I’ve recently heard several career coaches and motivational authors talk about how the poor economy might benefit women in the workplace by offering more flex and part-time opportunities. I haven’t found good statistics on this phenomenon, but it strikes me that even if this is true, it may be less of a blessing than we think. And by talking about downtiming as if it were a benefit for women, we are sending the wrong message to employers about how they can treat their female employees.
The idea is that professional positions — like lawyers, accountants, marketing managers, etc. — are becoming project-based, allowing companies to retain the services of a freelancer or part-timer on a less regular basis. This gives us hope that we can still do what we love and be home for school pick-up. But I wonder whether most of the part time jobs that are being created are really in these professional areas. It seems to me just as likely that if there is a statistical shift to greater flex and part time work, the jobs may be in retail or service industries. That just means that women who have low-income jobs to begin with are having their income reduced further.
Equally troubling is the idea that, while there may be some greater efficiencies because of technology, much of the work hasn’t evaporated. If you are working a three-day week, but cramming as many projects as if you were still on the payroll five days, have you really won? There may be marginally better flexibility, but ultimately the part-timer just gets paid less for the same work they were doing full-time. As Warren Farrell wrote in a New York Times essay a few years ago, people who work 44 hours a week make, on average, more than twice the pay of someone working 34 hours a week. Half as much pay doesn’t always mean half as much work.
And then there’s the loss of benefits — no more healthcare, retirement plans, or flexible spending accounts for part-time employees. This makes the part-timer dependent on their spouse, or responsible for purchasing a potentially very expensive private insurance plan. Two-income families benefit from the tremendous safety net of two insurance plans and two retirement funds. This should not be taken lightly.
Finally, what message are we sending companies when we couch the forced part-time option in such positive terms? It worries me to have managers think that, all things being equal, it’s better to downsize or downtime women since they value flexible schedules. There are many women who don’t want to be down-timed — they need the money and their families depend on the benefits and income. While a relatively small group of women at the top of the earning chain will see the shift to part-time as a benefit, others will find the loss of income devastating.
There is a place for flex and part-time work in the corporate world — it can create tremendous efficiences, and offer great personal satisfaction. But women need to be cautious about how we embrace these options. We need to encourage eachother to do the math and understand what we are giving up, even as we celebrate what we gain.
Related links:
- Great piece from The AmLaw Daily about whether the Bad Economy is or isn’t a boon for women lawyers.
- From The Mama Bee archives: The Truth About Part-Time Work.
- A Forbes article, Flextime in a Down Economy offers some realistic thoughts.
- On Mommy Track’d, Leslie Morgan Steiner suggests that the gas crisis might push employers to allow more working from home. (I don’t think she is right, and her piece doesn’t recognize that a gas crisis would do far more harm than good for women.)
1 Comment
November 2, 2009 at 7:13 pm
TMB,
Thanks for bringing more attention to the gendered dynamics of downtiming & flextime.
I’m wondering whether downtiming or project-based work as employement practices will follow the trends we’ve already seen with temporary work (which is just another name for project based work, tho often less white-collar). I’m thinking of Leah Vosko’s book on
“Temporary Work: The Gendered Rise of a Precarious Employment Relationship.” (an emphasis on “precarious, there). Not only are there similar economic dynamics, but also there is similar rationale both for the ‘workers’ who ‘benefit’ and for the organizations who limit costs and training obligations.
Another idea that may be relevant to downtiming, as has already been shown with temp work and with professional contract-based work is that the dynamics of job creation are gendered– men get more jobs and *longer* contracts at the same organizations (2009 C. Amuedo-Dorantes at San Diego State) — suggesting an organization-level problem. Worse, when men and women do project work moving from job to job or org to org, there are significant gender differences in pay raises even with similar time in career, (guess whose pay rises faster?), suggesting an industry level problem.
Oh, and the problem has a name. Sexism.
cvh