Historical and Cultural Contexts
Much attention is devoted to the broader historical and cultural context within which WLC is experienced, focusing on three primary
areas: (1) the rise of communication technologies, (2) the construction and performance of gender, and (3) the shifting nature of work.
First, scholars focus on the effects of new communication technologies on WLC. Kirby et al. (2003) argue that technologies can be both exploitative and empowering—exploitative in “intruding” across “boundaries” of home and work and yet empowering in allowing workers to exercise increased control over where and when they do their work. Mobile technologies, such as laptops (Ladner, 2008), mobile phones (Wajcman, Bittman, & Brown, 2008), and personal digital assistants (Golden & Geisler,2007) are of interest due to their potential to alter WL boundaries. Thus, scholars often consider how mobile technologies facilitate alternative working arrangements such as telework and explore whether such work arrangements facilitate more or less WLC, with mixed conclusions. Some argue that telework helps mitigate WLC; for example, Fonner and Roloff (2010) explain how individuals who telework more than 50% of the time actually have higher job satisfaction than those on-site and attribute this to additional flexibility and having a break from the everyday politics of the workplace.
Others suggest that telework increases WLC. For example, Tremblay, Paquet, and Najern (2006) argue that teleworking increases workloads and employer expectations on worker time. Women face unique challenges in teleworking; many find that when working from home, they do even more unpaid domestic work than they previously did (Holloway, 2007). Scholars do agree that mobile technologies and alternative working arrangements need to be understood as socially constructed by individuals situated in particular families, organizations, and cultures (Golden & Geisler, 2007; Ladner, 2008).
Cultural values and norms, such as the importance of both face time and collegiality at work (e.g., Drago, 2007; Hylmo & Buzzanell, 2003), as well as how available one should be outside of normal working hours (Ladner,2008), have the greatest influence on how technologies are constructed and adopted as well as their impact on WLC.
Second, communication scholars have focused on gender as a major historical and cultural context/macrodiscourse shaping experiences of WLC (Kirby et al., 2003). Gendered expectations surrounding WL are tied to the historical distinction between public and private formed during early industrialization when job site and household fractured into separate spheres and a two-sphere ideology emerged with men in the public (work/ occupational) sphere and women in the private (home/family/domestic) sphere. As a result, work life and personal (family) life are often understood as constituting separate, nonoverlapping worlds in a “myth of separate spheres” (Kanter, 1977). Today, this “separation” between work and home is being renegotiated because of the ways (socially constructed) “boundaries” (see Kirby et al., 2003) are being blurred through practices such as telework. However, the historical influence of the public-private distinction remains influential.
Indeed, WLC and the need to “juggle” career and life demands is often narrowly considered as a “woman’s issue” (Drago, 2007), which in turn focuses on the “difference question” and establishing equal opportunities for men and women rather than challenging the ways we “do gender” in relation to WL (Ashcraft & Mumby, 2004). Research focuses on the gendered implications of WLC and considers how individuals navigate the cultural expectations of “ideal workers” in conjunction with their other roles (Drago, 2007; Williams, 2000). Scholars agree that working mothers especially experience a tension between society’s expectations for them as workers and caregivers—aversive sexism still exists (Meisenbach, 2010a; Tracy & Rivera, 2010).
Research shows that female breadwinners (Medved, 2010) and managerial mothers (Buzzanell, Meisenbach, Liu, Bowers, & Conn, 2005) manage this tension by reframing ideals for motherhood in ways that justify and celebrate their own choices and experiences. Stay-at-home fathers similarly experience identity struggles associated with violating gender expectations (Petroski & Edley, 2006). While gender expectations related to WL roles are still segmented, there is some evidence that cultural norms are beginning to shift; research suggests that contemporary fathers are expected to be more active parents and are expanding the meaning of fatherhood (Duckworth & Buzzanell, 2009; Golden, 2007).Finally, research focuses on how large- scale discourses such as meanings of work are shifting in light of changes such as globalization, the flattening of organizational hierarchies, increasing work hours, the boundary-less career, and the changing social contract between employers and employees (see also Cheney et al., 2008; Major & Germamo, 2006). Several macrodiscourses, including work (Cheney et al., 2008), career (Wieland, 2006; Wieland, Bauer, & Deetz,
2009), success (Lucas & Buzzanell, 2004), and professionalism (Drago, 2007; Cheney & Ashcraft, 2007), further elucidate how dominant views of the WL relationship were constructed as well as the consequences of particular constructions. We are socialized into these discourses through various systems such as families (Medved, Brogan, McClanahan, Morris, & Shepherd, 2006; Paugh, 2005) and the media (Dempsey & Sanders, 2010; Sotirin, Buzzanell, & Turner, 2007). An explicit (communicative) focus on macrodiscourses can deepen our understandings of how historical and cultural contexts shape WLC.