Gender differences in work-life conflict during Covid? A research agenda for work-life conflict post-pandemic

ABSTRACT

Studies on gender differences in work-life conflict have shown that women often report higher levels of work-life conflict due to social mores of undertaking a larger proportion of childcare and household work. Similarly, emergent research on the impact of the Covid pandemic on work-life conflict have shown that women experienced more work-life conflict. During the pandemic, educational work and provision took place within the home. The current study therefore sought to investigate work-life conflict for employees in the further education sector during the pandemic. The findings of the current study suggest that there were no gender differences, at least in the case of the further education sector, which is contrary to extant research on work-life conflict. Thus, there is scope to explore through future research whether there is trajectory towards gender equalitarianism in the sharing of household work, whether the pandemic as a crisis was an episodic event that necessitated gender equalitarian work distribution, or whether the blurring of boundaries between work and non-work domains is a continuum of neoliberal institutional demands.

KEYWORDS:

• Covid
• further education
• gender
• management
• work-life conflict

Introduction

The Covid pandemic transformed the work of educational provision impacting upon the lives of learners, teachers and those delivering educational services. The pandemic posed a huge challenge for the education sector because within a few weeks face-to-face instruction ceased and the delivery of education and assessments took place online with very little time for teachers and those employed in the education sector to prepare for the change in the work of educational provision. The unprecedented event of the pandemic with consequent dynamic demands (Cotton, Beauregard, and Keles 2021) placed on those within the education sector had an implication for their work-life balance. While there is emergent research on the impact of the pandemic on the working lives of those employed in the higher education sector (Hadjisolomou, Mitsakis, and Gary 2021), and primary and secondary schools (Fotheringham et al. 2022), research on the impact of the pandemic on the working lives of those in the further education sector is lacking. Thus, the location of this study is within the further education sector in England to address this research deficit.

A further reason to locate the research within the further education sector is that it has a relatively large workforce, playing a key role in equipping learners with vocational skills and thereby has an impact on local economies (Corbett 2021). As a whole, the further education sector in England employs 105,000 full-time equivalent staff to deliver education and training to 1.7 million students (Association of Colleges 2021). The sector, over the decades, has seen an increase in the number of women employees (McTavish and Miller 2009) with the proportion of female employment being 64% of the total workforce (Association of Colleges 2021). The relatively high proportion of women employed in the sector, compared to other sectors (Corbett 2021), poses questions about the extent of work-life conflict in the delivery of educational services given that emergent research shows that during the pandemic women provided a larger share of increased childcare while working from home (Hupkau and Petrongolo 2020).

According to Palumbo (2020) employees working from home were presented with work-life balance challenges, that is conflicts between work and non-work roles. The increased conflicts between work and life during the pandemic often led to stress (Rawal 2021). Given that the work of educational provision and childcare (and their learning needs) took place within the home during the pandemic, there are work-life implications for those delivering educational services from home while simultaneously home-schooling and taking care of their dependent children. The study explores whether there were any gender differences in work-life conflict when there was a blurring of boundaries (see Schieman and Glavin 2016; Mellner et al. 2021) between the work of delivering education, home-schooling and caring for dependent children. Drawing on Clark’s (2000) boundary theory, the study seeks to understand the impact of the blurring of boundaries between work and non-work roles for employees in the further education sector.

The paper is structured as follows: the first section provides a conceptual discussion of work-life conflict. In particular, a review of extant research on work-life conflict during the pandemic. The second section outlines the research method, data collection and analysis which is followed by a third section where the findings are presented. A fourth section discusses the findings and the final section is a conclusion with a discussion of the implications of the research and a future research agenda. The main finding of the study is that no significant gender differences were observed, that is there were no differences in the work-life conflict experienced by women and men employed in the further education sector. The study therefore makes a contemporary contribution to scholarship on work-life conflict in that it has found countervailing evidence, at least in the further education sector in England, that both women and men experienced work-life conflict during the pandemic, and the implications for this is discussed.

Work–life conflict: the blurring of boundaries during the pandemic?

Work-life conflict is a consequence of insufficient time to meet commitments at work and at home, with family or in one’s personal life (Guest 2002). The blurring of boundaries between work and non-work roles involves a complex set of interrelated behaviours such as multi-tasking work, and family and personal activities, being contactable at home for work purposes and psychologically thinking of work while at home (Schieman and Glavin 2016). Much of the extant research on work-life conflict and understandings of work-life conflict were based on pre-pandemic patterns of working.

According to Mellner et al. (2021) the pandemic has resulted in a fundamental shift of work and non-work boundaries, which impacts upon work-life conflict. In particular, the interplay between individuals’ enacted boundaries (degree to which one separates/segments or blends/integrates work and non-work roles), preferred boundaries (degree of preferred segmentation or integration of work and non-work roles), and perceived control over work and non-work boundaries, which relates to work-life conflict (Mellner et al. 2021). The spill-over between work and non-work roles creates a conflict where an individual’s working life affects their personal lives, or visa-a-versa (Radó, Nagy, and Király 2015). Thus, feelings, emotions, attitudes, and behaviours that are located within a work domain are transferred into an individual’s personal life or vice versa (Thakur and Kumar 2015). The result is often stress, burnout, job dissatisfaction, increased absence and sickness, and poor quality of life and increased turnover of staff (Ford, Heinen, and Langkamer 2007; Greenan and Lorenz 2013; Tasho, Jordan, and Robertson 2005; Shutler-Jones 2011; Grote and Guest 2017).

Much of the work-life conflict research has focused on gender since parenthood is part of the non-work domain (Gatrell et al. 2013) with the research demonstrating that women have more work-life conflict because of care for dependent children (Dex and Bond 2005; Lewis, Gambles, and Rapoport 2007; Pinquart and Schiller 2000; Milkie, Raley, and Bianchi 2009). Prior to the pandemic, a study of the European Sustainable Workforce Survey found that work-life conflict is gendered since working from home leads to more conflict for women between work and non-work roles (Van der Lippe and Lippényi 2018). During the pandemic, Hjálmsdóttir and Bjarnadóttir (2021) found that women experienced increased stress and work-life conflict. Hjálmsdóttir and Bjarnadóttir (2021, 274) found that mothers were ‘ … juggling home-schooling, childcare, and work created a lot of pressure on mothers … ’ and some women felt guilty for their inability to manage both work and non-work roles simultaneously. Women were more likely to take on the responsibility of home-schooling children during the pandemic and were more inclined to handle childcare duties than their male partners (Hjálmsdóttir and Bjarnadóttir 2021).

Schieman et al. (2021) also found that during the pandemic, mothers working from home were more inclined to aid the family and tend to the emotional needs of their loved ones as opposed to focusing on work, and on their own mental and personal lives. According to Qian and Fuller (2020) working mothers had greater conflict and challenges in managing work and non-work roles during the pandemic. Schieman et al. (2021) explains that when schools closed during the pandemic, the family related needs increased significantly since demands inside the home became more pronounced because childcare, home-schooling and related domestic needs increased. Women’s work-life conflict, particularly those with dependent children, increased because during the pandemic childcare and needs at home were elevated (Qian and Fuller 2020).

There have been cultural shifts towards more egalitarian division of labour in the household (Ruppanner and Huffman 2014) with some evidence to suggest shifts in men’s contribution to the household or non-work roles during the pandemic (Carlson, Petts, and Pepin 2020) although the impact of the pandemic on men’s work-life conflict remains unclear. The current study addresses this research deficit by examining the work-life conflict as reported by men and women in the further education sector. Thus, what happens when the boundaries between work and non-work domains are blurred due to the pandemic where employees in the education sector have to work from home and simultaneously home-school and care for their own children? Were there gender differences in work-life conflict during the pandemic? The study sought to answer these questions by investigating the impact of the pandemic on the work-life conflict of employees in the English further education sector.

Furthermore, the impact of the pandemic on managers’ work-life conflict in the education sector is also unclear. Thus, the study investigates whether any gender differences among women and men as managers within the further education sector exist, given the increasing roles and volume of work for managers in the sector (Corbett 2020). The scope of managers’ roles within the further education sector is the responsibility for the strategic and operational aspects of a college (Alexiadou 2001) and during the pandemic managers had to dynamically respond to a changing working environment and routine, revise plans within a crisis context, re-organise work, address personnel issues such as the health of staff and learners, and lead through uncertainty (Chartered Management Institute 2020). Thus, managers in the further education sector could have higher levels of reported work-conflict. In addition to the gendered impact of the pandemic on women’s work-life conflict (Chartered Management Institute 2020; Qian and Fuller 2020; Rawal 2021; Schieman et al. 2021) the study seeks to explore whether there were gender differences in work-life conflict among managers and non-managers? To address the aforementioned questions, the study adopts the following research method.

Research method

The research involved a survey using Qualtrics, which is a web-based survey software package that has design, evaluation of the design, data collection and dissemination capabilities. The online survey was disseminated to employees through the Education and Training Foundation network of members (22000 members), and promoted through a series of media stories via FE Week, SET Blog, ETF news, email newsletters and social media feeds with a link to the survey. The survey was disseminated from March to April 2021 during the pandemic and second lockdown measures in the United Kingdom (UK). Although the survey was disseminated throughout the UK using the online survey, only one response was from Scotland and six responses were from Wales. Thus, the majority of responses were from employees from the further education sector in England.

The first section of the survey included a disclosure of the aims of the study, ethics assurances (as approved by the researchers’ institution) and a consent question. The second section included eleven questions on work-life conflict according to a five-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree). The questions were drawn from reliable work-life scales of often-cited research of Netemeyer, Boles, and McMurrian (1996), Hayman (2005) and Edwards et al. (2009). The scales have been proven to have construct validity in the measure of work-life conflict (see Pasamar, Johnston, and Tanwar 2020).

At the beginning of the second section participants were asked to reflect upon their working and personal lives during the pandemic when answering the questions. The questions from each of the work-life scales were also adapted to ensure participants reflected upon their lives during the pandemic. For example, borrowing from Netemeyer, Boles, and McMurrian (1996) scale, the questions were phrased to include a reflection of the impact of the pandemic on participants’ work-life conflict such as: ‘Due to work-related duties during the pandemic, I have to make changes to my personal life such as sacrificing time with my family.’ Similarly, borrowing from the Hayman (2005) scale the questions were phrased so that participants could reflect on the impact of the pandemic such as: ‘Due to the demands of my work during the pandemic, I am irritable at home.’ The questions for the Edwards et al. (2009) remained the same as the original scale such as ‘I work long hours.’ The questions were randomised in Qualtrics.

The third section of the survey included demographic and employment questions, namely: the type of further education institution participants were employed in (e.g. General Further Education College, Sixth Form College, Specialist Designated College, School, etc.); the region where the college was based; the employment role (e.g. manager, teacher, senior leader, etc.); contract of employment (e.g. part-time, full-time, permanent, non-permanent, etc.); years of employment, self-identified gender, age, ethnicity, disability, marital status, and the number of dependent children. Although all scales are validated in respective studies (Netemeyer, Boles, and McMurrian 1996; Hayman 2005; Edwards et al. 2009), for this study the scales were validated as well with the Cronbach’s α shows a high reliability score of 0.931.

For the purposes of this study the dependent variable is work-life conflict, and independent variables are: gender; gender and dependent children; and gender in management role. The data was analysed using a statistical software package, SPSS, and the following section of the study presents the findings of the study.

Findings

The response rate to the survey was 347 and a disaggregation of the data by participants showing that 21.9% of participants identified as men, 74.6% women, 0.3% as non-gender specific, and 3.1% did not declare their gender identity. The skewness of the response rate towards a higher percentage of women respondents is reflected in the higher proportion of women employees in the sector, that is 61% of the workforce comprises of women employees (Education and Training Foundation 2019). As mentioned above, the response rate by region showed that 97% of participants were from the further education sector in England.

A higher proportion of employees (53.0%) did not have dependent children, while 19.3% had one dependent child; 18.2% had two dependent children; 2.9% had three dependent children; 1.7% had more than three dependent children; and 4.9% preferred not to say. The data was therefore recoded into the following categories: ‘Dependent Children’ that is one to two dependent children; ‘Dependent Children (A)’ that is more than three dependent children; and ‘Dependent Children (B)’ that is more than two but less than three dependent children.

Overall, the findings show that men and women in the further education sector tended to agree that they experienced work-life conflict during the pandemic with a mean score of 3.39 (SD = 0.997) and 3.60 (SD = 0.864) for men and women, respectively (Table 1). There was no significant difference between men’s and women’s reported work-life conflict. In other words, women did not have significantly higher levels of work-life conflict compared to men in the further education sector.

Table 1. Gender and WLC.

Gender		N	Mean	Std. Deviation	Std. Error Mean
WLC	Male	76	3.3911	0.99686	0.11435
	Female	259	3.6013	0.86384	0.05368

The findings show a positive and significant relationship between employees with dependent children and work-life conflict, and increasing with significance as the number of dependent children increased (Table 2). The analysis included Independent Samples T Tests (Table 3), Independent Samples Effect Size (Table 4), Anova (Table 5), Correlation Coefficients (Table 6) and Residual Statistics (Table 7) to explore differences in work-life conflict between men and women with dependent children. The findings show that the differences in work-life conflict between men and women with dependent children are small. In other words, there does not appear to be significant work-life conflict gender differences between women and men with dependent children.

Table 2. Correlation - Gender, Dependent Children and WLC.

		WLC	Dependent children	Dependent children (BIN A)	Dependent children (BIN B)
WLC	Pearson Correlation	–
	N	347
Dependent children	Pearson Correlation	.155**	–
	Sig. (2-tailed)	0.005
	N	330	330
Dependent children (BIN A)	Pearson Correlation	.166**	.977**	–
	Sig. (2-tailed)	0.003	0.000
	N	330	330	330
Dependent children (BIN B)	Pearson Correlation	.174**	.931**	.977**	–
	Sig. (2-tailed)	0.002	0.000	0.000
	N	330	330	330	330

Note: **. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

Table 3. Independent T Test.

		Levene’s Test for Equality of Variances		t-test for Equality of Means
		F	Sig.	t	df	Sig. (2-tailed)	Mean Difference	Std. Error Difference	95% Confidence Interval of the Difference
									Lower	Upper
WLC	Equal variances assumed	3.976	0.047	−1.799	333	0.073	−0.21012	0.11683	−0.43993	0.01970
	Equal variances not assumed			−1.663	110.140	0.099	−0.21012	0.12632	−0.46045	0.04022

Table 4. Independent Samples Effect Size.

		Standardizer^a	Point Estimate	95% Confidence Interval
				Lower	Upper
WLC	Cohen’s d	0.89552	−0.235	−0.491	0.022
	Hedges’ correction	0.89755	−0.234	−0.490	0.022
	Glass’s delta	0.86384	−0.243	−0.500	0.014

Note: a. The denominator used in estimating the effect sizes. Cohen’s d uses the pooled standard deviation. Hedges’ correction uses the pooled standard deviation, plus a correction factor. Glass’s delta uses the sample standard deviation of the control group.

Table 5. Anova.

Model		Sum of Squares	Df	Mean Square	F	Sig.
1	Regression	2.594	1	2.594	3.235	.073^b
	Residual	267.053	333	0.802
	Total	269.647	334

Note: a. Dependent Variable: WLC

b. Predictors: (Constant), Gender

Table 6. Coefficients.

Model		Unstandardized Coefficients		Standardized Coefficients	t	Sig.	95.0% Confidence Interval for B
		B	Std. Error	Beta			Lower Bound	Upper Bound
1	(Constant)	3.391	0.103		33.012	0.000	3.189	3.593
	Gender	0.210	0.117	0.098	1.799	0.073	−0.020	0.440

Note: a. Dependent Variable: WLC

Table 7. Residual Statistics.

	Minimum	Maximum	Mean	Std. Deviation	N
Predicted Value	3.3911	3.6013	3.5536	0.08813	335
Residual	−2.60126	1.60885	0.00000	0.89418	335
Std. Predicted Value	−1.843	0.541	0.000	1.000	335
Std. Residual	−2.905	1.797	0.000	0.999	335

The relationship between gender, management role and work-life conflict revealed that there were also no significant differences in reported work-life conflict between women and men managers and in comparison, to other roles in the further education sector (Table 8). Furthermore, a Levene’s Test (Table 9) and Tests of Between-Subjects Effects (Table 10) did not reveal any significant differences.

Table 8. Descriptive Statistics – Gender, Role and WLC.

Gender	Role	Mean	Std. Deviation	N
Male	Other	3.3923	1.03012	57
	Management	3.3876	0.91606	19
	Total	3.3911	0.99686	76
Female	Other	3.5672	0.88817	184
	Management	3.6848	0.80057	75
	Total	3.6013	0.86384	259
Total	Other	3.5258	0.92447	241
	Management	3.6248	0.82873	94
	Total	3.5536	0.89851	335

Table 9. Levene’s Test of Equality of Error Variances.

		Levene Statistic	df1	df2	Sig.
WLC	Based on Mean	2.661	3	331	0.048
	Based on Median	2.682	3	331	0.047
	Based on Median and with adjusted df	2.682	3	324.537	0.047
	Based on trimmed mean	2.810	3	331	0.040

Note: Tests the null hypothesis that the error variance of the dependent variable is equal across groups. a. Dependent variable: WLC b. Design: Intercept + Gender +Role + Gender * Role

Table 10. Tests of Between-Subjects Effects.

Source	Type III Sum of Squares	df	Mean Square	F	Sig.	Partial Eta Squared
Corrected Model	3.332^a	3	1.111	1.380	0.249	0.012
Intercept	2213.713	1	2213.713	2751.397	0.000	0.893
Gender	2.506	1	2.506	3.115	0.078	0.009
Role	0.143	1	0.143	0.178	0.673	0.001
Gender * Role	0.169	1	0.169	0.209	0.647	0.001
Error	266.315	331	0.805
Total	4500.041	335
Corrected Total	269.647	334

a. R Squared =.012 (Adjusted R Squared =.003)

Discussion

The study showed that employees, irrespective of gender, in the further education sector experienced work-life conflict during the pandemic. The care for dependent children did affect work-life conflict, increasing with the number of dependent children. The findings showed that there were no gender differences in work-life conflict between women and men employees. Furthermore, there were no gender differences in reported work-life conflict among management and non-management roles during the pandemic. Thus, the findings suggest that both men and women in the further education sector in England experienced work-life conflict during the pandemic. The study offers contrary evidence to extant research (Hjálmsdóttir and Bjarnadóttir 2021), which could be explained by the fact that their study drew upon diary entries, collected for two weeks during the peak of the pandemic in Iceland with 37 mothers in heteronormative relationships. Thus, a contribution of the current study is its relatively larger sampling within the education sector to explore work-life conflict. Secondly, the current study compares the experiences of men and women during the pandemic. A third contribution of the study is that findings suggest that there were no gender differences in work-life conflict, which is contrary to extant research. We offer possible explanations for these findings and suggest a research agenda for future research into work-life conflict.

The findings of the current study support extant research by Pasamar, Johnston, and Tanwar (2020) and Schieman et al. (2021) in that gender differences in work-life conflict were not observed in so far that gender does not offer explanations for work-life conflict. As Schieman et al. (2021) argue the reasons for this are not clear. There are possible explanations for the findings of the current study. The first is that there may be cultural shifts towards more egalitarian division of labour in contemporary households (Ruppanner and Huffman 2014) with men contributing to household work or non-work roles during the pandemic (Carlson, Petts, and Pepin 2020). A second explanation is that the pandemic presented an unprecedented event, a crisis situation, with men increasing household work to support partners (Yerkes et al. 2020). The further explanation is that the working patterns during the pandemic was a continuum of employees blurring the boundaries between work and non-work domains within an increasing neoliberal context of the further education sector in England.

Thus, drawing on Clark’s (2000) boundary theory, the pandemic, an unprecedented event, resulted in a blurring of boundaries between work and non-work domains for those who work in the further education sector. In other words, the boundaries for men and women cohabiting in a household, particularly with dependent children, were blurred. According to Clark (2000) boundaries around work and family, and the way employees manage them can be a source of order by clearly delineating roles, but boundaries can also be a source of conflict with transitions between roles more difficult (Allen, Cho, and Meier 2014). The boundary between work and non-work domains are permeable, but employees create, maintain, or change boundaries in order to manage roles to avoid conflicts between the domains (Ashforth, Kreiner, and Fugate 2000; Allen, Cho, and Meier 2014). Thus, employees manage the boundaries that divide time, places and people associated with work versus non-work domains (Clark 2000). According to Clark (2000) employees manage these two domains on a continuum with integration at one end and segmentation at the other. Thus, an employee who fully integrates non-work and work makes no distinction between people, thoughts, intellectual and emotional demands that belong to work or non-work domains (Clark 2000). In contrast, an employee who segments psychological demands to work and non-work domains, regards the non-work domain (e.g. home, family, domestic roles) as private and different. Thus, respective relevant thoughts and behaviours take place in each domain (Clark 2000).

During the pandemic, however, these boundaries became blurred where non-work and work domains could not be physically and psychologically separated. For example, there was limited scope for physical boundaries as employees established office space within a home. Consequently, the separation of physical and psychological boundaries was not possible which impacted upon work-life conflict. Thus, as both men and women were working from home during the pandemic the blurring of boundaries between work and non-work roles resulted in work-life conflict, irrespective of gender. The blurring of boundaries during the pandemic may have necessitated a situation where cohabiting men and women had to share non-work or household roles. Thus, it is feasible that the findings reflect a trajectory of cultural shifts towards more egalitarian division of labour in the household (Ruppanner and Huffman 2014), or the pandemic as a crisis event saw an episodic contribution by men to childcare, home-schooling and household work during the pandemic (Carlson, Petts, and Pepin 2020; Yerkes et al. 2020), or perhaps the pandemic even served as a catalyst for further socio-cultural shifts in the equalitarian division of household labour.

Furthermore, a study commissioned by the Education and Training Foundation (Education and Training Foundation 2019), a year before the pandemic, on employee wellbeing in the sector, noted the poor quality of working life of employees. Similarly, a study by Ofsted (2019) also reported low employee wellbeing and poor work-life balance in the sector. This was due to heavy workloads of increased volume of administrative tasks, volume of assessment marking, staff shortages due to high turnover, challenging behaviour of pupils, and increased and frequent policy changes and government regulations (Ofsted 2019). It is therefore possible, as these reports suggest, that employees within the English further education sector, irrespective of gender, were already experiencing work-life conflict, and the working patterns during the pandemic were a continuum.

According to Karassvidou and Glaveli’s (2015) organisational culture determines the nature of the work domain, and the strength and permeability of boundaries between work and non-work roles. Lucas, Nasta, and Rogers (2012) found that jobs which feature heavy work pressures increased the permeability between work and non-work roles. In other words, work with high demands and work pressures often resulted in employees blurring boundaries when work that could not be completed in the workplace being undertaken beyond work hours and space. Thus, the blurring of work and non-work domains resulted in work-life conflict (Lucas, Nasta, and Rogers 2012). We suggest that in the context of the further education sector there have been increased work demands placed on employees resulting in conflicts between work and non-work domains (see Ofsted 2019). The English further education sector has experienced a number of neoliberal public sector reforms over the decades with increased managerialism and job demands (Avis 2005; Bathmaker and Avis 2013; Lucas 2013; Lucas, Nasta, and Rogers 2012; Simmons and Thompson 2008). Thirty years of neoliberalism in the sector with performance measured according to metric frameworks to drive improvements in education within financially austere environments (Orr 2020) has resulted in rigid conditions of measurement and evaluation (Whitehead 2001). According to Lucas (2013), and Simmons and Thompson (2008) this resulted in aggressive and performance-orientated management styles, which negatively impacted on working cultures. Page (2017) argues that neoliberalism in the further education sector resulted in cuts to staffing; contractual employment changes; the monitoring, surveillance and evaluation of teachers; and managerialism. Consequently, these performance regimes and managerialism impacts upon all employees, particularly their work-life balance, irrespective of gender.

Thus, it could be argued employees within the English further education sector like their counterparts in the higher education sector, have experienced increased job demands and consequent work-life conflicts (see Ofsted 2019; Education and Training Foundation 2019). For example, according to Hallstein and O’Reilly (2014, 19), reflecting on the higher education sector, stated there is a culture of unboundedness because it lacks clear boundaries between work and non-work domains with higher education employees ‘juggling it all – career, children, family … this lack of boundaries actually makes it more challenging.’ According to Hallstein and O’Reilly (2014) there is a lack of boundaries between work and non-work roles in higher education. This leads to multiple stressors due to long working hours, administrative paperwork, lack of support, pressure to secure funding, securing time for research, dealing with rapid changes, poor leadership and management, poor salary and lack of promotion prospects, increased management work and stress (Hogan et al. 2014; Santos 2016; Fontinha, Van Laar, and Easton 2018; Steinþórsdóttir et al. 2019). In the higher education sector it has been suggested that the organisational culture is pressurised with an emphasis placed on accountabilities, performance monitoring, managerialism, marketisation, emphasis on rankings and research outputs, competition, increasing student numbers, efficiencies, entrepreneurialism and income generation (Steinþórsdóttir et al. 2019; Hogan et al. 2014).

Similarly, in the further education sector there is a managerial and audit culture (Page 2017). McTavish and Miller (2009) argue that the intensification and job demands in the further education sector have resulted in competitiveness, individualism and compliance with managerial performance regimes. Although McTavish and Miller (2009) argue that this is to the disadvantage of women and their work-life balance, the current study has shown that there are no gender differences and rather work-life conflict is pervasive. The performative neoliberal model (Smith and O’Leary 2013) has resulted, for those employed in the sector, a market responsiveness and compliance with audits. As Ingleby (2021) argues, further education employees work to Ofsted assessment of education performance. Thus, irrespective of gender and managerial role, those employed in the education sector are likely to experience work-life conflict. It is plausible that the pandemic heightened work-life conflict, but the work-life conflict findings are consistent with the Ofsted (2019) report. We argue therefore that during the pandemic there may have been a continuum of extant patterns of working behaviours with permeability between work and non-work domains and consequent work-life conflict.

There are limitations to this study, which should serve as a future research agenda. Firstly, although the study has a relatively larger sample than previous studies, the study could be replicated to increase the sample size and provide an opportunity for a longitudinal study. Furthermore, a future study should seek to increase response rates from various regions in the UK (e.g. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland). The larger sampling could also explore work-life conflict and the intersectionality of identities such as gender and ethnicity. Secondly, it is suggested that future research should include qualitative research (e.g. interview or focus groups), or a mixed methods approach of quantitative and qualitative research to seek to understand the experiences of those who were involved in educational work and provision at home. Thirdly, future research could replicate the study in other sectors, beyond the further education sector, and explore if gender differences in work-life conflict exists in these sectors with participants reflecting on their work-life challenges during the pandemic to explore differences in sectors and types of work. Future research could explore the explanations of whether there are cultural shifts towards more egalitarian gender division of household labour, whether the pandemic was an unprecedented event with an episodic sharing of non-work roles between men and women, or whether the pandemic as a catalyst has precipitated more permanent shifts towards gender egalitarian division of household labour.

Conclusion

The study did not reveal significant gender and managerial differences for work-life conflict in the further education sector in England during the pandemic. We provided possible explanations for the findings such as shifts towards egalitarian division of household labour, the pandemic was an unprecedented event resulting in crisis sharing of labour in the household, or that working patterns during the pandemic represented a continuum of the blurring of boundaries between work and non-work roles in the education sector. As suggested future research should include further sampling, a longitudinal approach by undertaking a study of post-pandemic working patterns, located in various sectors, countries, the inclusion of gender identities and qualitative research to understand how work-life conflict is experienced by employees. The implications for further exploring gender in work-life conflict studies is that most research in this area have been undertaken in a pre-pandemic era, and there could be potentially changes in working patterns and gender division of household labour that may impact upon work-life conflict for men and women.

Acknowledgments

Dr. Darren Van Laar, University of Portsmouth

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

Karen Johnston, Stephen Corbett and Adele Bezuidenhout’s research time for this project was funded through the University of Portsmouth.Susana Pasamar’s participation the project was supported by the European Regional development fund (ERDF) and by the Department of Economy, Knowledge, Firms and the University of the Junta de Andalucía, in the framework of the operative program ERDF Andalucía 2014–2020 Research project UPO-1380797. Specific objective 1.2.3. («Promotion and generation of frontier knowledge and knowledge oriented to the challenges of society, development of emerging technologies») within the framework of the reference research project UPO-1380797 was also supported. ERDF co-financing percentage was 80%.