Long Distance Commuter are not
more traditional than other ones.
Among Overnighters the traditionalising effect of being away from home very
frequently is very strong when children need to be taken care of, for both housework
and childcare. While no significant differences are found among childless couples (80%
compared with 76% among Non-Mobiles, p=.74), the proportion of egalitarian couples
drops sharply as soon as there are children who have to be taken care of, far more than
among Non-Mobiles or other mobility types. The proportion of Overnighters who share
equally in housework among dual-earner couples drops from 58% to 38% (p=.06), and
in childcare from 65% to 32% (p=.002). In the case of one-earner families, the
proportion of equal involvement (according to men’s evaluations) is very low among
Overnighters. When children are older, the involvement of Overnighters in one-earner
couples is also very low, while among dual-earner couples it is much higher and not
different from that of Non-Mobiles (p=.64).
Among Recent Relocators, who changed their place of residence for job-related
reasons but do not have to invest much time in transportation to work, traditionalising
effects can also be seen during the child-rearing phase of the family biography. The
proportion of egalitarian couples who share equally in housework is smaller than among
Non-Mobiles, though differences fail to be statistically significant because of the small
number of cases. Equal childcare involvement is also less frequent when both partners
work, but not when the partner is a homemaker.
In the case of Multi-Mobiles the traditionalising effect does not appear any
more clearly in the child-rearing stage of the family biography than among other types
of mobility, mostly because we had insufficient cases for a detailed analysis like that in
10
the other cases. Nevertheless, results point in that direction, at least among dual-earner
couples (cp. table 3).
The effects of women’s job mobility on the division of household labour
Let us now consider the effects when women are mobile. One problem in the analysis
is the lack of sufficient data to replicate the same steps we took before. The weighting
process reduces the number of cases; in addition, women are less mobile than men and
more so with increasing age, making it difficult to distinguish between different stages
in the family life cycle; finally, in order to isolate the impact of mobility we must
compare only the cases where men and women have paid work, as the work status of
partners is one of the most relevant factors in the sharing of housework, as previously
stated. The consequence of this limitation is a small number of cases among mobile
women and loss of statistical significance in differences found at conventional levels.
Taking these limitations into account, we find that women’s mobility seems to foster a
more egalitarian division of household labour between partners when they have children
(irrespective of their ages), but not among childless couples. This egalitarian effect of
women’s mobility operates in all mobility types, though with different intensity
depending on type.
Childless couples where women are job mobile are not more egalitarian than other
dual-earners: roughly half such couples share housework equally, according to women’s
point of view (56% compared with 57%, p=.94 (cp. table 4). Building a family implies a
traditionalisation of household division of labour also in the case of women with a
mobile job, though less than among women with a non-mobile job: the proportion of
egalitarian couples decreases from 56% to 47% among mobile women, while among
women with non-mobile paid work it decreases from 59% to 36%. Childcare also seems
more equally organized among couples where women are job mobile than in other cases
(54% compared with 47%, p=.24), though differences fail to be statistically significant
because of the small number of cases. However, not in all cases where women are
mobile do partners share household labour equally. About half of mobile women with
young children must engage in a larger share of unpaid work than their partners, who
additionally tend to prefer involvement in childcare over housework. Additionally,
mobile women don’t count more frequently on paid help to do the housework than nonmobile working women (17% compared with 13%, p=.31).
11
Therefore, women’s job mobility is associated with greater gender equality in
household division of labour, which suggests that women’s mobility has egalitarian
effects on gender relations in the partnership.
Table 4: Proportion of couples who share equally or where the man does more household labour than the
woman, by stage in the family life cycle, type of household labour, and mobility type. Female sample.
Women are
Working non
mobile
All mobile
LDC
Ov.
RR
MM
Childless couples
Housework
59
56
48++
60
45
70
Couples with children of any age
Housework
36
47+
43
41
69*
38
Childcare
47
54++
59+
33
60
43
Notes: Housework by mobility status, without children V =.03, p=.72, weighted n = 210; with children V
=.06, p=.09, weighted n = 927. Childcare by mobility status V = .04, p=.32, weighted n = 567.
Significance level of mobility types refers to the comparison to working non-mobile women, V Cramer’s
differences are significant at + p<.10, ++ p<.25, * p<.05
Women who relocate for job-related reasons tend to have a much more collaborative
partner when they have children than other women working for pay as well as other
mobile women. Relocation for job-related reasons is a second-best option for many
people confronted with mobility demands, so if relocation occurs because of women’s
own careers, it must happen because gender relationships between partners are very
egalitarian, as it has strong consequences for all family members (Green/Canny 2003)
and men must cope with them; therefore it should come as no surprise that most such
couples are egalitarian, even from the more critical point of view of women (cp. table
4).
If women are Overnighters, it implies that they must often sleep away from
home (at least 60 nights a year); thus gender relationships between partners must not be
very traditional either. When women have young children, at least when they are not at
home, men will probably have to take care of them if no one else lives at home who can
assume this task, so it should be expected that at least childcare is mostly shared
between partners. Overnight women, however, do not consider the involvement of their
partners in a very positive light, particularly in the area of childcare (cp. table 4). In
their view, their partners would not be more involved than those of non-mobile working
women, and most would be obliged to do more than their share of household labour
(33% versus 47% in childcare and 41% versus 36% in housework), being particularly
overloaded by their work and family responsibilities. The ability to sleep away from
12
home for job-related reasons seems to give women no more power to negotiate a more
egalitarian division of household labour.
When women are Long Distance Commuters, their partners are more involved in
childcare than when they work for pay but are not mobile (59% compared with 46%,
p=.08), probably because women arrive late at home, though equal share is not
universal. In the dimension of housework, there are also more egalitarian couples when
the female partner is a Long Distance Commuter, but differences are not statistically
significant because of small sample size.
Multi-Mobile women, as with Overnighters, do not consider their partners’
involvement very positively when they have children. The proportion who consider
their housework and childcare shared equally (38% and 43%, respectively) is small but
about the same as among Non-Mobiles; therefore, most of these mobile women are very
overloaded, not only by their high mobility, but also because of lack of support from
their partners in running family life.
Differences by countries
The degree to which household labour is shared equally between partners varies not
only between men and women, among other factors, but also from one country to
another. In men’s view, equal involvement in housework ranges from 64% in France to
47% in Switzerland, while their involvement in childcare ranges from 75% in France to
15% in Germany. In women’s view, equal sharing of housework ranges from 41% in
Poland to 30% in Belgium and Germany, with no very great differences, whereas equal
involvement in childcare ranges from 55% in France to 33% in Switzerland to 16% in
Germany.
As is the case with aggregate data, men’s job mobility has no traditionalising effect
on the sharing of housework in any country at conventional statistically significant
levels. It is necessary to consider the main stages of family life to determine whether the
traditionalising effect in the initial stage of family building and child rearing, which can
be observed at the level of Europe as a whole, can also be found in individual countries.
Among childless couples no traditionalising effect can be identified in any country.
Among young families, this effect can be identified at a statistically significant level
only in France, where equal sharing of housework decreases from 69% when working
men are not mobile to 37% when they are (p=.000). In all other countries except Spain
13
and Germany, where no differences are observed, data trend toward a traditionalising
effect but differences are statistically insignificant because of the small number of
cases.4 The same happens in the dimension of childcare, where equal involvement in
childcare decreases in France from 80% to 42% (p=.000) and Switzerland from 58% to
38% (p=.09), while in all other countries but Belgium it also decreases, but differences
are statistically insignificant. Among families with older children, no significant
differences are found, nor clear hints supporting the thesis of a traditionalising effect of
job mobility in any country, as is also the case at the European level.
Table 5: Proportion of couples who share equally or where the man does more household labour than the
woman in men’s and women’s own evaluation, by type of household labour, mobility status, gender, and
country.
Housework
Not
Working
working
non mob.
Mobile
Total
Childcare
Not
Working
working
non mob.
Men
Germany
74
47
50
49+
:
14
France
87
64
53
64*
:
80
Spain
7
53
54
51**
:
67
Switzerland 64
46
46
47
:
58
Poland
55
50
39
50
:
57
Belgium
81
46
46
49*
:
58
EU-6
58
53
50
53
:
53
Women
Germany
17
36
44
31*** 8
20
France
16
44
52
37*** 37
61
Spain
19
39
50
33*** 29
55
Switzerland 21
36
58
32**
30
35
Poland
22
49
65
41*
32
57
Belgium
16
33
37
30
43
43
EU-6
18
40
51
35*** 25
47
V Cramer’s differences are significant at + p<.10, * p<.05, ** p<.01, *** p<.001
Mobile
Total
11
42
56
38
38
59
35
15
75***
67
55+
55
61
52***
40
62
50
67
67
75
54
16**
55*
46*
34
48*
45
40***
What about the egalitarian effect of women’s mobility? As with men’s mobility, the
egalitarian effect of women’s job mobility on the way housework is shared does not
appear in any country at conventional statistically significant levels, though they trend
in that direction. The same lack of statistical significance also appears in data on family
life stages, though differences tend generally to point toward egalitarianism, with some
exceptions. In the case of childcare, only in Belgium are the differences between mobile
and non-mobile great enough (p=.08) to show a strong egalitarian effect on young
4
In general, when differentiating among many variables, particularly if countries are included, we tend t to have small number of
cases in each category so that when there are differences, the risk of stating them while in fact could not have such difference, is too
high.
14
families when women are job mobile, while in France and Spain no evidence of this
effect is seen.
Conclusions
This chapter has explored the effects of job mobility on some key dimensions of the
family life project. A first result points to a marked differentiated impact of mobility
depending on the gender of the mobile person; therefore, results are discussed
separately for men and women. We then present the main conclusions on the impact of
men’s and women’s mobility on household division of labour.
The reduced availability of time for family life of recurringly mobile men or
relocation for job-related reasons does not hinder their partners from having paid work
even if they have children, and this paid work does not necessarily have to be part-time.
It is true that having children reduces the involvement of female partners in paid
employment, and that it increases the proportion of those who work part-time, but this
traditionalising effect of family building is not characteristic of families where the father
is job mobile, and it is not reinforced by men’s mobility.
One of the strategies of couples with a mobile male partner for balancing family and
work is therefore not to hinder women’s careers, but for female partners to devote more
time to housework and childcare than their male partners. In this sense, men’s mobility
has a traditionalising effect on household division of labour, though more on childcare
than on housework and mainly during the child-rearing stage. In other words, job
mobility, particularly when it requires often spending nights away from home or
relocating, tends to hinder an ongoing transition to a more egalitarian family life and
greater involvement of fathers in the socialisation of their children.
Women’s job mobility also has no impact on the working status of their partners or
on their working time. The most evident impact on family dynamics is in the division of
household labour, as women’s mobility seems to foster a more egalitarian distribution
of responsibilities between partners than among non-mobile dual-earner couples. Unlike
mobile men, a majority of mobile women cannot count on the support of their partners
for balancing family, work, and mobility, so they are less relieved of their burden by
their partners than mobile men are.
15
References
Beck, Ulrich (1999): Individualization. London: Sage.
Bonnet, Estelle/Collet, Beate/Maurines, Béatrice (2006a): Mobilités de travail,
dissociation spatio-temporelles et carrières familiales. In: Bonnet, Michel/Aubertel,
Patrice (eds.): La ville aux limites de la mobilité, Paris: PUF, pp. 183-191.
Bonnet, Estelle/Collet, Beate/Maurines, Béatrice (2006b): Les ajustements de la carrière
familiale à la mobilité géographique professionnelle. In: Cahiers du Genre, 41, pp.
75-98.
Bonnet, Estelle/Collet, Beate/Maurines, Béatrice (2007): Working away from home:
juggling
private
and
professional
lives.
In:
Canzler,
Weert/Kaufmann,
Vincent/Kesselring, Sven (eds.): Tracing Mobilities. The cosmopolitan perspective in
mobility research. Hampshire:Ashgate, pp.141-162.
Coltrane, Scott (1996): Family Man: Fatherhood, housework and gender equity. Newbury
Park: Pine Forge Press.
Coltrane, Scott (2000): Research on Household Labor: Modeling and Measuring the
Social Embeddedness of Routine Family Work. In: Journal of Marriage and the
Family, 62, 4, pp. 1208-1233.
Coltrane, Scott/Ishii-Kuntz, Masako (1.992): Men´s Housework: A Life Course
Perspective. In Journal of Marriage and the Family, 54, pp. 43 – 57.
Coverman, Shelley. (1.985): Explaining Husband´s Participation in Domestic Labor. In:
The Sociological Quarterly, 26, 1, pp. 81 – 97.
Delgado, Margarita/Meil, Gerardo/Zamora, Francisco (2008): Spain: Short on children
and short on family policies. In Demographic Research, 19, article 27, pp. 1059-1104.
Farkas, George (1.976): Education, Wage Rates, and the Division of Labor Between
Husband and Wife. In: Journal of Marriage and the Family, 38, pp. 473-483.
Green, Anne E./Canny, Angele (2003): Geographical Mobility. Family Impacts. Bristol:
Pocilicy Press.
Hofmeister, Heather (2005): Geographic Mobility of Couples in the United States:
Relocation and Commuting Trends. In: Zeitschrift für Familienforschung, 17, 2, pp.
115-128.
Kamo, Yoshinori (2000): He Said, She Said”: Assessing Discrepancies in Husbands'
and Wives' Reports on the Division of Household Labor. In: Social Science Research,
29, 4, pp. 459-476.
16
Limmer, Ruth (2005): Berufsmobilität und Familie in Deutschland. In: Zeitschrift für
Familienforschung, 17, 2, pp. 96-114.
Meil, Gerardo (1998): Changing Domestic Roles in the New Urban Family in Spain. In:
South European Society & Politics, 3, 2, 1998, pp.75-97.
Meil, Gerardo (2006): Relaciones padres – hijos en la España de hoy. Barcelona:
Fundación La Caixa, Colección de estudios sociales nº 19.
Nave-Herz, Rosemarie (2003): Ehe- und Familiensoziologie. Weinheim: Juventa.
Parent-Thirion, Agnes/Fernández Macías, Enrique/Hurley, John/Vermeylen, Greet.
(2007): Fourth European Working Conditions Survey. Dublin: Eurofound.
Roussel, Louis (1989): La famille incertaine. Paris: Odile Jacob.
Schneider, Norbert/Limmer, Ruth/Ruckdeschel, Kerstin (2002): Mobil, flexible,
gebunden. Familie und Beruf in der mobilen Gesellschaft. Frankfurt am Main:
Campus.
Schneider, Norbert/Meil, Gerardo (2008): Mobile Living Across Europe I. Relevance
and Diversity of Job-Related Spatial Mobility in Six European Countries. Opladen:
Barbara Budrich Publishers.
Schneider, Norbert/Collet, Beate (2008): Mobile Living Across Europe II. Causes and
Consequences of Job-Related Spatial Mobility in Cross- National Perspective
Opladen: Barbara Budrich Publishers, forthcoming.
Shannon, N. Davis (2004): Cross-national variations in the division of household labor.
In Journal of Marriage and the Family, 66, 5, pp. 1260-1271.
Tessina, Tina B. (2008): The Commuter Marriage. Avon: Adams Media.
Widmer, Eric./Schneider, Norbert. (eds) (2006): State of the Art of Mobility Research.
A Literature Analysis for Eight Countries. JobMob and FamLives Working Paper
(JFW) No. 2006-01 http://www.jobmob-and-famlives.eu/ .