Extreme work,gendered work? How extreme jobs and the discourse of ‘personal choice’ perpetuate gender inequality

Abstract

This review sets extreme jobs in the context of the institutional, occupational, organizational and individual drivers of long hours and work intensification and identifies the consequences for gender equality, human sustainability and long-term productivity. We suggest that extreme jobs derive not from the ‘nature’ of managerial and professional work but from working practices and occupational discourses which have developed to suit the gendered norms of ‘ideal workers’. These practices and discourses encourage long hours rather than working-hours choices. Extreme jobs extend the gendered division of labour and increase the separation of work and non-work spheres; they are a structure of gender inequality. This review suggests that future research should seek to identify alternative but business-neutral working practices which contest the extreme ‘nature’ of managerial and professional work, measure the social value of non-work activities and deepen our understanding of the personal and social significance of non-work identities other than motherhood, and disentangle situational motivation, work passion and workaholism as motives for devoting long hours to work so that impacts on well-being and productivity can be more clearly understood.

Keywords

extreme jobs gender ideal workers inequality long work hours managerial and professional work occupational identity work intensification

Introduction

When Hewlett and Luce (2006) coined the term ‘extreme jobs’, they asked, is there a gender issue here? If more men than women enjoy the long hours and intensity of extreme jobs, is there a problem? They concluded that, where women can access flexible working, the gender balance in senior jobs has a solution. This review argues instead that since extreme jobs are embedded in gendered organization structures, perpetuated by gendered working practices and by social systems and discourses of personal choice and meritocracy, the ‘accommodation’ of women through flexible working will have little impact on gender inequality. A fundamental dismantling of gendered organizational structures is required.

The term ‘extreme job’ describes the work of highly paid professionals and managers who dedicate long hours to demanding roles. Widely recognized, such jobs have not been widely researched. Extreme jobs are sometimes defined solely in terms of long hours (60+ per week; Burke and Fiksenbaum, 2009a, 2009b). Other definitions incorporate work intensification: global competition and technology-driven accessibility pressure workers to increase workloads; to work faster, with fewer breaks and at unsociable hours; to travel more; and to be available 24/7 (Green, 2004, 2008; Hewlett and Luce, 2006; McCann et al., 2008). A recent study identifies other dimensions of extreme jobs specific to healthcare: making life or death decisions, being required to do more with fewer resources and responding to regulatory bodies (Buchanan et al., 2013). The concept ‘extreme job’ is thus still in development, but it speaks to a widespread sense of working pressure felt particularly by managers and professionals (Roberts, 2007).

Extreme job-holders often refer to themselves as workaholics or Type A personalities, and some enjoy extreme challenge and excitement through extreme sports in their personal lives (Hewlett and Luce, 2006). To the extent that the person matches the job and the environment, extreme jobs may be seen as a benign phenomenon, a matter of choice or person–environment fit. However, there are structural, cultural and gender constraints on ‘choices’ of working practices and hours (Fagan, 2001; McDonald et al., 2006; McRae, 2003; Rubery et al., 1998), and working-hours ‘preferences’ are thus complex (Campbell and Van Wanrooy, 2013). The stickiness of the belief that long hours are a personal choice may also be a product of a liberal, deregulated working time regime (Van Wanrooy and Wilson, 2006).

Extreme jobs may also be conceptualized as a gendered phenomenon. Acker (1990) argues that organization structures are mistakenly understood as gender neutral because the historic absence of women has allowed male behaviours and perspectives to be defined as the norm. The concept of ‘a job’, and the positioning of a job within an organization hierarchy, is often assumed to be gender-neutral, as if it could be carried out by an abstracted worker with no other calls on their time. But a job can only be performed by a real person, living in a gendered society. Traditionally, in managerial and professional spheres, this is the ‘ideal worker’, described by Acker (1990) as ‘the male worker whose life centres on his full-time, life-long job, while his wife or another woman takes care of his personal needs and his children’ (p. 149). The notion that this ideal worker could be a ‘biological female who acts as a social man’ (Acker, 1990: 139) does not alter the gendered construction of the job itself: the job ‘already contains the gender-based division of labor and the separation between the public and the private sphere’ (Acker, 1990: 149). We contend that extreme jobs extend the gendered division of labour, increasing the separation of market and family work, such that, by definition, they contribute to gender inequality.

Methods

Our concern in this review lies with the drivers and consequences of extreme jobs. This literature is neither coherent nor mature, and an initial search returned only a handful of papers. We therefore reviewed four overlapping literatures which explore the phenomenon of the extreme job as it is currently defined: long working hours, work intensification, workaholism and professional/organizational identification. The first three search terms, concerning hours, intensification and workaholism, were explored in two databases, ABI and EBSCO, while the extensive literature on professional and organizational identification was limited to sub-sets within the searches produced by each of the other three terms. Nearly 500 peer-reviewed papers were returned from the past 15 years. From these, 150 were selected for review: only studies situated in Western, developed economies and managerial and professional sectors were included. Papers were excluded on quality criteria: positioning within existing literature, methodology, credibility of findings and contribution. The final number of papers included was 130.

Our analysis paid particular attention to the gendered nature of extreme jobs in a gendered society and the implications for women. We used a multi-level analysis, categorizing drivers of extreme jobs as institutional, occupational, organizational and individual, in order to highlight both the structural constraints on individual ‘choices’ concerning working practices and hours, and the discourses of personal choice and person–environment fit which characterize extreme jobs as a gender-neutral phenomenon. We begin with an analysis of drivers and then explore the various (mostly negative) consequences of extreme jobs. Finally, the conclusions from this review are summarized, along with recommendations for future research.

Institutional drivers

The institutional level of analysis concerns research on gendered social roles and discourses, and work on inequality in neo-liberal economic systems.

Since the late 18th century, work in industrialized economies has been organized around the distinction between the male paid worker and the female caregiver (Williams, 2000) and the principle that domestic and paid work take place in ‘separate spheres’ of time and place (Fletcher and Bailyn, 2005; Kanter, 1977). Acker (1990) describes ideal worker jobs as inherently designed for two people—a (usually male) paid worker and a (usually female) unpaid partner who fulfils domestic and caring responsibilities, enabling the paid worker to devote time to their organization. As Williams (2000) observes, not all jobs require this social structure, but the good ones do. Working practices and career progression, and cultural expectations of organizational commitment, have been determined by the presence of male ideal workers in the workplace and the presence of women at home (Williams et al., 2013). Women entering the professional and managerial workforce therefore assume roles which are already gendered to suit male norms (Acker, 2006; Britton and Logan, 2008). The presence of more women in senior roles does not necessarily reduce the tensions or exclusion experienced by women: these ‘tokens’ still operate within a domain which supports men’s experiences and life situations (Ely and Meyerson, 2000; Lewis and Simpson, 2012).

Extreme jobs exemplify the individual, disembodied, instrumental drive for competence and control which defines competitive masculinity (Kerfoot and Knights, 1993, 1998). In contrast, part-time and flexible jobs are associated with female obligations, such that when researchers ask gender-neutral questions about flexible working, respondents routinely reply in terms of working mothers (Smithson et al., 2004; Smithson and Stokoe, 2005). Those who reject long hours suffer the ‘flexibility stigma’, a form of social disgrace which affects professional reputation and career (Stone and Hernandez, 2013; Williams, 2000; Williams et al., 2013). In a gendered society, female managers and professionals often retain traditional domestic roles (Crompton et al., 2005; Williams, 2000), performing as social women at home (Blair-Loy, 2003) and social men (or token women; Lewis and Simpson, 2012) at work.

A further body of literature suggests that neo-liberal, deregulated economic and working time regimes may also drive the development of extreme jobs. In unequal societies, working hours are longer (Wilkinson and Pickett, 2009), and one explanation is that the desire for material goods drives the desire to earn and to work more. Bowles and Park (2005) show that in developed economies, income inequalities predict longer working hours, explained by the ‘Veblen effect’ (p. F397) whereby lower-paid members of society attempt to gain social status by imitating the consumption of the richest. Work, unlike leisure or caring or community activities, provides a status differential (Brett and Stroh, 2003): ‘whereas income serves a positional function, leisure time provides virtually no gain in relative rank’ (Golden, 2009: 222). This ‘positional effect’ may thus encourage longer hours and identification with work, as individuals choose high-status income over low-status leisure. Schor (1991) theorizes that this competitive process of seeking relative rank traps workers in a classic prisoner’s dilemma: although ‘time affluence’ might be a benefit, achieving it requires cooperation with others, while our individualistic society encourages the ‘long hours, high consumption choice’—material affluence, which confers higher status.

This ‘insidious cycle of work-and-spend’ (Schor, 1991: 9) has been described as ‘selfish capitalism’, prevalent in neo-liberal societies (e.g. United Kingdom and United States) which regard the growth of gross domestic product (GDP) as an unmitigated good, and encourage deregulation, low taxes and privatization, on the basis that individuals are best able to flourish by maximizing earnings (James, 2008). This ideology displays excessive faith in consumption as a means of meeting human needs, drives people to work longer hours and over-values paid work and economic contribution to society, at the expense of social contributions via family, community, leisure and education (Golden, 2009; Jackson, 2009; Pfeffer, 2010; Schor, 2011). Glucksmann (2005) notes that our definition of work is biased towards the economic and excludes the unpaid family and community labour traditionally performed by women.

Globalization has also intensified competition, so organizations are under pressure to increase performance and cut costs, through efficiency drives, restructuring, flatter hierarchies and downsizing, leading to work intensification for those who remain (Burke et al., 2010; Green, 2001, 2004, 2008; McCann et al., 2008; Ogbonna and Harris, 2004). The ‘need’ for long hours may thus be driven more by competition than by intrinsic job characteristics (Ashley and Empson, 2012). The private-sector model of doing more with less has extended into the public sector, which is expected to improve standards while lowering costs and increasing efficiency—the discourse of ‘new public management’ (Cooke, 2006; McCann et al., 2008). Work intensification and pace are exacerbated by technology which enables remote working, and working across multiple time zones, thus extending the working day and blurring boundaries between home and working life (Ashforth et al., 2000; Bittman et al., 2009; Feldman, 2002; Perlow, 2012).

Occupational drivers

At the second level of analysis, two literatures explore occupational drivers of extreme jobs: studies of working hours in particular professions and studies of occupational identity.

Managerial and professional jobs are traditionally ‘boundless’, defined not by a number of hours but by doing whatever it takes to get the job done (Kalleberg and Epstein, 2001). The belief that the essential ‘nature’ of the work precludes shorter hours and flexible working is confirmed in studies of professions such as civil engineering (Watts, 2009), management consulting (Donnelly, 2006; Merilainen et al., 2004; Perlow and Porter, 2009), accounting (Smithson et al., 2004), law (Epstein et al., 1999), the police (Dick and Cassell, 2004) and information technology (IT) (Meiksins and Whalley, 2002). Particular work characteristics are identified as limiting opportunities for reducing work: fast pace, short deadlines, unpredictability, availability to clients, interdependent tasks and interaction with colleagues (Briscoe, 2007; Donnelly, 2006; Kossek and Lee, 2005; Lee et al., 2002; Meiksins and Whalley, 2002; Perlow and Porter, 2009).

However, studies of temporal flexibility demonstrate that long hours also derive from the working practices constructed around those job characteristics and the occupational identity of the job-holders. Ideal workers, who prioritize work over personal commitments, do not need predictable working time, so a project management style which expects crises and constant availability is accepted as part of the ‘natural order’ (Epstein et al., 1999; Perlow, 1999; Watts, 2009). Client-to-worker specificity (building personal, rather than team-based client relationships) and individual specialization (rather than overlapping skill sets in teams) have also become the norm: ideal workers do not need to substitute for each other because they are constantly available (Briscoe, 2007; Perlow, 1998, 1999, 2001; Perlow and Porter, 2009; Watts, 2009).

Bechky (2006) suggests that working practices contribute to the development of occupational identity, and vice versa. This reciprocal process may begin as certain personality types are attracted to particular occupations, contributing to development of homogeneous occupational norms (Schneider, 1987). Long hours can intensify occupational identity and membership of the occupational community: in medical training and practice, long hours and physical ‘encapsulation’ isolate hospital trainees from other workers and limit ‘the potential identity set, the raw materials that members draw on to make sense of their work’ (Pratt et al., 2006: 257). Brett and Stroh (2003) report a ‘self-reinforcing cycle of social contagion’ which drives long hours among American managers in, for example, financial services (p. 76). Long hours and constant availability form part of a professional identity in client-facing occupations (Alvesson and Robertson, 2006; Watts, 2009) distinguishing them from other, lower-paid, occupations and justifying ‘extreme’ salaries (Donnelly, 2006; Kalleberg and Epstein, 2001; Seron and Ferris, 1995). Kuhn (2006) identified occupational discourses which encourage commitment of time to work: that professional status created an obligation, that the job served a noble purpose and that the ‘nature’ of the work required long hours. The UK construction industry was found to be ‘dominated by the values of presenteeism and infinite availability’ (Watts, 2009: 37) such that female engineers who wanted to work fewer hours risked their professional credibility. Tsouroufli et al. (2011) find a similar situation in medicine: part-time doctors are marginalized, and women who want to be ‘taken seriously’ have to adopt masculine time norms.

Furthermore, professionals are deemed to have ‘chosen’ long hours when they choose the profession (Kuhn, 2006). This creates problems for women, who typically choose a career before they acquire caring responsibilities: a subsequent desire to work fewer hours contradicts the occupational identity they previously embraced.

Organizational drivers

The third, organizational, set of drivers is reflected in commentary on work intensification and on attempts to encourage identification with organizational values.

Work intensity has been defined as ‘the intensity of mental and/or physical exertion during working time’, measured by the quantity and difficulty of the demands of the job (Green, 2008: 116). Explanations for increases in work intensity are found in new forms of work organization, including technology-driven change, high-commitment policies and the decline of collective bargaining (Cooke, 2006; Green, 2004), in turn driven by global competition (McCann et al., 2008).

Work intensity and long hours are also driven by encouraging identification with organizational values (Kunda, 1992). Alvesson and Willmott (2002) refer to this type of identity regulation as ‘producing the appropriate individual’, suggesting that organizational identification limits the working-hours options available. Alvesson and Robertson (2006) have identified the discourse of belonging to an elite as a means of encouraging employees ‘willingly’ to offer high commitment and long hours: this discourse emphasizes exclusiveness, technocratic excellence, a high degree of attachment, a feeling of being ‘special’, being highly respected and having access to resources, as well as financial rewards.

The shift from paternalism to strategic management as an organizational paradigm has constituted a shift from paternalistic masculinity to competitive masculinity, in which the demonstration of competence is a means of competition with, and the search for dominance over, others (Kerfoot and Knights, 1993). The extreme job, in male-dominated occupational sectors (Hewlett and Luce, 2006), is bound up with the ideology of competitive masculinity, involving ‘a disembodied and emotionally estranged conception of reason, where power, strength, and self-validation equate with the successful demonstration of individual competences in subordinating and conquering a multiplicity of tasks’ (Kerfoot and Knights, 1993: 674).

Research suggests that performance appraisal, development opportunities, and salary and promotion decisions may rely on working hours as a proxy for measuring intangible concepts such as commitment and leadership potential (Epstein et al., 1999; Perlow, 1998). Competition for promotion therefore involves demonstrating long hours. Van Echtelt et al. (2006) have shown how managers and professionals work longer hours in order to build the personal reputation necessary to achieve promotion or, in competitive ‘up or out’ environments, to avoid dismissal: post-Fordist working practices which give individuals greater autonomy paradoxically do not result in individuals choosing leisure time over work time, but may instead result in workers making daily (small) decisions to prioritize work, with the (often unintended) cumulative consequence of working longer hours. Milliken and Dunn-Jensen (2005) propose that work intensification may also encourage the prioritization of ‘urgent’ work tasks, which have immediate negative consequences for non-delivery, over ‘non-urgent’ family time. Technology has shifted the burden of determining when to start and stop work from employer to employee (Ashforth et al., 2000; Feldman, 2002; Kreiner et al., 2006): individuals have not only more choice about working hours but also more opportunities to compete with peers by working longer.

Women’s entry into traditionally male spheres of professional employment has increased competition for promotion and has been theorized to lead to even longer working hours: ‘competitive presenteeism’ is one metric on which men can compete on unequal terms with women who have caring responsibilities (Simpson, 1998). Working longer hours also enables men to enact a traditional masculine identity through competitive tests of physical endurance, stamina and sleeplessness (Williams, 2010; Williams et al., 2013).

Individual drivers

The literatures on identity construction and workaholism constitute the fourth, individual, level of analysis. The structural, cultural and gender constraints on working hours and working practices identified by research are not recognized by extreme workers themselves, who prefer an explanation for long hours rooted in personal decision-making (Fagan, 2001; McDonald et al., 2006; McRae, 2003; Rubery et al., 1998). However, in one Australian study, women were significantly less likely than men to see long working hours as a personal choice (Van Wanrooy and Wilson, 2006). The stickiness of the belief that long hours are a personal choice may be a product of a liberal, deregulated working time regime (Van Wanrooy and Wilson, 2006). The strength of the discourses of meritocracy, free choice and objective competition render women reluctant to interpret their disadvantage in terms of the gendered nature of social and organizational practices: the preferred explanation for lack of promotion, and exit from the workplace is personal choice (Broadbridge and Simpson, 2011; Cahusac and Kanji, 2014; Lewis and Simpson, 2010; Stone and Hernandez, 2013).

Identity theory provides one way of understanding the constraints on working-hours choices (Ng and Feldman, 2008). Personal identity is constructed from available discourses (Alvesson and Willmott, 2002; Pratt et al., 2006) and takes place within the context of occupational and organizational group identities (Alvesson et al., 2008), which represent working hours in particular ways (Ng and Feldman, 2008).

Work is central to defining identity in Western societies—more resonant than class, community, family or gender (James, 2008; Wharton and Blair-Loy, 2002)—especially for men (Hancock, 2012; Haywood and Ghaill, 1996). Work provides meaning and purpose, social standing, self-respect, personal fulfilment, challenge and opportunities to work on exciting projects with interesting colleagues (Golden, 2009; Hewlett and Luce, 2006; Isles, 2004; Lewis, 2003). Working longer hours might provide more of the same, as Brett and Stroh (2003) found among male American MBA graduates. Managers and professionals do not find it easy to separate the non-work self from the professional or organizational self and have to ‘combat both the company’s demands and one’s own impulses, not easily distinguishable, to allocate more time to work and to the organizational self that is formed in its context’ (Kunda, 1992: 167).

Studies of identity construction among long-hours workers show that workplace time commitments result from the complex interaction of organizational and geographical discourses with the individual’s attempts to construct a coherent identity (Kuhn, 2006; Merilainen et al., 2004). The impact on working hours of differing societal, cultural and gender discourses is demonstrated in a study of management consultants in the United Kingdom and Finland (Merilainen et al., 2004). UK consultants worked within a framework of competitive masculinity, involving instrumentalism, careerism, the language of success and inability to acknowledge weakness, which led to work addiction and long hours. In Finland, the discourse of work–life balance, at least when parenting young children, was normalized for both men and women, enabling a reduction in working time without the loss of professional or organizational identity.

Further insight comes from the literature on competitive masculinity, an insecure identity construction which depends on constant striving to compete with, and dominate, others. Kerfoot and Knights (1993) suggest that

competitive masculinity can result in the position whereby individuals feel ‘driven’ for no discernible reason, other than as a part of what it means, and how it feels, to subscribe to an ideal of competence, and where the display of vulnerability is to threaten the image of that competence. (p. 672)

Men caught up in this ideology are likely to rationalize their ‘choices’ as the result of ‘breadwinner responsibilities, financial security, career promotion, status and success’ (Kerfoot and Knights, 1993: 672).

In an extreme-job organization or occupational group, working fewer hours is inconsistent with dominant career, professional or organizational membership identities (Lawrence and Corwin, 2003) and may represent a threat to personal identity, thus triggering identity work (Alvesson et al., 2008; Ashforth et al., 2008), forcing the individual to seek alternative narrative material (Ibarra and Barbulescu, 2010). The most obvious alternative material is available to mothers; however, motherhood is an all-encompassing identity discourse, making the attempt to combine motherhood and professional identity problematic (Blair-Loy, 2003; Smithson and Stokoe, 2005).

Non-mothers may find it hard to see an atypical work status as coherent with both their role as professionals and other roles in life: in particular, men in some cultures suffer a greater flexibility stigma than women (Williams et al., 2013), may be seen as less masculine if they seek flexible or reduced work schedules (Vandello et al., 2013) and tend to define their family contribution in terms of breadwinning (Hancock, 2012; Holter, 2007; Warren, 2007). Culturally specific definitions of the role of fathers also have an impact on working time: in the United Kingdom, the quality of fathering is defined in terms of symbolic attendance at infrequent events (school plays, football matches) rather than in the day-to-day child maintenance activities which constitute ‘good mothering’ (Dermott, 2005). The Nordic social model expects a more active role in fathering (Brandth and Kvande, 2002; Halrynjo, 2009): Norwegian fathers, for example, backed by legislation which aims to strengthen father–child relationships, ‘experience that care cannot be carried out in short periods of intense interaction’ (Kvande, 2009: 59).

Workaholism research offers further insights. Participants in Hewlett and Luce’s (2006) study describe themselves as ‘workaholics’ and ‘Type A personalities’, suggesting both a stable personality characteristic and suitability for extreme jobs. Workaholism in this casual, everyday sense is a harmless, even desirable phenomenon (a discourse seen in other studies of long-hours workers, for example, Merilainen et al., 2004) which references the concept of resilience under pressure or hardiness (Benishek and Lopez, 1997; Eschleman et al., 2010; Kobasa et al., 1982). The term ‘workaholic’, however, has several meanings. Early definitions combined elements of work involvement, work enjoyment and intrinsic drive (Burke, 2000; Spence and Robbins, 1992) but did not include a behavioural element (a workaholic might only work 30 hours a week) and confusingly did not address the element of addiction implied by the suffix ‘-aholic’ (Schaufeli et al., 2009).

The related concept of ‘heavy work investment’ (Snir and Harpaz, 2012) might provide better insight because it starts not with motivation but with behaviour—working long hours. A distinction is drawn between two motives for heavy investment. First, situational motivation is imposed by uncontrollable external factors: financial drivers, a demanding work culture or boss. Second, dispositional motivation stems from personal characteristics (Snir and Harpaz, 2009). Dispositional investors are sub-divided depending on how they internalize their interest in a work activity. If the internalization is autonomous (undertaken willingly and without contingencies), the result is work passion (Vallerand and Houlfort, 2003), implying a sense of volition and psychological freedom. An individual might work long hours because they see the tasks as intrinsically valuable or because they are immersed in the ‘flow’. However, a workaholic feels compelled by a negative internal pressure, such as bolstering self-esteem, or the avoidance of guilt, shame or anxiety: for Vallerand and Houlfort (2003), this is work addiction.

This characterization informs the debate about ‘choice’ in extreme jobs: addiction (-aholic) means losing control over the addictive substance (work) and therefore the loss of choice. Extreme jobs are not a benign phenomenon for everyone, but this is not just a case of ‘hardy’, Type A or resilient workers (Eschleman et al., 2010) finding their way into extreme jobs, while the less resilient fall by the wayside. Snir and Harpaz (2009) suggest that a proportion of extreme job-holders are driven, perhaps unhappily, by external factors such as outsize rewards, while a further proportion are actually addicts—a pathology, not a lifestyle choice. The ‘nature’ of the work is therefore not a perfect match for the nature of the people who do the work.

Consequences of extreme jobs

Research indicates three consequences of extreme jobs: gender inequality, reduced health and happiness, and potentially lower long-term productivity.

Gender inequality: disadvantage and exclusion

The extreme job is at odds with the life experiences of most women, who retain the majority of domestic and caring responsibilities (Crompton et al., 2005; Hochschild, 2003; Pocock, 2005). A 60-hour week impinges more on non-work life than a 40-hour week, and carers (mostly women) experience more challenging transitions between different identities than in a ‘normal’ full-time environment (Ashforth et al., 2000; Fletcher and Bailyn, 2005). While those without domestic or caring obligations can perform as ideal workers, women (and men) in dual-career couples working extreme jobs, as well as those in single-parent households, face difficult choices: some may outsource caring and domestic duties, where such options are available and affordable (Cousins and Tang, 2004; Lyonette et al., 2007; Tang and Cousins, 2005), while those who prefer to keep care in the family, and those who would like to fulfil other life roles, may face the ‘flexibility stigma’, loss of career potential and reduced professional status.

Women’s labour market participation is further jeopardized by their husbands’ long hours: when husbands work more than 60 hours per week, the probability of giving up work is significantly increased for mothers in professional roles—although a man’s odds of leaving work are not significantly affected by his wife’s working hours (Cha, 2010). A further consequence of women leaving the workforce is that more men acquire the domestic partner they need in order to perform as an ideal worker, dedicating themselves to work without domestic interference (Merilainen et al., 2004; Stier and Lewin-Epstein, 2000; Stone, 2007).

The organization’s role in determining working hours is ambiguous, if not contradictory (Jackson, 2009), and is often limited to offering a ‘choice’ of hours (Kossek et al., 2010). Organizations with a culture of extreme jobs may simultaneously offer work–life balance programmes, in the belief that individuals can choose working hours to suit their lifestyle, but such initiatives may be ‘bolted on’ to the deeper structures which encourage long hours (Ford and Collinson, 2011; Kossek et al., 2010), while the individuals who take them up are often marginalized (Williams et al., 2013). Work–life balance initiatives may themselves be gendered: Burnett et al. (2013) found in a study of UK fathers that their paternal role was ignored by their employers, such that they felt unable to take up supposedly gender-neutral family-friendly policies.

The prevalence of the ideal worker, and the principle of separate spheres of work and home, shut personal and domestic concerns out of the workplace: working-hours ‘choices’ only become reality if organizations view all employees, not just women, as ‘whole people with legitimate lives beyond work’ (Kossek et al., 2010: 10) and recognize that ‘“life” goes on at work and “work” goes on at home’ (Ford and Collinson, 2011: 269). However, discourses of choice and objective (gender-neutral) competition allow women’s exit from the labour market to be interpreted as preference for motherhood and domesticity (Blair-Loy, 2003; Cahusac and Kanji, 2014; Hakim, 2002; Stone and Hernandez, 2013). Organizations thus invest in training female professionals, but retain taken-for-granted working practices, job designs and career frameworks which are incompatible with working less or with fulfilling caring responsibilities. Women’s talents are then lost to the workforce (Kossek et al., 2010; Stone, 2007; Stone and Hernandez, 2013).

Reduced health and happiness

Pfeffer (2010) defines human sustainability as

how organizational activities affect people’s physical and mental health and wellbeing—the stress of work practices on the human system—as well as effects of management practices such as work hours and behaviors that produce workplace stress on groups and group cohesion, and also the richness of social life, as exemplified by participation in civic, voluntary, and community organizations. (p. 35)

There is evidence that long hours reduce health, well-being and job satisfaction (Dewe and Kompier, 2008; Ng and Feldman, 2008; Sparks et al., 1997, 2001) and increase work–life or work–family conflict (Barnett and Gareis, 2002; Jacobs and Gerson, 2001; Lyonette et al., 2007; Major et al., 2002).

Non-work activities, particularly family, social and community relationships, have been shown to be essential for happiness and flourishing (James, 2008; Layard, 2005). Despite the need for non-work time, ‘time poverty’ is prevalent in Western society, particularly among dual-career couples with children and single working parents (Harvey and Mukhopadhyay, 2007; Warren, 2003). Kasser and Sheldon (2009) suggest the concept of ‘time affluence’ as an alternative to material affluence and show correlations between time affluence and employee well-being. Heavy work investment theory predicts negative psychological outcomes when long hours are driven by situational motives or addiction (Snir and Harpaz, 2009, 2012). Dembe (2009) identifies wider social consequences: those who dedicate their skills, energy and experience to work may be doing so at the expense of their personal life, community or family, so working hours become an ethical question for society.

Potentially lower productivity

Evidence of links between working hours and productivity or financial performance is difficult to collect and inconclusive. Impaired judgement and increases in unforced errors can result from long hours (Ng and Feldman, 2008; Vila and Moore, 2008), but Warr (1990, in Green, 2008) has also proposed that while burn-out might occur over the long term, long hours might boost productivity in the short term. A study of bankers working long hours found that after 3 years, some could not maintain the physical demands of the job and by year 6, ‘body breakdowns’ led them to transcend the long-hours norms: although characterized as a loss of control, this also resulted in benefits in terms of ethics, judgement and creativity (Michel, 2011).

The effects of long hours on productivity or quality of work might also depend on person–environment fit at different life stages, rather than on personality. Hardy, resilient (even heroic) professionals and managers may be expected to cope with long hours and constant availability, but in environments where a 24/7 service must be provided (healthcare, emergency services, air traffic control), it is understood that no individual can sustain high performance for 168 hours every week, so limits are enforced, along with procedures to minimize risk. In the action research study by Perlow and Porter (2009), the idea of enforcing time off improved communication in a management consultancy where 24/7 availability to clients had been regarded as essential. Action research by Rapoport et al. (2002) found that an explicit work–life balance agenda improved planning, information flow and project scheduling.

Conclusion

The disparate literature on extreme jobs does not allow conclusions about the relative importance of different drivers. However, this article has assembled an array of forces, at four levels of analysis, driving and sustaining the phenomenon of extreme jobs. Institutional forces include gendered social structures, the inequality implicit in neo-liberal economic regimes, technology and globalization. Occupational forces include perceptions of the ‘nature’ of managerial and professional work, and discourses of occupational identity, both of which ‘require’ long hours; this requirement may be accepted at early career stages but, if a later life stage requires shorter hours, retrospectively acquires the status of a ‘choice’ to work long hours. Organizational drivers include the high-performance work practices and work intensification which result from global competition, the encouragement of identification with organizational values and competitive promotion and rewards systems based on the number of hours worked. At the individual level, three motivators have been identified: first, prevalent discourses of personal choice, which ignore the addictive element of work and the negative situational drivers of long hours such as financial pressures, a demanding boss or work culture; second, the positioning of work as a central element of identity construction; third, the absence of socially significant, high-status non-work identities, except for mothers. We have also identified three negative consequences of extreme jobs: gender inequality, impaired human sustainability and reduced productivity.

Combining research from all these fields leads to three conclusions concerning the development of the currently immature study of extreme jobs. First, we dispute the view that long hours are in the ‘nature’ of, rather than in the gendered construction of, managerial and professional work. Second, we challenge the dominant ideology of economic growth which undervalues the social contributions of non-work roles and activities. Third, we challenge the assumption that those who ‘choose’ extreme jobs are necessarily healthily engaged and motivated, suggesting instead that long-hours behaviour may be driven by psychologically negative, even addictive, motives, which may in turn reduce performance and productivity.

The gendered construction of work

Extreme jobs limit personal choice, especially for those who also fulfil family and community roles. Since the latter are mostly women, extreme jobs perpetuate inequality and are incompatible with the expectation that every adult should be economically active and afforded equal opportunities.

Acker (1990, 2006) rejects the notion of ‘a job’ as a reified ‘empty slot’, to be filled by a gender-neutral, disembodied worker. Acker does not quantify ‘a job’, but we suggest that the size of a job, the expectation of hours worked, constitutes an essential element of what makes it a gendered structure of inequality. The predominance of (male) ideal workers has led to the reification of working practices which perpetuate extreme jobs. The characteristics of work in the managerial and professional sphere have become conflated with the working practices constructed to suit (male) ideal workers. These practices have become reified as part of the essential ‘nature’ of professional and managerial work in sectors such as financial services, law, consultancy, medicine and construction, such that the extreme job becomes not a personal choice, but a commercial and professional requirement.

The temporal flexibility literature clarifies the distinction between the essential characteristics of some managerial and professional work and the social construction of extreme jobs, offering the possibility of business-neutral or ‘equifinal’ job designs (Sinha and Van de Ven, 2005) which do not involve long hours, even in fast-paced, unpredictable and ‘always-on’ environments. By contesting assumptions about the ‘nature’ of work and of professional commitment, we can identify the extreme job as a structure of inequality (Acker, 2006; Britton and Logan, 2008; Broadbridge and Simpson, 2011). By identifying different but equifinal (and therefore universally applicable, rather than ‘alternative’) working practices, we open up the potential to dismantle gendered extreme jobs (Acker, 2006; Ely and Meyerson, 2000).

Future research might concentrate on working practices which support the construction of non-extreme jobs. Studies of temporal flexibility have identified practices which mitigate the need for long and unpredictable hours: overlapping skill sets (Perlow, 2001), team-based client relationships (Perlow, 2012), substitutability of staff (Perlow and Porter, 2009) and bureaucratization of procedures to maximize predictability and knowledge sharing (Briscoe, 2007). What other working practices facilitate non-extreme working, and how do these vary in different occupations? How are new entrants socialized into extreme (and gendered) working practices in different sectors? Insight might be gained from the study of truly extreme work, where a service has to be provided for 168 hours a week (firefighting, police work, trauma surgery) so that even relatively senior jobs are designed for substitutability: the unit of analysis (Campion et al., 2005) becomes the shift, rather than the person. If ‘alternative’ working practices are only taken up by ‘token’ women, such women feel the need to seek ‘strategic invisibility’ within a masculine domain (Lewis and Simpson, 2012). Dismantling the extreme job means challenging the notion that work and non-work take place in separate spheres, replacing this perspective with a fundamental notion of human sustainability (Williams, 2010).

Human sustainability

Extreme jobs can have perverse social consequences. Western capitalist ideology privileges GDP growth above other social goods; and privileges paid work, and an economic contribution to society, above the contributions of other activities (Jackson, 2009; James, 2008; Layard, 2005). Jackson (2009) notes that while environmental sustainability has been accepted as an organizational responsibility, human sustainability trails behind: instead, organizations offer ‘choice’. This ideology encourages extreme jobs and ignores the social and psychological contributions made by family, domestic and community work. Although extreme job-holders no doubt also make social contributions, individuals need time for family, community and social relationships; leisure; education; citizenship; and the pursuit of well-being (Dembe, 2009; James, 2008; Pfeffer, 2010). Extreme jobs are thus morally loaded, as well as gendered, reflecting and promoting a worldview in which paid work and economic contributions (traditional men’s work) take precedence over other contributions—family and community work (traditional women’s work), education, leisure, pursuit of well-being, citizenship. We contest not only the ‘nature’ of the work but also the disregard for human sustainability implicit in long hours and work intensity, driven in turn by the imperative of economic growth and competition.

An alternative indicator of human sustainability might involve measuring the value of unpaid labour. The ‘total social organization of labour’ is an inclusive concept which ‘acknowledges as work many forms of labour that are not remunerated or that may not be differentiated out or recognized as activities separate from the relationships (social, cultural, kind, etc.) within which they are conducted’ (Glucksmann, 2005: 21). Research might thus focus on how household members construct the ‘total responsibility burden’ of market labour, necessary non-market labour and ‘recreational labour’ such as community activity, leisure and enjoyment (Ransome, 2007): what is the influence on this total responsibility burden of normative expectations about lifestyle and consumption, as well as gender role expectations? Another research focus might concern the intersection of occupational and non-work identities. The conflict between occupational identity and mothers’ identities is well researched (Blair-Loy, 2003; Tsouroufli et al., 2011; Watts, 2009), but the study of the interface between work and family life for others is not (Ozbilgin et al., 2011). How do men and child-free women develop a coherent identity and construct the personal and social significance of their non-work roles? By focusing on examples of change to the established order (Ranson, 2012; Sullivan, 2004), such research might begin to normalize and de-gender non-extreme working, establishing options counter to the assumption that paid work is the structuring principle of identity and always takes priority over personal commitments.

The conflation of motivation and behaviour

Our third argument concerns the assumption of free choice implicit in extreme jobs and the related assumption of positive motivation leading to positive impacts on productivity. Conflating long-hours behaviour with a positive motivation for such behaviour suggests that extreme jobs are a benign, morally neutral phenomenon, with positive impacts on individuals (who have ‘chosen’ this way of working) and on productivity (longer hours mean higher output). However, this review has identified that, in addition to the constraints on choice identified in sociological research, psychological studies of workaholism and work passion show that long-hours behaviour does not necessarily imply a healthy engagement with a job (motivation). While there may be many examples of a perfect fit between extreme jobs and happily engaged extreme job-holders, we cannot assume that this is universal. Unhealthy psychological drivers of long-hours behaviours can sometimes constitute addiction, implying loss of control and therefore loss of choice (Snir and Harpaz, 2009; Vallerand and Houlfort, 2003). Negative consequences of extreme jobs may also extend to those individuals who say they seek and enjoy extreme jobs.

The framing of extreme jobs as a matter of choice is therefore problematic on several grounds. This review has demonstrated three limitations on choices of working hours: first, the gendered nature of extreme jobs, which excludes women while characterizing that exclusion as a preference; second, the organizational and occupational discourses which frame long hours as a ‘natural’ feature of managerial and professional work; third, the conflation of behaviour and motivation implicit in the assumption that those who do extreme jobs are happily and healthily engaged.

Future research might concentrate on whether and how passionate extreme job-holders are motivated differently from workaholics and from those driven by situational motivation. What is the significance of these different motivations for well-being? Are there differences between the motives of male and female extreme job-holders? And what is the impact of different motives on productivity? Long-term creativity, judgement and ethics have been shown to be affected by long hours: which other indicators are relevant, and are they dependent on the type of motivation? These questions need to be addressed with sensitivity to short- and long-term experience of extreme work, person–environment fit at different life stages and personality factors such as Type A or hardiness.

This review has sought to collate the currently fragmented body of work related to the phenomenon of extreme jobs. Organizations already have to balance the short-term benefits of high-commitment work practices and organizational identification against the long-term negative consequences for employee well-being and talent retention. The business case for enabling shorter working hours as a means of retaining (particularly female) talent appears to have been insufficient incentive for organizations to de-gender working practices to suit changing workforce needs. Research should perhaps now concentrate on identifying other working practices which contest the extreme ‘nature’ of managerial and professional work; understanding the personal and social significance of non-work identities (other than motherhood) and measuring the social impact of unpaid labour and non-work activities; and disentangling work passion and workaholism as motivations for devoting long hours to work, such that impacts on both well-being and productivity can be more clearly understood.

Footnotes

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

Author biographies

Charlotte Gascoigne completed her PhD on part-time professionals and managers at the School of Management at Cranfield University.

Emma Parry is Reader in Human Resource Management (HRM), leading global research projects including ‘Cranet’ which conducts comparative research into HRM and ‘5C’, and examining cultural differences in attitudes towards careers. She is currently working in the School of Management at Cranfield University.

David Buchanan is Emeritus Professor of Organizational Behaviour in the School of Management at Cranfield University; his current projects include a study of transformational change in healthcare, and the management of change in extreme contexts. He specializes in change management, change agency and organization politics.

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