Publication

Book	Gendered Crisis? Effects of the Financial Crisis on Work-Life Conflict of Working Couples
Publisher	3rd ESS Conference Papers, London

URL	http://www.europeansocialsurvey.org/about/conference/papers.html
Type of Open Access	Website

In this article, we investigate the factors that influence the work-life conflict of working couples. Specifically, we look at differences and commonalities of the relationship between working conditions and work-life conflict between men and women before and after the financial crisis of 2008. We apply multilevel analysis to 18 European countries, using rounds 2 and 5 of the European Social Survey, administered in 2004 and 2010, respectively. We find that the effects of work characteristics on work-life conflicts in working couples are not blackand-white regarding gender. Some women’s work-life conflict increased under the same condition as men’s, especially those who are well-educated and have children. It shows that working women are not a homogenous group but that there exist significant variations in the perception of work-life conflict among various groups of women, depending on age categories, education level, or family status. The same holds true for men. Therefore, policies should not be strictly gendered but rather take different situations into account that complicate reconciliation of work and family for both men and women.