Working Time, Work-Life Balance, and the Persistence of Inequality

Work-life balance provisions are recognized as playing an important role in increasing labour market participation rates in Europe. At the same time, changes in the collective regulation of working time over the past generation have substantially increased management's scope to shape working time patterns. One effect has been the increased use of individualized and variable work hours' arrangements. As a consequence, while many at higher levels within work organizations enjoy significant discretion over their work time and the positive benefit to work-life balance that this brings, many at lower levels have little control over a frequently variable and often unpredictable working pattern. Mitigating this differentiated experience of working time will be an important objective if work-life balance provisions are to play a major role in facilitating increased labour market participation rates in coming years.