The Work and Family Researchers Network is seeking applicants for the 2013-2014 Early Career Work and Family Scholars Program. Fifteen scholars will be selected for the program. 

They advertise:

To be eligible, candidates must have received their doctorate in 2010 or later, and have yet to progress into tenured or secure senior level positions.  Those anticipating receipt of their doctoral degree by June 2013 are eligible to apply.  Application is not restricted on the basis of location. Recipients of the award will be expected to become members of the WFRN.   To apply for the Early Career Scholars Program, go here.

The goal of the Early Career Work and Family Scholars Program is to provide supports for recent doctoral recipients to facilitate their teaching and research scholarship.  By offering resources and consultation, the program is designed to help promising young scholars move into tenured appointments and secure senior level positions, as well as connect them to the broad work and family community by enhancing their professional networks.  To date, 50 scholars in their early career stages have benefitted from resources provided through this program.

All participants are required to participate in the WFRN conference to be held June 19-21, 2014 in New York City.  Participants receive up to $1,000 to defer travel expenses. At the conference, special events will be targeted to serve their interests, such as networking opportunities with senior scholars and other career development activities. In addition, they will be connected with one another in periodic encounters beyond the conference, designed to facilitate collaboration, peer-mentorship, guidance on teaching, and development of research programs. They will also receive periodic mailings of opportunities of special interest to work and family scholars who are at their early career stages and have opportunities to engage in teleconferences.

I attended the inaugural meeting of the Work and Family Researchers Network in New York (2012), and was truly impressed by the multidisciplinary goodness that was on offer. So, really, apply if you can!

In a session on motherhood in the workplace, Jocelyn Elise Crowley provided qualitative accounts of how women experience being discriminated against for being a women. 54 Out of 125 women she interviewed reported having experienced discrimination, taking forms such as discrimination during th hiring process, getting less support on-the-job, and being discriminated against in job evaluations. Highly interesting, Daniela Grunow and Silke Aisenbrey studied the relation between the macro economic condition and mothers’ re-entry into the labour market. Their findings include (if remember correctly) that in Germany the employment gaps for mothers on family leave are longer during economic recessions. In the United States there were found no prolonged employment gaps for mothers on family leave during economic recession. I very much look forward to reading this paper in print.

A great plenary session was on the program. Ariane Hegewisch and Janet Gornick spoke about employment and work-family policy and drew some lessons from Europe. In Europe, EU directives mostly set minimum standards. Despite the common minimum standards, however, huge diversity in country-level policies and work-family infrastructure. One very straightforward core lesson we can learn from this European diversity is that work-family policy is also macroeconomic policy, strongly stimulating women’s employment; policy failure has significant economic consequences. There is some discussion whether very long (parental) leave periods have adverse effects on women’s careers. The united states, however, are so far in the ‘pathetic zone’, that there should be no concerns about the risk that increasing parental leave policies has adverse effects, Janet Gornick argued.

Jody Heymann widened the picture from Europe to the whole world, showing magnificent graphs on policy availability all over the world. Arguing that amongst the 15 most economically competitive countries in the world extensive family policies are highly common, she refuted the claim that on the long run countries ‘cannot afford’ to implement policies to reduce work-family conflicts. Arguing for the public availability of world-wide data on family policies, she presented the impassive website http://www.raisingtheglobalfloor.org. Go have a look!

Did I tell you about the work and family commons? The goal of the Work and Family Researchers’ Network (WFRN) reads:

The WFRN facilitates virtual and face-to-face interaction among work and family researchers from a broad range of fields and engages the next generation of work and family scholars. As a global hub, [the WFRN] provide[s] opportunities for information sharing and networking via [their] website, which includes the only open access work and family subject matter repository, the Work and Family Commons.

This Work and Family Commons really could turn out to something special: a multidisciplinary repository focused on the very relevant issue of work and family studies. If this takes of, this really will be the place to go to for learning what’s going on in the field of work and family research. Also, I signed up for a commission that will continue working on improving the work and family commons.

Next, ‘we’ focused on multilevel comparative work-life research. Laura den Dulk raised – and answered – the question how institutional and economic pressures in national context relate to the adoption of work-life-balance policies in organizations. They found that public sector organizations are more responsive to state support and female unemployment; large organizations are more sensitive to state support and importance of work. Karen Lyness presented how supervisors think that managers score higher on work-life balance, than the managers themselves think they do. Supervisors may underestimate managerial subordinates’ need for support in balancing their work with family.

And that wraps it up. Or not, actually, since there was so much else going on. Including a second plenary session. But this post is long enough as it is. Looking forward to day 3!

The WFRN facilitates virtual and face-to-face interaction among work and family researchers from a broad range of fields and engages the next generation of work and family scholars. As a global hub, [the WFRN] provide[s] opportunities for information sharing and networking via [their] website, which includes the only open access work and family subject matter repository, the Work and Family Commons.

The WFRN is a member driven researchers’ network, carrying on the legacy of the Sloan Network. This means that members can influence the ntwork’s policy, as well as appoint who’s in charge. Also, the network is independent from external funding, providing a good amount of opportunities to determine it’s own course.

I’ve so many interesting stuff, that I cannot share all of it. But here’s a selection of things I found interesting. In a session on family interactions and Gender Dynamics in the Household, analyses using time diary data were presented. Leah Ruppanner showed us a very nice macro-micro perspective, presenting how women spend more time on housework than men do, and that those women with more resources spend less time on housework. In addition, men spend more time on housework in metropolitan areas where women have a strong social position. So, gender equality on local labor market extends beyond the workplace to the home. Katie Genadek presented how the amount of time spouses spend together drops with young children in the household, to increase again when children grow older. Men and women report being more happy when spending an activity with their spouse. This, of course, has very interesting implications for the recent debate on whether having children contribute to your happiness, or not.

In a session on policies and contexts, making international comparisons, some interesting research was shown. Sue Yeandle presented how care responsibilities are concentrated in ages 40-60. Both men and women provide lots of care, and women somewhat more. However, at later ages men provide more care than women do. Caregiving has labour market consequences, as employment drops with increased intensity of caring. Tania van der Lippe made the argument that the work-family not only results in conflicts (as is studied so often), but also has positive effects on quality of life. It turns out, however, that the work-family conflicts have a stronger negative association with quality of life, whereas work-family enrichment has a weaker positive association with quality of life.

During a session on earnings and careers, I learned from a presentation by Michelle Budig that reconciliation policies (leave, childcare) are more effective in countries with a liberal population, compared to in a conservative population. So, as she concludes, policy and culture need to align for maximum effectiveness. Finally, Marie Evertsson studied the impact of work interruptions (e.g. Due to care, unemployment) on women’s future employment opportunities. Human capital deprecating during the work interruptions may be one factor influencing women’s career prospects after an interruption, but it turned out not to be the dominant one. Clear differences were found between Sweden, Germany, and the Unite States.

With over 800 presenters and 125 sessions, [I] don’t want to miss the latest work and family research from around the world. […] The conference features cutting-edge research and synthetic overviews of various topic areas. The program includes invited papers as well as those accepted via an open-submission process.

If you happen to attend as well, let’s discuss our work!