Women's experiences of work and family conflict in a Chinese airline

Abstract

Established literature on work -family conflict concentrates on the experiences of women and organizational equalities policies in Western contexts. This article examines the experiences of women working in a Chinese airline. Drawing on questionnaires and interviews with female employees and managers, we explore work-family conflict and gendered organizational perceptions of women's needs. Our findings suggest that work rather than family-related factors are the most influential causes of conflict for Chinese women in our case study. Cultural and social factors that shape familial relationships prove important in explaining these differences, but we also highlight the significant role played by gendered organizational culture.

Walking the tightrope between work and non-work life: strategies employed by British and Chinese academics and their implications

“…Support from partners was perceived to be available and important by both British and Chinese academics. Our finding is congruent with previous studies (Aryee et al 1999;Beutell and Greenhaus 1983;Lo, Stone, and Ng 2003;Ren and Foster 2011) which found that support from the spouse can generate positive feelings about and enhance contentment with WLB. British academics cited both emotional and physical support from their partners.…”

“…In China, marriage and motherhood are not purely personal choices and decisions, whilst organisations seldom adopt formal policies and practices that help improve WLB. Therefore, for those who have childcare and/or other home responsibilities, employment of domestic labour and drawing on family net-works for support appear to play a key role in the personal coping process in Chinese society (Aaltio and Huang 2007;Lo, Stone, and Ng 2003;Ren and Foster 2011;Thein, Currie, and Austen 2006;Xiao and Cooke 2012). To date, there is a large body of literature on WLB coping strategies generally, but less is known about the coping strategies that individual academics have developed to manage their WLB.…”

“…Within WLB decision-making, elements of autonomy are moderated by "a wide range of cultural, institutional and structural factors" (Glover 2002, 263) and these factors have provided part of the explanation as to why there are society-wide similarities in WLB decisions (Ransome 2007). Evidence shows that the western perspective of WLB is not adequate in explaining work-life/family issues in the Chinese context (Ling and Powell 2001;Ren and Foster 2011), and major coping strategies adopted by employees in China or Asia are significantly different from their Western counterparts (Chandra 2012;Siu et al 2002;Xiao and Cooke 2012). For example, Chinese employees tend to accept work-life imbalance as a fact of life without feeling the need for the organisation to address it and they adopt various coping strategies of their own (Cooke and Jing 2009), whilst European and American employees take advantage of organisational flexible work arrangements and/or WLB programmes (Chandra 2012).…”

“…Most Chinese employers are neither familiar nor welcoming towards formal policies on flexible working arrangements, such as job sharing and flexi-time (Xiao and Cooke 2012). Many employees have little sense of a fair work-life exchange (Ren and Foster 2011). These are significant contextual differences.…”

Work–family conflict and the commodification of women's employment in three Chinese airlines

“…This illustrates how workplace gender relationships are socially shaped by changing historical and cultural norms. In the newly commercialized Chinese airline industry, it is, therefore, interesting to note that instead of the gendered service encounter declining in value, the reverse seems to be true (Ren & Foster, 2011). This illustrates the importance of context (Tsui, 2004), which we will explore further by reference to our data in our concluding discussion.…”