Assessments of fit and usability of work-life supports in the context of diversity and perceptions of fairness

ABSTRACT

There is a robust literature that examines outcomes associated with work-life supports. Scholars have considered the ‘fit’ between employee needs and the supports available while others have examined the ‘usability’—or the potential consequences of using—work-life supports. In this article, we suggest that ‘fit’ and ‘usability’ could be related to both employees’ own demographic, social, and cultural identities, as well as perceptions of fairness at the workplace. While scholars have focused on organizational justice and workplace fairness for quite some time, the context of diversity—in its many forms—has rarely been included in this conversation or has simply been added as a series of controls in statistical analyses without regard to diversity’s various forms. In response, we review the work-life literature to consider the broad context of diversity as well as various domains of workplace fairness. We then present a conceptual framework that aims to guide future work-life research on the fit and usability of work-life supports in the context of diversity and perceptions of fairness. We also offer research propositions to stimulate future scholarship and present findings from an exploratory study to illustrate the importance of considering the context of diversity in studies on workplace fairness.

KEYWORDS:

• Diversity
• organizational justice
• workplace fairness
• intersectionality
• work-life supports
• usability

Disclosure statement

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

Notes on contributors

Cal J. Halvorsen, PhD, MSW, is an assistant professor at the Boston College School of Social Work and an affiliate of the Center on Aging & Work at Boston College. Previously, he was the director of research at Encore.org. His research interests include the antecedents, experiences, and outcomes of longer working lives, with emphasis on later-life self-employment and entrepreneurship, encore careers, and older adults as social innovators.

Indrani Saran, Sc.D., is an assistant professor of the practice and behavioral researcher and biostatistician at the Boston College School of Social Work. Her research draws on theories of behavioral economics and applies economic methods to understand how people make health decisions, particularly in the context of weak health systems.

Marcie Pitt-Catsouphes, PhD, is a professor and associate dean of faculty development and academic affairs at the Boston College School of Social Work. She has devoted her career to the examination of factors that affect the employment experiences of vulnerable populations, founding the Work and Family Research Network and co-founding the Center on Aging & Work at Boston College.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a grant from the Boston College School of Social Work.