This special brings together innovative and multidisciplinary research (sociology, economics, and social work) using data from across Europe and the US to examine the potential flexible working has on the gender division of labour and workers’ work–life balance. Despite numerous studies on the gendered outcomes of flexible working, it is limited in that the majority is based on qualitative studies based in the US. The papers of this special issue overcome some of the limitations by examining the importance of context, namely, family, organisational and country context, examining the intersection between gender and class, and finally examining the outcomes for different types of flexible working arrangements. The introduction to this special issue provides a review of the existing literature on the gendered outcomes of flexible working on work life balance and other work and family outcomes, before presenting the key findings of the articles of this special issue. The results of the studies show that gender matters in understanding the outcomes of flexible working, but also it matters differently in different contexts. The introduction further provides policy implications drawn from the conclusions of the studies and some thoughts for future studies to consider.

This article sets out to investigate how flexitime and teleworking can help women maintain their careers after childbirth. Despite the increased number of women in the labour market in the UK, many significantly reduce their working hours or leave the labour market altogether after childbirth. Based on border and boundary management theories, we expect flexitime and teleworking can help mothers stay employed and maintain their working hours. We explore the UK case, where the right to request flexible working has been expanded quickly as a way to address work–life balance issues. The dataset used is Understanding Society (2009–2014), a large household panel survey with data on flexible work. We find some suggestive evidence that flexible working can help women stay in employment after the birth of their first child. More evidence is found that mothers using flexitime and with access to teleworking are less likely to reduce their working hours after childbirth. This contributes to our understanding of flexible working not only as a tool for work–life balance, but also as a tool to enhance and maintain individuals’ work capacities in periods of increased family demands. This has major implications for supporting mothers’ careers and enhancing gender equality in the labour market.

This study examines the prevalence and the gender differences in the perceptions and experiences of flexibility stigma—i.e., the belief that workers who use flexible working arrangements for care purposes are less productive and less committed to the workplace. This is done by using the 4th wave of the Work-Life Balance Survey conducted in 2011 in the UK. The results show that 35% of all workers agree to the statement that those who work flexibly generate more work for others, and 32% believe that those who work flexibly have lower chances for promotion. Although at first glance, men are more likely to agree to both, once other factors are controlled for, women especially mothers are more likely to agree to the latter statement. Similarly, men are more likely to say they experienced negative outcomes due to co-workers working flexibly, while again mothers are more likely to say they experienced negative career consequences due to their own flexible working. The use of working time reducing arrangements, such as part-time, is a major reason why people experience negative career outcomes, and can partially explain why mothers are more likely to suffer from such outcomes when working flexibly. However, this relationship could be reverse, namely, the stigma towards part-time workers may be due to negative perceptions society hold towards mothers’ commitment to work and their productivity. In sum, this paper shows that flexibility stigma is gendered, in that men are more likely to discriminate against flexible workers, while women, especially mothers, are more likely to suffer from such discrimination.

Schedule control can have both positive—e.g., increased income—and negative outcomes—e.g., increased overtime. Here our core interest is whether there are gender discrepancies in these outcomes. Given the different ways in which schedule control can be used, and perceived to be used by men and women, their outcomes are also expected to be different. This is examined using the German Socio-Economic Panel Study (SOEP) (2003–2011), and panel regression models. The results show that schedule control is associated with increases in overtime and income—but only for men. Women in full-time positions also increase their overtime hours when using schedule control; yet, they do not receive similar financial rewards. The results of this study provide evidence to show that increases in schedule control has the potential to traditionalize gender roles by increasing mainly men’s working hours, while also adding to the gender pay gap.

Recent studies have shown that flexible boundaries between work and family may make employees work harder and longer. Yet most studies were not able to show whether there are differences across different types of flexible working arrangements, and whether this relationship may only hold for certain groups of workers. We examine how three different types of flexible working arrangements, that is schedule control, flexitime, and teleworking, are associated with an increase in unpaid overtime hours of workers in the UK using the Understanding Society data from 2010 to 2015 and fixed effects panel regression models. Results show that the flexible arrangements that were introduced primarily for work-life balance purposes, i.e., flexitime and teleworking, do not necessarily increase unpaid overtime hours significantly. On the other hand, workers’ control over their schedule, mainly introduced as a part of high-performance strategies, leads to increased unpaid overtime hours. This is especially true for professional men, and women without children, especially those working full-time, and surprisingly part-time working mothers. The results of this study point to the importance of distinguishing between different groups of workers as well as between different types of arrangements when examining outcomes of flexible working. Furthermore, the results of the study contribute to the argument that performance enhancing flexible working arrangements can potentially exacerbate gender inequalities in the labour market by enabling men to commit more time to their jobs, while for women, especially full-time working mothers, this may be less possible.

In reaction to the recent financial crisis, the European Commission re-stated its view that the balance between flexibility and security is the key to success for the future of the European social economy, as well as its belief in the power of institutional arrangements it deems necessary for this balance. However, do powerful institutions actually counter market forces where flexicurity is concerned? In this paper we address this question by analysing the impact of institutional configurations and market factors on perceived employment insecurity among workers in Europe. We use the 4th wave of the European Social Survey for 2008/2009, which covers 22 countries, and implement a multi-level approach where contextual effects are taken into account and individuals are considered to be embedded within a country. We find that policies that secure one’s income and employability skills, such as passive and active labour market policies, are more important for providing employment security for individuals than institutions that secure one’s current job, such as employment protection. Of the economic and labour market factors, general market conditions (measured as employment rate average) and the strength of the financial crisis (measured as gross domestic product growth rate from 2008 to 2009) are both similarly influential in explaining cross-national variance in the employment insecurity perception of individuals. More generally, and most interestingly, we find that institutional factors lose their significance when market factors are taken into account. Thus, it seems that differences in economic and labour market conditions between countries better explain why workers feel insecure about their employment, than the differences in employment and income policies. Although this result could be influenced by the time period under investigation, which is characterized by a financial crisis, results from previous studies using data from different periods suggest that it is not period-specific.