Professional Documents
Culture Documents
1 January 2009
Introduction
T his article explores the ways in which men and women in mid-life nego-
tiate the intersections between paid work and other areas of life. As
Gregory and Milner (2009) outline in the editorial of this special issue,
research in this field has focused on ‘role conflict’, ‘role strain’, ‘work–home
conflict’, ‘work–family conflict’ and, most recently, ‘work–life balance’
Address for correspondence: *Carol Emslie, Medical Research Council Social and Public Health
Sciences Unit, 4 Lilybank Gardens, Glasgow, G12 8RZ, UK, e-mail: C.Emslie@sphsu.mrc.ac.uk
identity as the negotiated experience of self (the ways that we ‘do’ mascu-
linity or femininity contribute to how we understand who we are), identity
as community membership (competent and convincing performances of
masculinity or femininity that conform to group norms are central to iden-
tity), identity as a learning trajectory (identity is always work in progress, as
meanings of masculinities and femininities constantly change over time,
place and institution), identity as a nexus of multi-membership (identity
has to be constructed to encompass the intersections of participation in
many different communities), and identity as an intersection between the
local and the global (local masculinities and femininities are influenced by
the mass media, popular culture, the law and so on). Here, we explore links
between different gendered practices (that is, different ways of doing work–
life balance) and constructions of masculine and feminine identities.
Gender is integral to any discussion about intersections between paid
work and family life. The spatial separation of home and work brought
about by industrialization in the 19th century was closely bound up with the
ideology of separate spheres — public life for men and domesticity for
middle-class women (Connell, 2005; Smith and Winchester, 1998) — and
gender roles continue to be constructed around these masculine/public and
feminine/private dualities. By the mid 1990s the ‘traditional family’ (with
one full-time male breadwinner) ceased to be the most common family type
in Britain, and dual earner families became the norm (Brannen et al., 1997).
While there appear to be signs of ‘growing gender convergence, but not
equity, in parents’ contribution to childcare time’ (O’Brien, 2005, p. 4),
women are still mainly responsible for domestic labour and childcare (Tang
and Cousins, 2005), and also perform most of the emotional work in families
(for example, listening to and comforting children, giving emotional support
to partners, doing things to improve or maintain relationships) (Strazdins
and Broom, 2004).
Given these responsibilities, most research has focused on how women
(particularly women in high status jobs or in dual career families) have rec-
onciled the worlds of family and employment (Guest, 2002). A small body of
research has investigated how men perceive the connections between work
and home life. Much of this work has taken place in the last decade (for
example, Collinson and Hearn, 1996; Halford, 2006; Hatten et al., 2002; Smith
and Winchester, 1998; Speakman and Marchington, 2004), although research
began earlier in the USA (for example, Cohen, 1988; Pleck, 1985; Weiss, 1987).
Recently, UK government policy documents also seem to be including men
by noting that parents (not just mothers) need more choice about how to
balance work and family life (HM Treasury, 2004). However, in practice, the
large disparity in maternity and paternity leave entrenches traditional gender
roles, and the assumption remains that flexible working and work–life
balance are predominately issues for the working mothers of young children
(Smithson and Stokoe, 2005).
relationship between the home and the workplace. Connell suggested that
work–life problems for men and women may be quite different:
Dropping dead from career-driven stress, or shrivelling emotionally from
never seeing one’s children, is a different issue from exhaustion because of
the double shift, or not getting promotion because of career interruptions.
(Connell, 2005, p. 378)
In contrast, Hochschild (1997) found in her well-known study of an American
corporation that there were increasing similarities in the way in which men
and women regarded work and home life. She suggested that, in the past, the
home was seen as a haven from which (male) workers could escape from the
unpleasant world of paid work to relax and be appreciated. Now, both men
and women regard home as an additional place of work, while the workplace
is often seen as a haven (indicated by her subtitle ‘when work becomes home
and home becomes work’):
Nowadays, men and women both may leave unwashed dishes, unresolved
quarrels, crying tots, testy teenagers, and unresponsive mates behind to
arrive at work early and call out, ‘hi, fellas, I’m here!’ (1997, p. 39)
Aims
Our study aims to make a contribution to the field by taking gender as a
central theme. Gerson (2004) argues that we should understand work and
family through a gender lens. Rather than assuming homogeneity within
gender groups and gender differences between them, she suggests we should
analyse diversity among women and among men, and look for convergences
(rather than assuming divergences) between men and women. Therefore,
in this qualitative study we compare the experiences of work–life balance
among men and women in mid-life (aged between 50 and 52 years) in order
to explore whether there were gender differences or similarities among the
respondents. We also explored whether different gendered practices (that is,
different ways of doing work–life balance) were linked to different gender
identities, and thus to diversity among men and women. Through this
empirical work, we hope to begin to integrate gender into Clark’s work–
family border theory.
We chose to take a life course approach as it helps us to appreciate the
‘larger social contexts in which personal choices and strategies are crafted’
(Gerson, 2004, p. 164). We focused on respondents in mid-life partly because
most studies concentrate on younger respondents (usually the mothers of
young children) and partly because of the rapid changes in gender relations
over the lifetime of this cohort. The respondents were born in the early 1950s
and so entered adolescence and adult life in the late 1960s and early 1970s,
when widespread challenges to social and sexual mores, precipitated by
second wave feminism and other political movements, were changing gender
relations (Walby, 1997). They also entered their working and reproductive
lives as significant pieces of legislation were enacted in the UK (for example,
the Abortion Act of 1967, the Equal Pay Act of 1970 and the Sexual Discrimi-
nation Act of 1975), making them one of the first generations to have more
control over their fertility throughout their reproductive lives (Hunt, 1990).
However, the fact that a large gender pay gap (Perfect and Hurrell, 2003)
remains over three decades after such legislative changes took place is one
illustration of the power and persistence of gender divisions.
Methodology
sampling respondents, given that there is evidence that poor health can pose
a challenge to identity and cause people to reflect on taken for granted
gendered beliefs and behaviour (Charmaz, 1995; O’Brien et al., 2007). This
method of purposive sampling is used when the aim is to select people who
possess specific characteristics in order to illuminate the phenomena being
studied, rather than to select a representative sample drawn from a popula-
tion (Mays and Pope, 1995).
From the quantitative data in the Twenty-07 study, we knew that the
typical pattern for this age-group was to get married and have children in
their twenties. We therefore randomly selected 12 ‘conventional’ interview
respondents who married and had children before the age of 30 (see Table 1).
They also had average masculinity scores (according to the Bem Sex Role
Inventory) for their sex and perceived themselves to be in reasonable health
(that is, their self-assessed health was excellent, good or fair). In addition, 11
respondents were identified who had biographies which were less conven-
tional (for example, never married, never had children, perceived their health
to be poor, or had extremely high or low Bem Sex Role Inventory masculinity
scores). Extreme masculinity scores were defined as those in the top or
bottom 10 per cent of the sample, calculated separately for men and women
using the quantitative data from the Twenty-07 survey. Although our main
focus was on gender rather than on social class, we wanted to include men
and women from a range of socioeconomic positions. We therefore included
both working-class respondents (defined as those working in manual occu-
pations) and middle-class respondents (those in non-manual occupations).
All of our respondents, with one exception, were from the ethnic majority
(white) population, which reflected the relatively homogeneous ethnic com-
position of this age group in this area. Ethical permission for the qualitative
study was granted by the University of Glasgow.
After an explanation of the study and assurances about confidentiality,
all respondents were asked to give their informed consent and were asked
whether their accounts could be tape-recorded. The object was to access the
relationships and assumptions that made up the respondents’ world-view so
the interview began with a request for respondents to give a brief overview
of their life. Using this overview as a guide, the interviewer (CE) then con-
centrated on particular stages in their biography: childhood; becoming a
young adult; and work and domestic life as an adult. The respondents were
also asked how they combined work with other aspects of their life and if
there had been any occasions when this had been problematic. Therefore,
respondents were free to decide what aspects, if any, of their work–life
balance had been problematic (for example, combining childcare and paid-
work, or elder-care and other responsibilities) and the period in their life
when this had been most difficult.
The interviews were transcribed, and the accuracy of the transcripts
was checked by listening to the tapes. Preliminary analysis began during
‘Conventional’ early adult biographies for their age and gender Married and had children
Rona (52) Nurse Married Husband (children left home) before they were 30 years
Maureen (51) Teacher Divorced Partner and young son old, average masculinity
Heather (51) Secretary Divorced Teenager scores and in reasonable
Michelle (51) Auxiliary nurse Married Husband and teenagers health
Diane (51) Information technology Married Husband and teenager
May (51) Technician Married Husband (children left home)
Alec (51) Architect Married Wife (children left home)
Findings
Looking back over their lives, the respondents who were parents described
how they had occupied traditional gender roles when their children were
young. The men had been the main breadwinners while the women had
taken time out of the labour market or arranged their paid work around their
family life. Apart from brief periods of unemployment, all but one of the men
had been in continuous full-time employment. In contrast, only two women
(neither of whom had children) had been in continuous full-time employ-
ment. At the time of interview all of the men were in paid work (with one
working part-time), and 11 of the 12 women were in paid work (with three
working part-time). Only one woman still had a young child at home; the
other respondents’ children were either teenagers or young adults, many of
whom had left home. More men than women still had children living at
home, while more women than men lived alone (see Table 1).
straight to the hospital and stay there overnight.... Well that was interfering
with my family life ... but it was just what you had to do.
Heather (51 years): After my dad died, I maybe spent too much time with my
mother when I should have been spending time with the children.... you sit
back and you think ‘Oh, maybe I should have done it differently’. But it’s
too late you know?
Many accounts centred on the impact of paid work on women’s lives. Women
described how they worried about work tasks while at home (for example,
waking up at night to worry about phone calls they had not made and
dreaming about work situations) and how their work sometimes left them
too exhausted for other activities. Some women felt that these stressful situ-
ations at work had negatively influenced their health. Indeed, two women
had recently been signed off sick and prescribed anti-depressants due to
work stresses. However, paid work was also described in positive terms.
Some women suggested that their workplaces had been a place of refuge
when they had difficulties in their personal life. Comments that work was
‘therapeutic’ or prevented them from sinking into depression suggest that
paid work can help to buffer stresses from other spheres of life.
Socioeconomic circumstances influenced the accounts women gave of how
they managed different roles in their lives. Middle-class women readily
described their busy lives and then reflected upon their desire to have more
‘time for themselves’ at this point in the life course. This idea was expressed
by women both with and without children. Heather gave an eloquent account
of this problem, including a description of the emotional work she still does
for her teenage son:
Heather (51 years): I’m doing a course at the moment which takes up two
nights a week, I go to my mother’s one night a week.... My son still stays
with me.... I have to spend a lot of time listening to him ... I thought by this
time I would have more time for me, to do really what I wanted.
In contrast, working-class women played down the difficulty of reconciling
different roles and emphasized that they were coping or managing. Their
suggestions that ‘you just got on with it’ served to normalize competing
demands. For example, May said that even when she had to combine caring
for her sick parents with her paid work ‘that didn’t stop me doing anything’:
May (51 years): I never, ever found it difficult ... anything I have wanted to
do I have planned ahead and got it sorted but I could do what I wanted to
do really.... There was a wee while when my mum and dad were both ill....
I was running up and down there, but again that didn’t stop me doing
anything.
Men’s accounts differed from the women’s in two important ways. First, most
of the men focused on the way in which paid work dominated their lives,
while the women had discussed the difficulties of balancing a range of roles
at home, as well as balancing home and work life. Secondly, most men
thought they currently had a good balance between paid work and other
activities, although those who continued to work shifts reported that this
made it difficult to organize their social lives. While women discussed recent
or current problems, men’s accounts of problems tended to be located firmly
in the past. Many men described working longer hours in the past than they
did now. For example, Kenny was a senior manager and felt he had more
control over his career now than he had in the past:
Kenny (52 years): I’ve got quite a healthy balance. When I worked for the
Council ... I was going home and working at weekends, working at night
... and no, I don’t do that (now).
Many of the men who were fathers identified the time when their children
were young as the period when they had experienced most conflict between
work and home life: working long hours, weekends, overtime and working
away from home were all problematic. Their accounts suggested they per-
ceived this conflict as an individual problem for their family to solve. Alec was
the only respondent (male or female) who gave a structural analysis of the
situation, emphasizing that there has ‘got to be better ways of organizing
family life’.
Middle-class men often described the need to work long hours in order to
establish themselves in their profession, or to finish studying for professional
qualifications. Alec, an architect, commented that in order to find time for the
aspects of his job that he found interesting (design work), he had previously
worked extended hours. Working-class men reported that they had often
needed to work extra shifts or overtime to bring enough money into the
household. Ronald commented that the timing of his shifts had restricted
his ability to participate in his children’s activities (see Speakman and
Marchington, 2004 for similar findings):
Alec (51 years): Any kind of design work ... would have to be done in the
evenings and at weekends. Latterly, I kind of regret that, because in the
early days when my children were growing up, I hardly saw them out of
their pyjamas because I was leaving early in the morning and coming home
late at night.
Ronald (51 years): The wages weren’t brilliant then and to get the extra
money you were doing extra shifts ... your shifts restrict you for certain
things, likes of the kids are in school plays, in pantos and you’re working,
you don’t see a lot of these things.
These accounts suggest that men regretted missing important parts of their
children’s early years (see also Hochschild [1997]). However, middle-class
men, in particular, balanced this regret with the recognition that the financial
gain had been important. Some of the fathers’ accounts suggested that time
spent at work fulfilling their role as breadwinners conflicted with time their
wives expected them to spend at home as fathers. Trevor and Malcolm
alluded to past tensions over their working hours:
Trevor (51 years): At that time, the kids were young, so she [his wife] had to
look after them all herself at night. I was working till 10 or 11 o’clock at
night. She’d obviously had a problem doing it. I didn’t realize the full
extent at the time.
Malcolm (52 years): My wife and I were falling out, especially when he [his
son] was younger, because I was never here, I was working.
A few men did not follow this general trend. Steve was the only man who had
not had any problems co-ordinating different areas of his life. He worked for
the Royal Mail, and so started and finished work by lunch time. He felt this
arrangement had given him lots of free time to see his family and enjoy a
social life. In addition, two men discussed current or recent problems they
were having. Will was unusual as he described how he managed to spend
time at home with his children when they were young. He also discussed
currently trying to juggle work and family life. Jimmy was the only man who
currently lived with his (adult) child but without a partner. Like some of the
women, he described trying to juggle a number of tasks (running the house-
hold, looking after his 21-year old son and working):
Jimmy (51 years): It’s only me and my son stay in the house.... I feel as if I’m
coming in here now, and all I’m doing is ironing and tidying up, trying to
decorate, oh it’s hellish so it is! [laughs].... And you’ve never got enough
time.
Constructing traditional gender identities: ‘female carers’ and men who ‘live to
work’. Ruth, Rona and Michelle (female carers) remarked on their caring
responsibilities in both their home and work lives. All three had caring jobs
which they enjoyed in hospital environments. Indeed, Ruth (a hospice
support worker) stated that she would continue to do voluntary work in the
hospice after she retired. All intended to continue working full-time until
around the age of 60.
All had been married to their original partner for at least 30 years and had
children. They positioned themselves as women whose identities were
closely bound up with their families. This was despite the fact that their
domestic situation was not always particularly traditional. Both Rona and
Michelle were currently working full-time while their husbands had been
made redundant. The following quotations illustrate the way this group of
women describe the importance of their families to them:
Rona (52 years): We’ve always been an old-fashioned couple and we still are.
My husband had his career and I had a job, which actually suited me very
well. I have this lovely boss at work who’s 30, and she is just climbing the
ladder. All of a sudden she’ll say when she’s 36 or something, ‘Oh, I wanted
a family!’ — you know, you can’t have it all.
Ruth (51 years): You could say that I just live for my family.
The accounts of two men (Trevor and Douglas) suggested that paid work had
been crucial throughout their lives and that they ‘lived to work’. They
enjoyed their work and did not intend to retire until at least the age of 65.
Their largely unquestioning dedication to work made them more likely to
accept that employment conflicted with other areas of life. Trevor stressed
that he was ‘old fashioned’ because he accepted that paid work conflicted
with family life. Douglas attributed his ability to work exceedingly long hours
to his marital status (single), but admitted he no longer had a social life:
Trevor (51 years): Work did interfere (with family life) but I’m old fashioned:
I tend to accept that as part of the job. I wouldn’t say that the job comes first,
but ... you’ve got to give your best to your employer.
Douglas (50 years): I don’t have a social life anymore.... Basically the invites
become less and less because you’re too busy working and the like.... But
as I say I’m single ... so I can get away with it.
Both of these men had a traditional division of labour at home, despite their
different situations. Trevor was married with children and felt that it was a
‘mother’s place to be at home and look after the children’. Douglas had lived
with his parents until recently and his mother had done all the domestic
work. After her death, he paid his niece to take over these chores.
Constructing less traditional gender identities: ‘independent women’ and men who
‘work to live’. Unlike the female carers described above, the independent
women did not position themselves as being dedicated to their families.
Almost all these independent women (Marilyn, Maureen, Gloria, Jackie,
Heather and Shona) had reduced, or were seeking to reduce, the hours they
spent in paid work in order to have more time for themselves or to develop
their own businesses. They had all worked in non-manual jobs and had
sufficient resources to reduce their hours, either through reasonably well-
paid jobs or redundancy money from previous work. Tiredness and worries
about health had also acted as triggers prompting these women to reconsider
the balance in their lives. For example, Marilyn, a social worker, decided to
work part-time as she wanted more time and energy for other projects and to
safeguard her health:
Marilyn (52 years): I was fed up finding that when I came home on a Friday
night I was absolutely exhausted.... I’m diabetic and it’s diet-controlled and
I have high blood pressure.... so I kind of weighed up the pros and cons
and decided that I wanted to go part-time and it’s great: I love it!
Gloria was self-employed and made it clear that she had a large amount of
control over which projects she worked on. Like Marilyn, health issues (in this
case, mental health) influenced her decisions about work. In addition, she
linked her independence at work with her independence in relationships:
Gloria (52 years): We were brought up to be very independent ... and in order
for you to keep being independent, you have to choose properly, so we just
choose properly, and if you make a mistake then you just walk away from it
and that’s it. Same in relationships. If you make a mistake you just walk away
from it ... ’cos at the end of the day, you need to keep your mental health.
Gloria’s extract illustrates the importance that all the women in this group
placed upon their independence. All were divorced or had never married.
Those with current partners underscored their independence from these
men and saw their future plans as an opportunity to fulfil their individual
potential and to do what they wanted, rather than what others wanted.
Extracts from Maureen and Jackie’s interviews illustrate this emphasis
on independence:-
Maureen (51 years): We’re two independent people who have children who
live together.
Jackie (51 years): I’m not just a mother or the job I do. First and foremost I’m
a woman.... I’ve got a partner. We don’t live together — that’s something
we decided. I like living on my own.
The group of men who constructed less traditional gender identities (Will,
Malcolm, Alec, George and Kenny) were generally in high status professional
jobs or ran their own businesses. Most wanted to retire in their mid-fifties, but
this depended upon their finances. All of the men in this group either used
the phrase ‘work to live’ or emphasized that they thought there was more to
life than work. Some, like Will, attributed this to the influence of their father,
while others, like Alec, referred to the context in which they grew up:
Will (51 years): My dad worked and worked and worked all his life....
There’s no way I live to work. We work to live and we live well.
Alec (51 years): I don’t consider work as an end in itself. I’m always one for
life.... Growing up in the sixties ... I suppose you are carried along by social
movements and that does have an influence on you.
All these men had partners, and most stressed the egalitarian nature of their
relationship. Men with children in this group discussed how they had sought
to keep time free at weekends to spend with their families. For example, both
Will and Malcolm worked long hours during the week, but had a caravan and
a boat, respectively, where they spent time with their families at weekends.
This also allowed them to get away — physically and mentally — from the
demands of work.
women were all married to men in physical, manual jobs. Their future plans
for retirement were influenced by financial resources and anxieties about
health. Penny commented that her husband would like to retire immediately
because his job was so physically tiring, while Diane and May had health
concerns of their own. Similarly, the men in this group either had concerns
about their own health or indicated that they were aware of the possibility of
early death amongst working [class] men:
Jimmy (51 years): If I reach 65 and I’m due my retiral [retirement], I’ll look
forward to it.... ’Cos I’ve seen I think four or five guys all retired in there
and they’ve lasted a year, they’re dying.
Ron (51 years): My theory [is] that in six or seven years time I’m off, I am out
of there, and that’s it.... Hopefully: if I live that long! If I live that long!
Conclusions
elder-care in the UK. Indeed, Caproni (2004) suggests that balance may be
an unachievable goal because it is built on an individualistic, achievement-
orientated model that assumes that people have choice and control over
their lives.
To the extent that the work/life discourse remains focused on the indi-
vidual, power relations will remain beyond the scope of the discourse ...
who gets to define what work/life balance is? Who has access to available
benefits, and who does not? (2004, p. 215).
Future research should concentrate on work–life balance among men and
women in less privileged class positions in order to further illuminate the
relationship between individual choice and structural constraints.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank all the respondents who participated in this study. We
would also like to thank Sally Macintyre, the editors and the anonymous
referees for helpful comments on the manuscript. The authors are funded by
the UK Medical Research Council (WBS U.1300.00.004).
References
Cohen, T.F. (1988) Gender, work, and family: the impact and meaning of work in
men’s family roles. Family Perspective, 22,4, 293–306.
Collinson, D. and Hearn, J. (1996) Men at ‘work’; multiple masculinities/multiple
workplaces. In Mac an Ghaill M. (ed.) Understanding Masculinities. Social Relations
and Cultural Arenas, pp. 61–76. Open University Press: Buckingham.
Connell, R.W. (1985) Theorizing gender. Sociology, 19,2, 260–72.
Connell, R.W. (2005) A really good husband. Work/life balance, gender equity and
social change. Australian Journal of Social Issues, 40,3, 369–383.
Eagle, B.W., Miles, E.W. and Icenogle, M.L. (1997) Inter-role conflicts and the perme-
ability of work and family domains: are there gender differences? Journal of Voca-
tional Behavior, 50,2, 168–84.
Emslie, C., Hunt, K. and Macintyre, S. (2004a) Gender, work–home conflict and
morbidity amongst white-collar bank employees in the UK. International Journal of
Behavioral Medicine, 11,3, 127–34.
Emslie, C., Hunt, K. and O’Brien, R. (2004b) Masculinities in older men: a qualitative
study in the West of Scotland. Journal of Men’s Studies, 12,3, 207–26.
Frankenhaeuser, M., Lundberg, U., Fredrikson, M., Melin, B., Tuomisto, M., Myrsten,
A.-L., Hedman, M., Bergman-Losman, B. and Wallin, L. (1989) Stress on and off the
job as related to sex and occupational status in white-collar workers. Journal of
Organizational Behavior, 10,4, 321–46.
Gerson, K. (2004) Understanding work and family through a gender lens. Community,
Work and Family, 7,2, 163–178.
Gregory, A. and Milner, S. (2009) Work–life balance: a matter of choice? Editorial.
Gender, Work & Organization, 16,1, 1–13.
Guest, D.E. (2002) Perspectives on the study of work–life balance, Social Science Infor-
mation, 41,2, 255–79.
Halford, S. (2006) Collapsing the boundaries? Fatherhood, organization and home-
working. Gender, Work & Organization, 13,4, 383–402.
Halford, S., Savage, M. and Witz, A. (1997) Gender, Careers and Organisations. Current
Developments in Banking. Nursing and Local Government. London: Macmillan.
Hatten, W., Vinter, L. and Williams, R. (2002) Dads on Dads. Needs and Expectations at
Home and at Work. Manchester: Equal Opportunities Commission and MORI Social
Research Institute.
Treasury HM (2004) Choice for Parents, the Best Start for Children: a Ten Year Strategy for
Childcare. Norwich: HMSO.
Hochschild, A.R. (1997) The Time Bind. When Work becomes Home and Home Becomes
Work. New York: Metropolitan Books.
Hughes, D.L. and Galinsky, E. (1994) Gender, job and family conditions, and psycho-
logical symptoms. Psychology of Women Quarterly, 18,3–4, 251–70.
Hunt, K. (1990) The first pill-taking generation: past and present use of contraception
amongst a cohort of women born in the early 1950s. British Journal of Family
Planning, 16,1, 3–15.
Hunt, K. (2002) A generation apart? Gender-related experiences and health in women
in early and late mid-life. Social Science and Medicine, 54,5, 663–76.
Hunt, K. and Annandale, E. (1993) Just the job? Is the relationship between health and
domestic and paid work gender-specific? Sociology of Health and Illness, 15,5, 632–64.
Hunt, K., Hannah, M.K. and West, P. (2004) Contextualising smoking: masculinity,
femininity and class differences in smoking in men and women from three gen-
erations in the west of Scotland. Health Education Research Theory and Practice, 19,3,
239–49.
Kanter, R.M. (1977) Work and Family in the United States: a Critical Review and Agenda for
Research and Policy. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
Loscocco, K.A. (1997) Work–family linkages among self-employed women and men.
Journal of Vocational Behavior, 50,2, 204–26.
Lundberg, U., Mardberg, B. and Frankenhaeuser, M. (1994) The total workload of
male and female white collar workers as related to age, occupational level, and
number of children. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology, 35,4, 315–27.
McCracken, G. (1988) The Long Interview, Newbury Park: Sage.
Macintyre, S., Annandale, E., Ecob, R., Ford, G., Hunt, K., Jamieson, B., MacIver, S.,
West, P. and Wyke, S. (1989) The West of Scotland Twenty-07 study: Health in the
Community. In Martin, C. and MacQueen, D. (eds) Readings for a New Public Health,
pp. 56–74. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Mays, N. and Pope, C. (1995) Rigour and qualitative research. British Medical Journal,
311,8 July, 109–12.
Moen, P. and Yu, Y. (2000) Effective work/life strategies: working couples, work
conditions, gender, and life quality. Social Problems, 47,3, 291–326.
O’Brien, M. (2005) Shared Caring: Bringing Fathers into the Frame. Working paper series.
Manchester: Equal Opportunities Commission.
O’Brien, R., Hart, G. and Hunt, K. (2007) Standing out from the herd: men renegoti-
ating masculinity in relation to their experience of illness. International Journal of
Men’s Health, 6,3, 178–200.
Paechter, C. (2003) Masculinities and femininities as communities of practice. Women’s
Studies International Forum, 26,1, 69–77.
Perfect, D. and Hurrell, K. (2003) Pay and Income. Women and Men in Britain Series.
Manchester: Equal Opportunities Commission.
Pill, R. and Stott, N.C.H. (1982) Concepts of illness causation and responsibility: some
preliminary data from a sample of working class mothers. Social Science and Medi-
cine, 16,1, 43–52.
Pleck, J.H. (1985) Working Wives/Working Husband. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
Smith, G.D. and Winchester, H.P.M. (1998) Negotiating space: alternative masculini-
ties at the work/home boundary. Australian Geographer, 29,3, 327–39.
Smithson, J. and Stokoe, E.H. (2005) Discourses of work–life balance: negoti-
ating ‘genderblind’ terms in organizations. Gender Work & Organization, 12,2, 147–
68.
Speakman, S. and Marchington, M. (2004) The bounded workplace: defence, devel-
opment and domestication strategies amongst male shiftworkers. Industrial Rela-
tions Journal, 35,2, 122–38.
Strazdins, L. and Broom, D. H. (2004) Acts of love (and work). Gender imbalance in
emotional work and women’s psychological distress. Journal of Family Issues, 25,3,
356–78.
Swanson, V., Power, K.G. and Simpson, R.J. (1998) Occupational stress and family life:
a comparison of male and female doctors. Journal of Occupational and Organizational
Psychology, 71,3, 237–60.
Tang, N. and Cousins, C. (2005) Working time, gender and family: an east–west
European comparison. Gender, Work & Organization, 12,6, 527–50.
Triplett, R., Mullings, J.L. and Scarborough, K.E. (1999) Examining the effect of work–
home conflict on work-related stress among correctional officers. Journal of Criminal
Justice, 27,4, 371–85.
Walby, S. (1997) Gender Transformations. London: Routledge.
Weiss, R.S. (1987) Men and their wives’ work. In Crosby, F.J. (ed.) Spouse, Parent,
Worker. On Gender and Multiple Roles, pp. 109–21. New Haven, CT and London: Yale
University Press.
Wenger, E. (1998) Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning and Identity. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
West, C. and Zimmerman, D.H. (1987) Doing gender. Gender & Society, 1,2, 125–51.
Wight, D. (1993) Workers not Wasters. Masculine Respectability, Consumption and Employ-
ment in Central Scotland. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Winslow, S. (2005) Work–family conflict, gender, and parenthood, 1977–1997. Journal of
Family Issues. 26,6, 727–55.