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Flexible Work, Temporal Disruption and Implications for Health Practices: An Australian Qualitative Study

Author

Listed:
  • Ginny M Sargent

    (The Australian National University, Australia)

  • Julia McQuoid

    (The University of California, San Francisco, USA)

  • Jane Dixon

    (The Australian National University, Australia)

  • Cathy Banwell

    (The Australian National University, Australia)

  • Lyndall Strazdins

    (The Australian National University, Australia)

Abstract

Flexible work provisions are justified as enabling workers to manage their personal lives, including their health, around work. This study deploys social theories of practice to investigate how the temporal characteristics of flexible work can produce, alter and disrupt the health improvement efforts of workers, concentrating on healthy eating and keeping physically active. Drawing from in-depth interviews with 12 Australian workers, the study explores the temporal mechanisms linking flexible work to health practices, focusing on routines, rhythms and rituals (the three Rs). This research finds that work-time arrangements can provide the temporal scaffolding necessary for health practices (through routines, rhythms and rituals), but only when there is day-to-day, mid-term, and long-term work predictability. Australia’s flexible work policies do not provide this requisite temporal predictability. Health promoting employment provisions would have to reinstate employment standards from the 1970s, providing the desired predictability for flexible provisions to benefit workers.

Suggested Citation

  • Ginny M Sargent & Julia McQuoid & Jane Dixon & Cathy Banwell & Lyndall Strazdins, 2021. "Flexible Work, Temporal Disruption and Implications for Health Practices: An Australian Qualitative Study," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 35(2), pages 277-295, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:35:y:2021:i:2:p:277-295
    DOI: 10.1177/0950017020954750
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Charlene M. Kalenkoski & Karen S. Hamrick, 2013. "How Does Time Poverty Affect Behavior? A Look at Eating and Physical Activity," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 35(1), pages 89-105.
    2. Jane Dixon & Cathy Banwell & Lyndall Strazdins & Lara Corr & John Burgess, 2019. "Flexible employment policies, temporal control and health promoting practices: A qualitative study in two Australian worksites," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(12), pages 1-21, December.
    3. Heron, A & Charlesworth, S, 2012. "Working time and managing care under Labor: whose flexibility?," Australian Bulletin of Labour, National Institute of Labour Studies, vol. 38(3), pages 214-233.
    4. Colley, L. & Waterhouse, J., 2010. "The Work-Life Provisions of the Fair Work Act: A Compromise of Stakeholder Preference," Australian Bulletin of Labour, National Institute of Labour Studies, vol. 36(2), pages 154-177.
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    Cited by:

    1. Nicole Oke & Lisa Hodge & Heather McIntyre & Shelley Turner, 2023. "‘I Had to Take a Casual Contract and Work One Day a Week’: Students’ Experiences of Lengthy University Placements as Drivers of Precarity," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 37(6), pages 1664-1680, December.
    2. Ionel Bostan & Alic Bîrcă, 2024. "Engagement of Moldovan Organizations in Increasing Employment through Flexible Work Arrangements," Central European Business Review, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 2024(3), pages 95-122.

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