MEHE KODU ON MAAILM, NAISE MAAILM ON KODU? - Tartu Ülikool

TÖÖ- JA PEREELU ÜHITAMINE RECONCILING WORK AND FAMILY LIFE
children (see Table 4). Slightly more than a half of those with children up to two years of age in
the household could have days off for family reasons and only 16% of them could never do this.
Changing the beginning or end of working days was slightly more possible for those who had
children up to two years of age in the household compared to those who did not have children or
had older children. Still, the differences between the groups were not significant enough to draw
any comprehensive conclusions. (Table 4)
Besides the opportunity to have days off or change the beginning or end of working days and
working part-time, the opportunity to reduce usual working hours in order to take care of children
is also an important dimension of time flexibility. 8% of males and 20% of females with children
aged up to eight years had reduced their usual working hours during at least one month. As one
might expect, the number of persons who had reduced their working hours was higher among
those with younger children but the differences between men and women were not affected by
the age of children in the household. 23% of women and 10% of men with children up to two
years of age had reduced their working hours. As to households with children aged 3–6, 19% of
women and only 6% of men had reduced their working hours (see Figure 7). The differences
between men and women may arise from the expectations put on mothers to take the main
responsibility for children. The expectations may be from both the side of the employer and the
family itself and unwillingness to give up the publicly approved woman’s role should not be
underestimated here. (Figure 7)
Flexible working time organisation may depend on the wishes of employer, occupational profile
and agreements between employees and the employer. Generally, if one form of flexible working
time can be agreed upon, agreements concerning other forms can be reached, too. For example,
the probability of reducing usual working hours was, as could be expected, influenced by whether
it was possible for an employee to change the beginning and end of working day for family
reasons or to take days off. More than 30% of women with a child aged up to two years of age in
the household and who had the opportunity to change the beginning and end of working day or
take days off had reduced their working hours. The effect was not so significant in case of men,
however, the share of men who had reduced their working hours was higher by a couple of
percentages among those who could change the beginning and end of their working day.
Work location flexibility
A good opportunity for reconciling work and family life is working, either permanently or in part,
beyond the office or at home.
Work location flexibility may mean both working at home and remote working which basically are
very similar. Home working is usually preferred by freelancers, individual workers, employees of a
family undertaking, etc. (sewing, knitting, translating at home, etc.). Remote working means
working beyond the traditional office of an employer (at home or in a “workhub”) being connected
with the employer via contemporary means of information technology and telecommunication.
Thereby, It is not important whether the employee uses his or her own or the employer´s
computer. Remote working can be complete or partial.
Remote working is more widely used with certain occupations and at higher positions. Managers
and professionals are the ones who most often engage in remote working (Saraceno, Olagnero
and Torrioni 2005) as they usually have more possibilities to choose their place of work (Antila
and Ylostalo, 2003).
It has been stated that only 25% of all remote workers in Europe are women. Most of remote
workers are well educated men holding high positions. At the same time, every other woman
engaged in remote working has a child below six years of age. 22% of all people working
permanently from home have children under six years of age, while on average 17% of the total
labour force have a minor child at home (Benchmarking … 2000). Men (nearly two thirds) and
people with a higher educational level (almost a half) form the majority of remote workers also in
Estonia. The share of women among remote workers in Estonia is higher than in Europe
(in Estonia, a third of remote workers are women) (Karu 2008).
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MEHE KODU ON MAAILM, NAISE MAAILM ON KODU? MAN'S HOME IS THE WORLD, WOMAN'S WORLD IS HER HOME?