Do Lets Work?

Abstract

This study aims to uncover some of the reasons for differences in attitudes towards family‐friendly and equal opportunities (EO) policies for women between senior and junior staff and between male and female staff. This in‐depth case study of a multi‐national corporation in Hong Kong that included a survey questionnaire, interviews and participant observation suggests four categories of female employees according to their approach to EO: advocators, supporters, outsiders and rejecters. The approach adopted was dependent on the woman's level of empathy towards the situation of working women and the extent of her career ambition. Four categories of male employees can also be classified depending on their level of empathy towards women's situation (similar to women's case) and their extent of career satisfaction (in contrast to women's career ambition), namely, antagonists, outsiders, fence‐sitters and sympathizers. Women at higher levels were less supportive of EO than women at lower levels. No such clear relationship between organizational level and attitudes towards EO was observed among men. In Hong Kong, female managers had little expectation that their organization would be family‐friendly and women workers who consciously chose to balance work and family accepted that it meant fewer promotional chances. No such self‐adjusted depressed ambition was observed among men.

Cette étude explore SEL dans le contexte du travail salarié. Les données de questionnaire ont été rassemblées de 3 systèmes d'échanges locaux dans la région néerlandophone de la Belgique (La Flandre) (84 respondents). SEL semblent recruter de la réserve de travail (latente): des gens qui pourraient travailler (plus), mais qui ne le font pas à l'heure actuelle. Ceci peut être le résultat logique de fait que pour eux — contrairement à l'ensemble de la population flamande — les loisirs sont plus importants que le travail. SEL contribuent plus aux contact sociaux et au sentiment de faire quelque chose pour quelqu'un d'autre que le travail salarié. C'est peut‐être ce que nous pouvons appeler la fonction manifeste de SEL: la sociabilité. Cependant, SEL ne semblent pas être une alternative pour le travail salarié en termes d'acquérir des qualifications, une position sociale et (moins important) du comfort matériel. La petite quantité de services échangés mène à la conclusion que SEL ne peuvent jamais être une alternative sérieuse au système économique courant. Par contre, SEL peuvent former un supplément qualitative significatif car le travail payé n'est pas toujours, pour tout le monde, la manière (unique) à l'intégration sociale.

Keywords:

• social integration
• exchange economics
• local currencies
• work
• social functions
• Belgium
• l'intégration sociale
• l'économie d'échanges
• monnaies locales
• travail
• fonctions socials
• Belgique

Notes

Karl Marx defines labour as follows ‘a process between man and nature, a process by which man, through his own actions, mediates, regulates and controls the metabolisms between himself and nature’ (cited in Glorieux, 1992, p. 8).

Such small numbers make it hard to justify the use of percentages from a methodological point of view, yet we will make (particular) use of column percentages in this paper. This facilitates comparison. In order to avoid all misunderstandings each table also mentions the number of respondents in absolute numbers.

We must add to this that we discovered a third factor through the use of our explorative factor analysis. For intrinsic reasons we did not add the item ‘it is better to take on any kind of work than to stay jobless’ to our model. After all one of the interpretation criteria claims that each factor needs to be linked to at least two other factors. Our third factor did not meet this criterion.

Jeff Van Ouytsel (1977) is a sociologist and works as a teaching assistant in the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences of the University of Antwerp. Address : Faculty of Political and Social Sciences, University of Antwerp, Universiteitsplein 1, B–2610 Antwerp, Belgium. [email: [email protected]]

Katrijn Vanderweyden (1975) is a social scientist and works at the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences of the University of Antwerp. She has recently finished a PhD on the meaning of paid labour in our post‐industrial society. Address : Faculty of Political and Social Sciences, University of Antwerp, Universiteitsplein 1, B–2610 Antwerp, Belgium. [email: [email protected]]