employees seeking to balance family and work responsibilities. This research has identified differences in internal access to family-friendly work arrangements,
which is often related to the position of employees in the firm Breakspear 1998; Whitehouse and Zetlin 1999.
Thus, it seems that working for an organisation offering family-friendly work practices does not necessarily mean that all employees will be allowed to, or feel
able to, take advantage of such opportunities. Employers may make a work practice available to some but not all employees, or employees may not
make use of available work practices because they believe that to do so might jeopardise their job security, work assignments, or chances of promotion
Whitehouse and Zetlin 1999.
This paper analyses the extent to which access to family-friendly work practices is influenced or determined by differential access within or between
organisations. The factors associated with an employee’s chances of being able to access the work practice are estimated. The results provide insights into the
reasons underlying differential access among employees working in the same workplace.
In order to analyse this question, data on multiple employees working in the same workplace linked employee—employer are needed. Data from the
Australian Workplace and Industrial Relations Survey 1995 a linked employee— employer data set are used. This data set contains information on a range of
family-friendly work practices for a large number of employers and employees, making it ideal for the purposes of examining differences in access to family-
friendly work practices within workplaces.
The remainder of this paper is structured as follows. The following section outlines the family-friendly work arrangements examined and discusses why there
may be differences in access to family-friendly work practices within workplace. Section 3 describes the data used in the analysis. Section 4 presents the empirical
analysis of the distribution of family-friendly work practices within and between workplaces. Estimates of the determinants of access to family-friendly work
practices are presented in section 5. The final section makes some concluding comments, highlighting the implications of the results of this research for
policy.
S
ECTION
2: F
AMILY
-
FRIENDLY WORK ARRANGEMENTS AND DETERMINANTS OF ACCESS
The analysis in this paper focuses upon three family-friendly work arrangements. The first is control over start and finish times, which is very important in
allowing the scheduling of work to meet unexpected andor routine needs of family life Friedman and Galinsky 1992; International Labour Office 1993;
Reith 1999; Work and Family Unit 1999. While workplace agreements can give employees limited control over start and finish times, in practice, managerial
discretion is very important, with flexitime arrangements often made available on a case-by-case basis.
The second work arrangement considered is access to a telephone for family reasons. Access to a telephone at work for family reasons can be very important
in balancing family and work responsibilities. Such access enables employees to make care arrangements, check up on family members and be contactable in the
event of any problems Morehead 2001; Wolcott and Glezer 1995. The final work arrangement considered is the availability of permanent part-time employ-
ment in the employee’s current workplace. Permanent part-time employment allows employees to reduce their working hours while retaining the benefits of
permanent employment, which can include pro-rata entitlements to sick leave, holiday pay, maternity leave, and long-service leave.
1
While other work practices analysed in this paper have been found to be particularly important Evans
2001 there are a range of other work practices that are of value in assisting employees to balance work and family responsibilities.
2
Whether an employee has access to or is able to make use of family-friendly work practices is likely to be determined by a number of factors. One factor is
the value employees place upon having access to the work practices. Employees who place a very high value on being able to use the work practice may nego-
tiate with employers a lower rate of pay in return for access to family-friendly work practices. Alternatively, employees who place a high value on family-friendly
work practices may seek employment with employers who offer the work practices.
From the employer’s perspective, the decision of whether to offer a work practice will, in general, be based on a weighing up of the costs and benefits
to the employer of making the work practices available to some or all of their employees. Standard economic theory suggests that employers will be indifferent
to the mix of the level of pecuniary compensation and non-pecuniary aspects of a job, which produce the same cost to the employer and result in the same
level of productivity. Employers will, therefore, bargain with employees over pecuniary compensation as well as the non-pecuniary aspects of a job in order
to reach the mix of financial compensation and job conditions that maximises their well-being. Employees who place a very high value on family-friendly work
practices may be prepared to negotiate for lower wages in return for greater access to these work practices. Employers will be happy to do this if it has no impact
on their profits. The literature refers to this trade-off between wages and better non-pecuniary aspects of a job as a compensating differential Ehrenberg and
Smith 1997.
Of course, in reality, the extent to which individual employees are able negotiate with employers the mix of financial compensation and non-pecuniary
aspects will be limited. Typically, a job has a specific set of terms and conditions with only limited provision for variation. Often, these conditions have been set
by a process of collective negotiation between employees and employers. Employees who place a high value on a particular set of work practices may look
for employers and jobs where these are offered. Hence, we may expect to see a ‘sorting’ of employees into jobs according to the value placed on the work
practices being offered.
Employers may view the offer of family-friendly work practices as a recruitment tool, both for the actual services they provide and as a signal of broader attitudes
within the organisation Rodgers 1992; Osterman 1995. If offering family-
friendly work practices increases the value of a job relative to other available jobs then the costs to the employee of losing the job are increased. This is argued to
