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  • Dualization and the access ...
    Chung, Heejung

    Social policy & administration, March 2018, Volume: 52, Issue: 2
    Journal Article

    This article examines outsiders' relative access to occupational level family‐friendly policies. I use data from the European Working Conditions Survey of 2015 across 30 European countries examining workers' access to two types of family‐friendly working‐time arrangements (WTAs): flexitime, and time off work for personal reasons. The article focuses on women with care responsibilities given that their demands for family‐friendly policies, as well as their outcomes, have been shown to be distinct from the rest of the working population. In addition to the outsider definition used in the labor market dualization and occupational segmentation literature, i.e., low‐skilled workers and those without a permanent contract, this article also defines outsiders as those perceiving their job as insecure. The results of the analysis show a segmentation between workers in their access to family‐friendly policies. Unlike statutory policies, occupational policies seem to be selectively provided mostly to workers where employers have a vested interest, i.e., insiders, resulting in a dualized system for most countries. However, rather than their contract status, the skill‐level of the job/workers, and their perceived insecurity were found to be important. The results further show that although Northern European and some continental European countries are those where family‐friendly WTAs are more readily available, it is in these countries where the division between insiders and outsiders is the greatest. The results of the article contribute to the literature by showing a need to move beyond the national level when examining family‐friendly policies, and to examine a more diverse definition of outsiders when examining dualization of working conditions.