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Cross-national analyses of the gender division of labour usually focus on employment and domestic labour. This paper argues that formal and informal voluntary work should be included in such analyses. Using available secondary sources, the paper compares the gender division of voluntary work in Britain and France - two countries with well-documented differences and similarities concerning employment and domestic labour. The paper reveals that French women, with a higher commitment to the labour market and a slightly larger share of the burden of domestic labour, have a higher commitment to formal voluntary activity but engage less in informal volunteering than their British counterparts whereas French men, with shorter hours in employment and a slightly smaller contribution to domestic labour, undertake more formal and informal voluntary work than their British counterparts. In France, men consistently undertake more voluntary work than women whilst in Britain, there is a degree of gender equality in formal voluntary work but women undertake significantly more informal voluntary work than men. The paper explains the differences and similarities found by considering the role of the state and social policy, the question of 'time availability', and the question of what motivates individuals to undertake voluntary work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Why are organizational work-life initiatives endorsed in some countries such as the US or the UK, while they generate little interest in France and other non-Anglo-Saxon environments? In a qualitative theory-building approach, this paper assesses the gap in workplace practices adoption among the US, the UK, and France and analyzes in-depth interviews with 44 human resources (HR) officers, employee representatives, unions, and work-life service providers in France. Five main factors explain the adoption of organizational work-life initiatives in France and potentially other countries: (1) employer versus State legitimacy in the nonwork sphere of life, (2) industrial relations and unions' stance toward work-life practices, (3) the complexity of the legal framework, (4) the awareness of work-life issues within HR departments, and (5) the framing of work-life as a business or a social issue. With reference to prior research, a model is built to account for the influence of the national context on employees' expectations and employers' leeway at the macrolevel, and for strategic choices made by employers at the mesolevel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper contrasts and compares the institutional framework for fatherhood and father involvement and the survey evidence relating to fathers' contribution to childcare and domestic work in the two countries. It shows that while men's contribution to such activities appears to be increasing in both France and the UK, change is slow and father involvement does not necessarily seem to correlate directly either with patterns of female labour force participation or with the support offered by the institutional framework. The authors explore the theoretical frameworks most appropriate for explaining their findings and situate them primarily in terms of Pfau-Effinger's theorization of the gender arrangement (1998, 2002, 2004). The authors conclude that while change in father involvement is slow, the introduction of statutory and organizational work-life balance measures which alter the gender order open up opportunities for negotiated change in the division of the labour in the home. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]