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Research Note

Cross-national work–life research: common misconceptions and pervasive challenges

Pages 92-98 | Received 11 Feb 2016, Accepted 13 Dec 2016, Published online: 22 Dec 2016
 

ABSTRACT

While cross-national work-life research is a flourishing field of research, but a recent one, it is relatively recent as national context had been the missing ‘elephant in the room’ of work–life research for decades. Based on the keynote talk I gave at the 2015 Community, Work and Family conference in Malmö, Sweden, this research note highlights three pervasive challenges which I believe need to be discussed in our community of scholars, practitioners and policy-makers so that our research makes the strongest possible impact for individuals and organisations: (1) educating practitioners and policy-makers on the structuring impact that public and employer policies have on individual so-called private work–life decisions; (2) analyzing the inequalities of access to these policies within each country, which are often masked by simplified country-level comparisons and (3) finding innovative ways to combine ambitious etic research designs with in-depth emic understanding of local cultures.

RÉSUMÉ

Le champ de la recherche cross-nationale sur l’articulation entre vie personnelle et vie professionnelle est florissant, mais récent. S’appuyant sur le discours plénier que j’ai donné lors de la conférence Community, Work and Family de 2015 à Malmö en Suède, cette note de recherche souligne trois défis persistants dont, je pense, notre communauté de chercheurs, de praticiens et de décideurs publics doivent discuter pour permettre à ce champ d’avoir un fort impact pour les individus et les organisations : (1) éduquer les praticiens et les décideurs publics sur l’impact que les politiques publiques et les pratiques des employeurs ont sur les décisions soi-disant « privées » d’articulation entre vie personnelle et vie professionnelle ; (2) analyser les inégalités d’accès à ces politiques au sein de chaque pays, inégalités souvent masquées par des comparaisons trop simples au niveau des pays ; et (3) trouver des façons innovantes d’allier des devis de recherche ambitieux, étiques, avec une compréhension fine, émique, des cultures locales.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Laura den Dulk and Jean-Charles Languilaire for their gracious invitation to Malmö and for their insightful comments on this research note.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

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