Abstract

The way women and men combine paid and family work is usually studied by investigating the amount of time they spend hereon. Such an aggregated approach is insufficient. Firstly, because these combination issues arise due to conflicting temporal orders and, secondly, because part time work and work on atypical working hours are considered to be strategies to cope herewith. The question when people work is more relevant to both arguments. By using the Belgian work grid from 2013 (n=2,316), this contribution shows that an episodic approach, departing from the timing of work, yields much richer insights in the way women and men organise their weekly paid work. Optimal matching analysis allows identifying 12 weekly work patterns and typifying them clearly as ‘male’ and ‘female’ patterns. Men typically organise their weekly paid work in fulltime work patterns whereas women largely organise their weekly paid work in part time work patterns. No evidence for atypical work patterns is found. This contribution shows that certain part time work patterns can be seen as a strategy to combine paid and family work. This only holds for women. Socio-economic and family characteristics do not determine the way men organise their weekly paid work.

How to Cite:

Van Tienoven, T. & Glorieux, I. & Minnen, J., (2016) “Gegenderde organisatie van betaalde arbeid over de week in België”, Sociologos 37(4), 328–355. doi: https://doi.org/10.21825/sociologos.86927