Determinants of work-family balance satisfaction during the pandemic: Insights from Québec.

The first wave of the COVID pandemic was the most challenging for employed parents, and more specifically for women. In Québec, research has shown a deterioration in the psychological health of parents in the early weeks of the pandemic. In this research, we investigate how Québec parents who remained employed during the lockdown in 2020 perceived their work-family balance in the stressful context of new earning and caregiving constraints, drawing on survey data collected in May 2020. Our approach integrates insights from psychological, managerial and sociological literatures. We find that most parents who remained employed found their work-family balance "easy" in the first months of the pandemic, but women felt less satisfied with their work-family balance than men as well as those whose employers were less understanding and supportive, and those whose workloads increased. The implications of these results are discussed in the light of previous studies on work-family intersections, to show that gender continues to matter when family members are faced with extraordinary circumstances such as the closing of childcare and schools, even in the egalitarian context of Québec, where fathers are perceived as legitimate caregivers.

La première vague de la pandémie de COVID a été la plus difficile pour les employés avec des enfants, et plus particulièrement pour les femmes. Au Québec, la recherche a révélé une détérioration de la santé psychologique des parents au Québec dans les premières semaines de la pandémie. Dans cette recherche, nous examinons la manière dont les parents québécois demeurés en emploi pendant le confinement en 2020 ont perçu leur conciliation emploi-famille dans le contexte stressant de nouvelles contraintes en matière de revenus et de prestation de soins, en nous appuyant sur les données d'enquête recueillies en mai 2020. Notre approche intègre des notions issues de la littérature en gestion, en psychologie et en sociologie. Nos résultats montrent que la plupart des parents qui ont conservé leur emploi ont perçu leur conciliation emploi-famille comme étant « facile ¼ au cours des premiers mois de la pandémie, mais que les femmes se sont senties moins satisfaites de leur conciliation emploi-famille que les hommes, ainsi que ceux dont les employeurs ont été moins compréhensifs et moins coopératifs, et ceux dont la charge de travail a augmenté. Les implications de ces résultats sont discutées à la lumière d'études antérieures sur les intersections emploi-famille, pour montrer que le genre continue d'avoir de l'importance lorsque les membres de la famille sont confrontés à des circonstances extraordinaires telles que la fermeture des services de garde et des écoles, même dans le contexte égalitaire du Québec, où les pères sont perçus comme des dispensateurs de soins légitimes.

Familydemic Cross Country and Gender Dataset on work and family outcomes during COVID-19 pandemic.

Here we present the Familydemic Cross Country and Gender Dataset (FCCGD), which offers cross country and gender comparative data on work and family outcomes among parents of dependent children, before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. It covers six countries from two continents representing diverse welfare regimes as well as distinct policy reactions to the pandemic outbreak. The FCCGD was created using the first wave of a web-based international survey (Familydemic) carried out between June and September 2021, on large samples of parents (aged 20-59) living with at least one child under 12 in Canada, Germany, Italy, Poland, Sweden, and the US. While individual datasets are not available due to country-level restriction policies, the presented database allows for cross-country comparison of a wide range of employment outcomes and work arrangements, the division of diverse tasks of unpaid labour (housework and childcare) in couples, experiences with childcare and school closures due to the pandemic and subjective assessments of changes to work-life balance, career prospects and the financial situation of families (234 variables).

BB see: Transparency legislation and public discussions of wage inequality.

Disparities in compensation persist between men and women. Wage transparency, which enables workers to compare their compensation to what others receive in their organization, can be an important tool for redressing specific intra-firm disparities tied to discriminatory processes. Drawing on newspaper reports about gender pay differentials, we provide the first analysis of whether a public disclosure of pay transparency corresponds to a shift in broader public discourse, as represented by news coverage. Thematic analysis of newspaper coverage of the gender pay gap in Britain before and after the high-profile release of BBC wage data in 2017 reveals a shift from choice-based explanations to those emphasizing structural inequality and discrimination. The findings suggest that wage transparency coupled with news media attention may not only identify inequitable pay in firms, but also work more broadly to create space to discuss discriminatory practices and redress for pay disparities.

Des disparités de rémunération persistent entre les hommes et les femmes. La transparence des salaires, qui permet aux travailleurs de comparer leur rémunération à ce que les autres reçoivent dans leur organisation, peut être un outil important pour corriger les disparités intra-entreprises spécifiques liées à des processus discriminatoires. En nous appuyant sur des articles de journaux sur les écarts de rémunération entre les sexes, nous fournissons la première analyse de la question de savoir si une divulgation publique de la transparence salariale correspond à un changement dans le discours public plus large, tel que représenté par la couverture médiatique. L'analyse thématique de la couverture journalistique de l'écart de rémunération entre les hommes et les femmes en Grande-Bretagne avant et après la publication très médiatisée des données salariales de la BBC en 2017 révèle un passage des explications fondées sur le choix à celles mettant l'accent sur les inégalités structurelles et la discrimination. Les résultats suggèrent que la transparence salariale associée à l'attention des médias d'information peuvent non seulement identifier les salaires inéquitables dans les entreprises, mais aussi travailler plus largement pour créer un espace pour discuter des pratiques discriminatoires et corriger les disparités salariales.

The gender gap in commenting: Women are less likely than men to comment on (men's) published research.

Subtle gender dynamics in the publishing process involving collaboration, peer-review, readership, citation, and media coverage disadvantage women in academia. In this study we consider whether commenting on published work is also gendered. Using all the comments published over a 16-year period in PNAS (N = 869) and Science (N = 481), we find that there is a gender gap in the authorship of comment letters: women are less likely than men to comment on published academic research. This disparity is greater than gender differences in the publication of research articles. There is also a gendered pattern in commenting: women comment writers are relatively less likely to engage with men's research. If left unaddressed, these patterns in academic commenting could impede scholarly exchange between men and women and further marginalize women within the scientific community.

COVID-19 and the Gender Employment Gap among Parents of Young Children.

Working life in Canada has changed dramatically during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using Labour Force Survey data, we show that gender employment gaps among parents of young children widened considerably between February and May 2020, net of differences in job and personal characteristics. Gender gaps grew more for parents of elementary school-aged children rather than preschoolers, and among less educated parents. To aid postpandemic recovery and prepare for future disruptive disasters/pandemics, policy-makers should focus attention on fostering an accessible, well-funded public care sector and implementing flexible leave policies beyond the period of infancy to help working parents manage caregiving demands equitably.

La pandémie de COVID­19 a radicalement changé la vie active. À l'aide des données de l'Enquête sur la population active, les auteures montrent que les écarts entre les sexes au chapitre de l'emploi chez les parents de jeunes enfants se sont considérablement creusés entre février et mai 2020, abstraction faite des différences dans les fonctions et les caractéristiques personnelles. Les écarts entre les sexes se sont amplifiés davantage chez les parents d'enfants fréquentant l'école primaire que chez les parents d'enfants du préscolaire, ainsi que chez les parents moins scolarisés. Pour faciliter le rétablissement après la pandémie et se prémunir contre les perturbations à venir attribuables aux ravages de la pandémie, les décideurs devraient se concentrer sur la constitution d'un secteur de santé publique accessible et solidement financé et sur la mise en œuvre de politiques souples en matière de congés au-delà de la période de la petite enfance, afin d'aider les parents qui travaillent à gérer les exigences de leur rôle familial de manière équitable.

Career pathways for temporary workers: exploring heterogeneous mobility dynamics with sequence analysis.

Because temporary jobs are time-delimited, their implications for workers' economic security depend not only on their current characteristics, but also their place in longer-term patterns of mobility. Past research has typically asked whether temporary jobs are a bridge to better employment or trap workers in ongoing insecurity, investigating this question by analyzing single transitions. We demonstrate that this approach is ill-suited to assessing the often more complex and turbulent employment patterns characteristic of temporary workers. Our analysis instead employs sequence methods to compare a representative sample of temporary workers' month-by-month mobility patterns through 8 potential (non)employment states over five years. We derive a typology of trajectories and describe their relative precariousness in relation to employment stability and wage and earnings levels and growth. While some of the pathways correspond quite closely to frameworks used by past research, others reveal new and important distinctions. Multinomial logit models reveal job, employer, and worker characteristics associated with different pathways. Age, gender, and type of temporary work stand out as important factors shaping subsequent mobility patterns.

Lasting disadvantage? Comparing career trajectories of matched temporary and permanent workers in Canada.

Is the economic insecurity associated with temporary employment transitory or lasting? What accounts for differences in medium-run earnings trajectories for workers first observed in temporary and permanent jobs? Although there is now a considerable body of research investigating mobility outcomes for temporary workers, most studies focus on single transition points and pay little attention to the quality of subsequent employment beyond its temporary or permanent status. In this paper, we compare income trajectories for a nationally representative sample of Canadian temporary workers and a set of permanent workers selected to match them as closely as possible on personal, job, and work-history characteristics. We find that temporary workers start out with lower incomes and fail to catch up to their permanent counterparts over the next five years. Differences are more pronounced for women.