Parents, Perceptions and Belonging: Exploring Flexible Working among UK Fathers and Mothers
运用“归属”理论概念，分析英国父母对弹性工作的感知与体验，发现父亲因被视为“工具性”养家者而被边缘化，母亲虽被认为有特权但实际也难获得弹性工作，揭示了父母间的误解与不平等。
This paper advances knowledge regarding how fathers and mothers perceive and experience flexible working opportunities. It does this through applying the theoretical concept ‘belonging’ to ‘Parsonian’ classifications of parenting and work. In so doing it makes transparent the misconceptions and inequities which exist among parents and their organizational environments. Focusing initially on a qualitative study of fathers’ experience of working flexibly, the paper shows how fathers felt marginalized from the possibilities of flexible work due to line managers’ assumptions that men belonged to an ‘instrumental’ economic provider group. The paper contributes a new angle to debate by articulating how fathers perceived employed mothers as belonging to an ‘expressive’ child‐oriented group, with privileged access to flexibility. However, drawing upon a study of maternity and flexible work we query fathers’ assumptions that flexibility was easily available to mothers, suggesting that fathers’ perceptions of maternal privilege were misconceived. While mothers were categorized as belonging within an ‘expressive’ group associated with childcare, they were nevertheless discouraged from accessing flexibility. Inequities between women and men (with regard to flexibility) thus appeared to be less significant than fathers supposed.