Parents, Perceptions and Belonging: Exploring Flexible Working among UK Fathers and Mothers
| Published date | 01 July 2014 |
| Author | Simon B. Burnett,Paul Sparrow,Caroline J. Gatrell,Cary L. Cooper |
| Date | 01 July 2014 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8551.12050 |
Parents, Perceptions and Belonging:
Exploring Flexible Working among UK
Fathers and Mothers*
Caroline J. Gatrell, Simon B. Burnett, Cary L. Cooper and Paul Sparrow
Lancaster University Management School, Lancaster University, Lancaster LA1 4YX, UK
Corresponding author email: c.gatrell@lancaster.ac.uk
This paper advances knowledge regarding how fathers and mothers perceive and expe-
rience flexible working opportunities. It does this through applying the theoretical
concept ‘belonging’ to ‘Parsonian’ classifications of parenting and work. In so doing it
makes transparent the misconceptions and inequities which exist among parents and
their organizational environments. Focusing initially on a qualitative study of fathers’
experience of working flexibly, the paper shows how fathers felt marginalized from the
possibilities of flexible work due to line managers’ assumptions that men belonged to an
‘instrumental’ economic provider group. The paper contributes a new angle to debate by
articulating how fathers perceived employed mothers as belonging to an ‘expressive’
child-oriented group, with privileged access to flexibility. However, drawing upon a study
of maternity and flexible work we query fathers’ assumptions that flexibility was easily
available to mothers, suggesting that fathers’ perceptions of maternal privilege were
misconceived. While mothers were categorized as belonging within an ‘expressive’ group
associated with childcare, they were nevertheless discouraged from accessing flexibility.
Inequities between women and men (with regard to flexibility) thus appeared to be less
significant than fathers supposed.
Introduction
Scholarship on parenting and work−life balance
has proliferated over the last decade. Yet some
questions about relationships between parent-
hood and access to flexible working remain unre-
solved. In particular, the positioning of fathers
as unwelcome participants in work−life balance
initiatives has been identified by Özbilgin et al.
(2011) as requiring further investigation.
Research on fatherhood undertaken since the
1990s is consistent in showing how employed
fathers are increasingly child oriented (Beck
and Beck-Gernsheim, 1995; Holter, 2007; Miller,
2010, 2011). In theory, discourses of involved
fatherhood are welcomed by governments and
health and social agencies (Collier, 2001; Miller,
2011). Yet paternal needs are still identified as
unfulfilled within work−life balance research
(Özbilgin et al., 2011). While this apparent neglect
of paternal child orientation has been linked in
part to historic, gendered (and increasingly inac-
curate) organizational views about parenting
practices (Miller, 2011), reasons why fathers
should still be marginalized within work−life
balance initiatives remain unclear (Burnett et al.,
2013). While lack of paternal access to flexible
work has been the subject of prior theorizing (see
for example Holter, 2007; Tracy and Rivera,
2010), relationships between mothers, fathers and
employment remain hard to disentangle. In the
context of gendered inequalities, limited research
exists comparing how fathers perceive and expe-
rience access to flexible working in comparison
with mothers, and vice versa. Consequently, it has
*A free Teaching and Learning Guide to accompany this
article is available at: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/
journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1467-8551/homepage/teaching
___learning_guides.htm.
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British Journal of Management, Vol. 25, 473–487 (2014)
DOI: 10.1111/1467-8551.12050
© 2014 British Academy of Management. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4
2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA, 02148, USA.
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