ABSTRACT

This article aims at analysing how subjective work-family conflict is experienced by different self-employed men and women in comparison to employees and informal workers in Europe. Firstly, it focuses on how job-related resources and demands characterise traditional and emerging types of self-employment affecting the perception of work-family conflict. Secondly, it explores both gender-related institutional and societal dimensions, by analysing how the conflict is differently mediated by reconciliation policies and by the degree of gender equality in society. Based on the 6th European Working Condition Survey, findings show that self-employment is a hybrid area of work which, depending on its characteristics, can be more similar to entrepreneurial, dependent or informal work. As for the work-family conflict, the study indicates that self-employment can only mitigate it in the case of ‘dependent self-employment’, a work arrangement which, however, while facilitating the reconciliation of work and family, poses significant problems in terms of quality of the working conditions, especially in the case of women. Genuine forms of self-employment seem instead to represent a source of conflict, and to suffer the lack of gender equality in different European societies and labour markets.

摘要

本文旨在分析与欧洲的雇员和非正式工人相比，不同的自雇人士如何经历主观工作家庭冲突。首先，它着重研究与工作相关的资源和需求如何表征传统和新兴的自营职业类型，从而影响对工作家庭冲突的认识。其次，它通过分析和解政策和社会性别平等程度如何不同地调解冲突，探讨了与性别有关的制度和社会方面。根据第六次欧洲工作条件调查，调查结果显示，自雇是一个混合的工作领域，根据其特点，它可能更类似于企业家，从属或非正式工作。至于工作家庭冲突，该研究表明，自营职业只能在“依赖自雇”的情况下缓解这种情况，这种工作安排虽然促进了工作与家庭的和解，但在工作条件质量方面却构成了重大问题，尤其是女性。相反，真正的自营职业形式似乎是冲突的根源，并且在不同的欧洲社会和劳动力市场中缺乏性别平等。