IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/esr/wpaper/wp189.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Impact of Flexible Working Arrangements on Work-Life Conflict and Work Pressure in Ireland

Author

Listed:
  • Helen Russell

    (Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI))

  • Philip J. O'Connell

    (Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI))

  • Frances McGinnity

    (Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI))

Abstract

Recent rapid economic growth in Ireland has been accompanied by a strong surge in the number of women in employment, and this has led to a significant increase in the proportion of dual-earner families. These changes have brought the issue of reconciliation between work and care commitments to the fore. Flexible working arrangements in firms have been identified as one important means of balancing work and other commitments (Evans 2001). In this paper we investigate the relationship between four flexible working arrangements ? flexi-time, part-time hours, working from home and job-share ? and two key employee outcomes ? work pressure and work-life conflict, using data from the first national survey of employees in Ireland in 2003. Our results show that while part-time work and flexi-time tend to reduce work pressure and work-life conflict, working from home is associated with greater levels of both work pressure and work-life conflict. We conclude that it is important to distinguish between flexible working arrangements to discover their potential for reducing work pressure and work-life conflict.

Suggested Citation

  • Helen Russell & Philip J. O'Connell & Frances McGinnity, 2007. "The Impact of Flexible Working Arrangements on Work-Life Conflict and Work Pressure in Ireland," Papers WP189, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    • Handle: RePEc:esr:wpaper:wp189
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.esri.ie/pubs/WP189.pdf
    File Function: First version, 2007
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Watson, Dorothy & Russell, Helen & O'Connell, Philip J., 2011. "The Changing Workplace," Papers RB2011/1/3, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    2. Nolan, Brian, 1992. "Low Pay in Ireland," Research Series, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number GRS159.
    3. Sexton, Jerry & Hughes, Gerard & Finn, Claire, 2002. "Occupational Employment Forecasts 2015: FAS/ESRI Report No. 10," Forecasting Report, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number BMI167, march.
    4. Francis Green, 2001. "It’s Been A Hard Day’s Night: The Concentration and Intensification of Work in Late Twentieth‐Century Britain," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 39(1), pages 53-80, March.
    5. Jeff Hyman & Chris Baldry & Dora Scholarios & Dirk Bunzel, 2003. "Work–Life Imbalance in Call Centres and Software Development," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 41(2), pages 215-239, June.
    6. John M. Evans, 2001. "Firms' Contribution to the Reconciliation between Work and Family Life," OECD Labour Market and Social Policy Occasional Papers 48, OECD Publishing.
    7. Michael White & Stephen Hill & Patrick McGovern & Colin Mills & Deborah Smeaton, 2003. "‘High‐performance’ Management Practices, Working Hours and Work–Life Balance," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 41(2), pages 175-195, June.
    8. Kimberly Fisher & Richard Layte, 2004. "Measuring work-life balance using time diary data," electronic International Journal of Time Use Research, Research Institute on Professions (Forschungsinstitut Freie Berufe (FFB)) and The International Association for Time Use Research (IATUR), vol. 1(1), pages 1-13, August.
    9. Russell, Helen & Layte, Richard & Maitre, Bertrand & O'Connell, Philip J. & Whelan, Christopher T., 2004. "Work-Poor Households: The Welfare Implications of Changing Household Employment Patterns," Research Series, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number PRS52.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Özbilgin, Mustafa F. & Beauregard, T. A. & Tatli, Ahu & Bell, Myrtle P., 2011. "Work-life, diversity and intersectionality: a critical review and research agenda," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 36557, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    2. Bellmann, Lutz & Hübler, Olaf, 2020. "Job Satisfaction and Work-Life Balance: Differences between Homework and Work at the Workplace of the Company," IZA Discussion Papers 13504, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Nadia Steiber, 2009. "Reported Levels of Time-based and Strain-based Conflict Between Work and Family Roles in Europe: A Multilevel Approach," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 93(3), pages 469-488, September.
    4. Wang-Jin Yoo & Inha Oh, 2017. "Effect of Work-Family Balance Policy on Job Selection and Social Sustainability: The Case of South Korea," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(5), pages 1-15, May.
    5. Samuel Cameron & Mark Fox, 2011. "Working from Home: Leisure Gain or Leisure Loss?," Chapters, in: Samuel Cameron (ed.), Handbook on the Economics of Leisure, chapter 7, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    6. Gianluca Misuraca & Giulio Pasi & Fabienne Abadie & Csaba Kucsera & Marco Virginillo, 2017. "Exploring the role of ICT-Enabled Social Innovation to support the modernisation of EU Social Protection Systems: findings and insights from analysis of case studies in fourteen Member States," JRC Research Reports JRC106484, Joint Research Centre.
    7. Song, Younghwan & Gao, Jia, 2018. "Does Telework Stress Employees Out? A Study on Working at Home and Subjective Well-Being for Wage/Salary Workers," IZA Discussion Papers 11993, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    8. Zapf, Ines & Weber, Enzo, 2017. "The role of employer, job and employee characteristics for flexible working time : An empirical analysis of overtime work and flexible working hours' arrangements," IAB-Discussion Paper 201704, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany].
    9. Ekaterina Uglanova & Jan Dettmers, 2018. "Sustained Effects of Flexible Working Time Arrangements on Subjective Well-Being," Journal of Happiness Studies, Springer, vol. 19(6), pages 1727-1748, August.
    10. Russell, Helen & Watson, Dorothy & McCoy, Selina & Grotti, Raffaele & Kenny, Oona, 2017. "A study of gender in senior civil service positions in Ireland," Research Series, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number RS66.
    11. Russell, Helen & Maître, Bertrand & Watson, Dorothy, 2016. "Work-related Musculoskeletal Disorders and Stress, Anxiety and Depression in Ireland: Evidence from the QNHS 2002–2013," Research Series, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number RS53.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ghosheh Jr, N.S. & Lee, Sangheon, & McCann, Deirdre M., 2006. "Conditions of work and employment for older workers in industrialized countries : understanding the issues," ILO Working Papers 993864863402676, International Labour Organization.
    2. Leo McCann & John Hassard & Jonathan Morris, 2010. "Restructuring Managerial Labour in the USA, the UK and Japan: Challenging the Salience of ‘Varieties of Capitalism’," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 48(2), pages 347-374, June.
    3. Salomé Goñi-Legaz & Andrea Ollo-López, 2015. "Factors that Determine the Use of Flexible Work Arrangement Practices in Spain," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 36(3), pages 463-476, September.
    4. John S. Heywood & W.S. Siebert & Xiangdong Wei, 2011. "Estimating the Use of Agency Workers: Can Family-Friendly Practices Reduce Their Use?," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 50(3), pages 535-564, July.
    5. Frances McGinnity & Emma Calvert, 2008. "Yuppie Kvetch? Work-life Conflict and Social Class in Western Europe," Papers WP239, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    6. Philip O’Connell, 2013. "Cautious adjustment in a context of economic collapse: The public sector in the Irish crises," Chapters, in: Daniel Vaughan-Whitehead (ed.), Public Sector Shock, chapter 9, pages 337-370, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    7. Martin Gächter & David A. Savage & Benno Torgler, 2009. "Retaining the Thin Blue Line: What Shapes Workers' Intentions not to Quit the Current Work Environment," Working Papers 2010-05, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck, revised Mar 2010.
    8. Jane Parry & Katherine Brookfield & Vicki Bolton, 2021. "“The long arm of the household”: Gendered struggles in combining paid work with social and civil participation over the lifecourse," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(1), pages 361-378, January.
    9. Deirdre Donovan & Dr Angela Wright, 2013. "Teleworking: An Examination of the Irish Dichotomy," International Journal of Business and Social Research, LAR Center Press, vol. 3(3), pages 18-31, March.
    10. Ariane Pailhé & Anne Solaz, 2019. "Is there a wage cost for employees in family‐friendly workplaces? The effect of different employer policies," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(5), pages 688-721, June.
    11. Janine Berg & Francis Green & Laura Nurski & David A Spencer, 2023. "Risks to job quality from digital technologies: Are industrial relations in Europe ready for the challenge?," European Journal of Industrial Relations, , vol. 29(4), pages 347-365, December.
    12. Pierre-Carl Michaud & Konstantinos Tatsiramos, 2005. "Employment Dynamics of Married Women in Europe," Working Papers WR-273, RAND Corporation.
    13. Russell, Helen & Maitre, Bertrand & Watson, Dorothy, 2015. "Trends and Patterns in Occupational Health and Safety in Ireland," Research Series, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI), number RS40.
    14. repec:ilo:ilowps:386486 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Alan Barrett & Tim Callan & Brian Nolan, 1997. "The Earnings Distribution and Returns to Education in Ireland, 1987-1994," Papers WP085, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).
    16. Andrew E. Clark, 2005. "Your Money or Your Life: Changing Job Quality in OECD Countries," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 43(3), pages 377-400, September.
    17. John M. Evans & Samantha Callan, 2003. "Firms’ Contribution to the Reconciliation between Work and Family," ifo DICE Report, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 1(4), pages 08-12, October.
    18. Sarbu, Miruna, 2018. "The role of telecommuting for work-family conflict among German employees," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 37-51.
    19. John Pencavel, 2016. "Recovery from Work and the Productivity of Working Hours," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 83(332), pages 545-563, October.
    20. Henz, Ursula & Mills, Colin, 2015. "Work-life conflict in Britain: job demands and resources," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 60070, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    21. Tim Callan & Anne Wren, 1992. "An Economy-Wide Investigation of Sex Differences in Wage Rates," Papers WP034, Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:esr:wpaper:wp189. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sarah Burns (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/esriiie.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.