How police officers and nurses regulate combined domestic and paid workloads to manage schedules: A gender analysis

Abstract

Objective: Our questioning focuses on the role played by the gendered division of labour and by the collective organisation of work in strategies deployed by workers in order to reconcile professional and private lives. How does work organisation facilitate schedule management so as to fit in with workers' domestic lives by offering the possibility of work activity accommodations?

Method: A comparison of two stress management studies allowed us to examine the strategies used to manage professional and private schedules. One study focused on nurses in a female environment and one study looked at police officers or a male environment recently incorporating women into the work group.

Results: In the hospital sector, management resorts to curtailing leave in order to overcome staff shortages and ensure the quality of health care; however, the female environment facilitates collective regulation to adapt work schedules. These management imposed organisational constraints are especially difficult for female staff due to their roles in the domestic sphere. It is more difficult for women to adapt work schedules in the predominantly male police officer environment. Police ask supervisors for timetable changes more frequently following the introduction of women to the group.

Conclusion: The strategies to reconcile professional and private lives depend on division of labour and collective regulation.