Abstract
Many fathers would like to work less, but they do not reduce their working hours. Studies on the role of workplace organisations for work-family balance point to adverse working conditions as a major obstacle. Quantitative studies, however, are still rare due to the lack of data resources. This paper uses a representative survey of 711 parenting couples in Germany from 2015 to study the relationship between cultural and structural workplace conditions and fathers’ working times. We differentiate between part-time work, contractual and actual working hours. The results show a robust relationship between fathers’ inclination to work reduced hours and the extent to which formal, universal and transparent policies exist in their workplaces. Perceptions of a strong ideal-worker norm and access to substitutes at short notice are particularly relevant for whether fathers manage to comply with their contractual working hours. Surprisingly, fathers have longer contractual working hours the more they feel supported by their supervisor. The results also indicate that favourable cultural conditions are possible for shorter working hours of fathers in many industries and establishments of different sizes.
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Notes
- 1.
AID:A is a panel study of a sample drawn from population registration data in 300 municipalities (Alt et al. 2011). In 2009, 25,000 persons born between 1954 and 2009 or their legal guardians were interviewed. This study is based on the second wave, surveyed between 2013 and 2015 (AID:A II).
- 2.
Comparing the analysis sample with and without the use of weighting factors, we find that fathers who have completed tertiary education and those in management positions, in public sector organisations, in administration/healthcare/social service jobs and in organisations with works/staff representative councils are still over-represented. However, this misrepresentation is not detrimental to the multivariate analyses as we control for these characteristics and for the stratification characteristics of the sample (Cameron and Trivedi 2005: 105ff).
- 3.
Analyses that limit the sample to those cases for which valid values are available for all variables (complete case analysis) come to similar results, although the effects are, as expected, somewhat weaker. Also with regard to the scales, the Cronbach’s alpha coefficients from the 15 imputations and the unimputed calculation (complete case) are almost identical.
- 4.
Since we do not have sufficient information on the extent to which overtime is paid or compensated for by time off, a direct analysis of overtime is not possible.
- 5.
Average marginal effects (AME) indicate the change in the average probability of the dependent variable (here: working part time) when the explanatory variable changes by one unit, while all other variables are kept constant at their respective person-specific values (Williams 2012). In the case of dichotomous variables, AME are calculated from the difference of the predicted average probabilities between two groups. Unlike in logistic regression models, the AME were calculated with weighting factors due to the stratified sample selection (see Cameron and Trivedi 2005, 105–109, 339–340).
- 6.
The coefficients and standard errors remain robust even when controlling for age, tenure, migration background, satisfaction with household income, marital status and age groups of the children. In order to keep the models parsimonious in terms of case numbers, we have not included these variables in the final models. Due to the small number of cases, it was not possible to provide a more differentiated picture with regard to fathers’ education and training and their professional positions. In addition, we have not controlled for individual income because the level of income is directly dependent on the length of working hours (reverse causality) and the effect of income on working hours would not provide valid information due to this endogeneity problem.
- 7.
Results of interaction models and descriptive analyses can be obtained on request.
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A German version of this chapter titled “Arbeitszeiten von Vätern: Welche Rolle spielen betriebskulturelle und betriebsstrukturelle Rahmenbedingungen?” has been published in Zeitschrift für Familienforschung/Journal of Family Research, 29, 1, 49–71.
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Bernhardt, J., Buenning, M. (2020). Fathers’ Working Times in Germany: The Role of the Ideal Worker Norm in the Context of Other Cultural and Structural Workplace Conditions. In: las Heras Maestro, M., Chinchilla Albiol, N., Grau Grau, M. (eds) The New Ideal Worker. Contributions to Management Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12477-9_3
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