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Career and retirement paths are in flux due to a turbulent global economy and the dismantling of the social contract between employers and employees. But most existing research on older workers and their retirement expectations investigates earlier cohorts and may well not capture the experiences of the large Boomer cohort. Moreover, comparisons of women's and men's retirement expectations typically examine people in different occupational and organizational contexts. By contrast, this study is a longitudinal investigation of an occupational cohort of white-collar professionals (Boomers) working in the information technology (IT) division of a Fortune 500 company. We assess gender differences in expectations of retiring and working longer in the same social environment, as well as the impacts of continuity and change in family and job conditions, and subjective wellbeing. We find that IT Boomer women expect to retire and leave the workforce earlier than their male colleagues. However, over half of women report high subjective probabilities of working at age 65, and three in ten see high probabilities they will work at age 67. Adult care work and long work hours predict men working longer, while perceived income adequacy and tenure are significant predictors of earlier exits for men and women. Many of these Boomers expect to continue working after retiring from their careers. Overall, our findings indicate important differences by gender even in this relatively homogeneous sample suggests enduring differences and disparities in the later life course and greater within gender heterogeneity in expecting to work longer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We draw on panel data from a randomized field intervention (STAR - promoting employee flexibility and supervisor support) to test its effects on employees' job insecurity, job satisfaction and turnover intentions. An unanticipated exogenous shock - announcement of a merger - occurred in the middle of data collection. Both organizational changes - STAR and merger announcement -- reflect an emerging contract characterized by increasing employee temporal flexibility and increasing employer flexibility in reorganizing workforces. STAR promoted job satisfaction and reduced job insecurity at 12-months; learning of merger increased insecurity and turnover intentions. STAR buffered effects of learning of merger on insecurity and turnover intentions. Findings provide insights into the effectiveness of an organizational-level intervention, the dynamics of organizations, and how competing logics of two organizational changes affect employees' subjective assessments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on occupational histories collected from a Chinese nationally representative sample (2003 Chinese General Social Survey), we examine variations in attainment of a state-sector first job and shifts from the state to nonstate sector job, across four cohorts who entered the labor market in distinct historical (and often tumultuous) periods from 1949 to 2003. We find more recent cohorts have increasingly higher odds of having a first job in a nonstate-sector work unit, as well as higher propensities to shift jobs from the state to the nonstate sector compared to early cohorts. Cohort variations are also reflected in the changing role of structural locations (gender, education, and fringe benefit receipt) in the prediction of first job sector and sector shifts across cohorts. For example, a high school degree offers the least advantage of entering the state sector for members of the Cultural Revolution cohort (labor market entry 1966-77), while the disincentive of sector shifting of fringe benefits offered by the state sector is weakened in the latest two reform cohorts (labor market entry 1978-91, and 1992-2003). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many organizations have adopted flexible work arrangements such as flextime, telecommuting, compressed work weeks, and reduced-hours schedules to, in part, help workers cope with workfamily conflicts. However, they are often administered as individual accommodations and, consequently, have low levels of utilization. We investigate the effects of a workplace initiative that emphasizes flexibility for all employees. Using multilevel longitudinal data on 659 employees, we explore the effect of this initiative on flexible work behaviors, including employee's location of work, work schedule, and work schedule demands. We examine for differential effects by gender and parental status, proximal team characteristics, and supervisor statuses. We find that employees who participate in the initiative are significantly more likely to change to more flexible work schedules, begin telecommuting, and feel less pressure to work overtime. These effects are moderated by parental status, workteam pressures, and supervisor characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most research linking social contexts to health outcomes is either cross-sectional or else considers long-term health consequences of fixed contexts. This study draws on job demand-control, role strain, stress process and life course theoretical approaches to test whether changes in the ecology of work predict changes in factors related to employees' wellness. It consists of a natural experiment of a corporate transformation in the temporal organization of work (Results Only Work Environment -ROWE). Using longitudinal data from 659 white-collar employees who either participated in ROWE or else continued working in the traditional work environment, we investigate and find that a deliberate change in work conditions (ROWE) predicts an increase in employees' energy and hours of sleep, as well as an increase in their propensity to go to the doctor and a decrease in their tendency to go to the workplace when sick. As theorized, enhancing employees' control over the time and timing of their work and reducing their degree of work-family conflict appear to be two key mechanisms underlying this process. ROWE also has indirect effects in increasing the quality of sleep and degree of personal mastery, as well as reducing emotional exhaustion. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzes panel data (two surveys, two years apart) on dual-earner couples (N = 873) to test a model of within-couple stress contagion. We examine whether changes in job stress in the form of negative work spillover "crossover" to negatively influence the well-being of employees' spouses. Couple-level structural models identify evidence of crossover effects from employees to their spouses, but findings are not consistent with the stress contagion model. Decreases in men's and women's negative work spillover predict increased distress in their spouses. Post-hoc evidence indicates that these relationships are explained through own and spousal appraisals of work burden and home demands. We also provide a test distinguishing whether the effects of stress contagion cumulate over time, or whether individuals adapt to their partner's ongoing work stress, finding support for the adaptation hypothesis. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The gendered organizations literature argues that workplaces are organized as if paid work is the only (or at least the primary) duty of adults and this contributes to gender inequality in the workplace. Women are disadvantaged by the current organization of work. Work-family policies are often viewed as because they may they may destabilize the gendered ideal worker norm and make it easier for both women and men to combine paid work and caregiving. However, research suggests that these policies are not living up to this promise. In this paper, we analyze a cultural change initiative (which we call FREE) being implemented in a large company. Employees are asked to participate in the creation of a new culture that assumes flexibility, rather than requesting a specific work arrangement. We discuss four empirical questions: 1) How does the FREE initiative deinstitutionalize (some) elements of the gendered ideal worker norm? 2) What is the vision of the ideal worker that develops? 3) What barriers to change are acknowledged? 4) How does gender "pop up" in the FREE training? We conclude by discussing the limitations of FREE in the context of firmly institutionalized discourses of efficiency. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzes longitudinal data on dual-earner couples (N = 873) to test a model of within-couple stress contagion. We examine whether stress in the form of negative work-family spillover experienced by employees crosses over to negatively influence the health or well-being of their spouses. (Well-being is tracked using measures of negative affect and mastery; physical health is tracked through use of self-reported overall health.) Couple-level structural models document crossover both from husbands' negative work-family spillover to wives' health and well-being and from wives' negative work-family spillover to husbands' well-being, but the bulk of findings are not consistent with the stress contagion model. Wives whose husbands experienced above-average levels of negative work-family spillover over a two year period also report decreases in self-reported health, consistent with the notion of stress contagion. However, decreases in negative work-family spillover are linked to increased distress in the spouses of both men and women. Similar decreases in husbands are also connected to decreased mastery in their wives. The authors propose that compensation processes, as well as stress contagion, may explain crossover effects between working spouses. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The work-family literature has explored whether work is becoming more prevalent in the lives of U.S. workers. This debate centers on the work of Hochschild (1997) who claims that work and home have become reversed and employees escape the stress of home-life by spending more time at work. The work-family literature has primarily focused on the number of hours spent at work, but it overlooks the social dimension of Hocschild's claim. Using data from the Ecology of Careers Panel Study (Moen 2003) we evaluate Hochschild's argument by examining the importance of employees' social ties to their co-workers. Our analysis confirms Hochschild's findings and shows that lower levels of family satisfaction increase the likelihood that employees have ties to their co-workers. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzes a couple-level (N = 880), longitudinal dataset of employees working in upstate New York to document the individual- and couple-level effects of caring for an adult relative on changes in well-being for women and men. We use a life-course theoretical framework to examine both positive and negative effects of caregiving transitions and spousal caregiving on a range of well-being outcomes. We find that: 1) caregiving is associated with worse well-being for dual-earner women and better well-being for dual-earner men; 2) women caregivers who have flexible work arrangements have better well-being than caregivers that don't use these arrangements; and 3) spousal caregiving does impact individual well-being in different ways for women and men. In particular, husbands' caregiving activities detract from wives' well-being while a couple-level "trading off" care strategy is linked to increases in husbands' well-being. These results substantiate and expand upon earlier cross-sectional findings and support the utility of a life course theoretical framework for caregiving research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article draws on several research, including the study of work and family, the study of work environment and health, and the study of the gendered life course, to investigate changes in latitudes, demands at work and at home, and any corresponding changes in the perceived personal control of married workers in upstate New York. Earlier researchers have shown how personal control shapes behavior, beliefs and well-being, as well as how it is unevenly distributed across subgroups of the population. There is evidence in the occupational health literature linking decision latitude on the job with reduced job strain and, consequently, health and well-being.

We build on Karasek and Theorell (1990) to theorize and test the psychosocial effects of changes in time strain (time demands and time control) in addition to job strain (job demands and job control) on employee health and well-being. We exploit a natural experiment, drawing on survey data from 659 employees at the headquarters of Best Buy Co., Inc. fielded before and six months after the implementation of an organizational flexibility innovation, Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE) that attempts to provide employees with more flexibility around the time and timing of their work. We find employees experience changes in both job and time strain. The flexibility initiative, ROWE, predicts changes in time demands and time control net of any changes in traditional job strain measures for both women and men. Changes in time strain (increases in schedule control, time adequacy, decreases in overcommitment) prompted by the flexibility initiative have positive effects on a number of health and well-being outcomes, including self-reported health, energy, psychological well-being, mastery, somatic symptoms, psychological distress and emotional exhaustion, with some of these effects differing by gender. This study demonstrates the value of including time demands and time control in theoretical and empirical models of the health effects of work conditions, shows that a deliberate workplace flexibility innovation changes time strain, and that time strain changes improve employee health-related outcomes. These results differ by gender, pointing to the need to consider the distinctive experiences of women and men in the workplace and their impacts on health outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing on two waves of data six months apart (before and after an organizational flexibility initiative), this paper examines the impacts of this innovation on changes in work-home spillover and health-related outcomes of women and men working at the Midwest headquarters of a large US retail corporation, as well as whether baseline home and spillover contexts moderate this relationship. Based on different dimensions of work-home spillover reported at Wave 1 (positive, negative home to work and work to home spillover), we identify three distinct spillover contexts at baseline: high negative spillover, high positive spillover, and low spillover. We also identify five distinct home ecological contexts in which employees live, based on home demands and home control. Multivariate analyses show that a major flexibility initiative (ROWE - Results Only Work Environment) reduces negative work-to-home spillover for those in particular home contexts: singles with high home control, adult care providers with low home control, and parents of preschoolers with low home control. It also reduces the negative work-to-home spillover of workers who were experiencing overall high negative spillover or high positive spillover at baseline. ROWE promotes health behaviors such as increasing the odds of quitting smoking, decreasing alcohol consumption frequency, increasing exercise frequency, and improving self-assessed adequate time for meals and for sleep. The latter two are partially mediated via reduced negative work-to-home spillover. ROWE especially improves the health behavior of singles with high home control and of employees who previously reported high levels of positive spillover. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Conceptual, theoretical and empirical advances in the work-family field require capturing the dynamic and often gendered strategies people use to achieve a sense of life-course fit, defined as cognitive appraisals by individuals of the adequacy of their resources in relation to their commitments. Assessments of fit shift over the life course as resources and claims also shift, leading to greater or less congruence between the two. Qualitative analysis of the discourse of professional employees suggests that work-family is increasingly about 'doing' timework. Such timework consists of both accounts of overloads and misfit and discourse about actual strategies to better align life's multiple dimensions. Both accounts and strategies occur in the context of prevailing work-time, work-family and gender schema producing institutionalized, taken-for-granted work-time expectations. Accounts and strategies take place in the context of the new uncertainties, rising time pressures, and insecurities characterizing contemporary paid work. Our analysis reveals three prevailing timework strategies: prioritizing time, blocking off time, and shifting time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Though research is prolific on work-family conflict, there is little research demonstrating how employers impact time-use patterns and can effectively support working parents. This study uses data collected from a natural experiment in a corporate setting to investigate the relationships between a culture change initiative (Results Only Work Environment - ROWE), work-time control, time at work and with children, work-time behaviors like telecommuting and telecommuting variability, and work-family conflict among working parents. We examine the following questions: Does ROWE impact parent's time spent at work and with children? Does ROWE increase working parents' perceived control over their work time and/or change their behaviors regarding how they manage these responsibilities? Does ROWE, perceived work time control, and/or work-time behaviors reduce parents' work-family conflict? Using longitudinal data from 215 working parents in a white-collar workplace, we examine the effect of workplace changes on time-use patterns as well as investigate which is more important, work-time behaviors like telecommuting or perceived control over work time. We find that ROWE does not influence time-use patterns but increases the likelihood of telecommuting and increases subjective perceptions of work-time control. Only perceived control over work time is significantly predictive of reduced work-family conflict for working parents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]