Juggling three life spheres: reconciling work, family and politics

ABSTRACT

In the field of work–life balance, most research focuses on the reconciliation of role-related expectations that derive from the work and family spheres. This article aims to identify coping strategies that reconcile life spheres in situations that go beyond the classic two-sphere framework. We analyze the actual coping behavior of individuals juggling three life spheres by studying local Flemish politicians. The strategies that were found in this study were communication with family, recognizing priorities within the political sphere, consciously creating time for family moments, downsizing and segregating the life spheres. The results suggest that women usually remain the manager of the household, which reinforces traditional gender roles.

RÉSUMÉ

Dans le domaine de la conciliation travail et vie de famille, la recherche se concentre sur la conciliation des attentes vis-à-vis de rôles liés à ces différentes sphères. Le présent article a, par contre, pour but d’identifier les stratégies déployées afin de concilier de rôles dépassant un cadre classique d’une vie composée de ces deux sphères. Nous analysons les stratégies d’individus déployées afin de faire face à trois sphères de vie en étudiant le cas de politiciens locaux flamands en Belgique. Les stratégies découvertes par cette étude sont: une communication intense avec les autres membres de la famille ; une détection de priorités au sein de la sphère politique; une libération stricte de plages de temps pour la famille; une ségrégation entre les différentes sphères de vie; ainsi qu’une réduction, dans la mesure du possible, des engagements au sein de ces sphères. Les résultats de cette étude suggèrent que les femmes demeurent les gestionnaires de la sphère domestique, une tendance qui confirme les rôles de genre traditionnels.

KEYWORDS:

• Work–life balance
• coping strategies
• gender
• Flanders
• local politicians

MOTS-CLÉS:

• Conciliation travail et vie de famille
• stratégies de conciliation
• genre
• Flandres
• politique locale

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Laura Emery is a Junior Researcher in the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences at the University of Antwerp (Belgium). She works for the Policy Research Centre on Equality Policies. Her research focuses on work–life balance and gender inequality.

Petra Meier is a Professor of Politics in the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences at the University of Antwerp (Belgium). Her research focuses on the representation of gender in politics and policy. She recently published The Symbolic Representation of Gender. A Discursive Approach (with Emanuela Lombardo, 2014, Ashgate) and is currently preparing a manuscript on the professionalization of the struggle for gender equality.

Dimitri Mortelmans is a Senior Full Professor of Sociology in the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences at the University of Antwerp (Belgium). He teaches courses on quantitative and qualitative research methods, applied multivariate statistics and advanced topics in family sociology, life-course sociology and demography. He is head of the Centre for Longitudinal and Life Course Studies (CELLO). His research concentrates on family sociology and the sociology of labor. He has published on divorce, new forms of family constitution, gendered labor careers and work–life balance. He is also the main author of the Step in Statistics book series, of which six volumes have been published (in Dutch). He has also published the Handbook of Qualitative Research Methods and Qualitative Analysis with Nvivo in the field of qualitative methodology.

ORCID

Laura Emery http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9142-4666