This is a pre-publication version of the following article:
Hubers, C., Schwanen, T. and Dijst, M. (2011). Coordinating
everyday life in the Netherlands. A holistic quantitative approach to
the analysis of ICT-related and other work-life balance strategies.
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography.
Coordinating everyday life in the Netherlands
A holistic quantitative approach to the analysis of ICT-related and other work-life balance strategies
Christa Hubers1*
Tim Schwanen2,1
Martin Dijst1
1
Department of Human Geography and Planning
Faculty of Geosciences
Utrecht University
The Netherlands
2
Transport Studies Unit
School of Geography and the Environment
University of Oxford
United Kingdom
* Corresponding author
E-mail: c.hubers@geo.uu.nl
Phone: +44 (0)117 32 82316
1
This is a pre-publication version of the following article:
Hubers, C., Schwanen, T. and Dijst, M. (2011). Coordinating
everyday life in the Netherlands. A holistic quantitative approach to
the analysis of ICT-related and other work-life balance strategies.
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography.
Abstract
Due to women’s increased participation in the labour force, more and more family-households are now
juggling paid labour and care-giving in space and time and do so in many different ways. Much research
and policy about how households try to establish a satisfactory work-life balance single out particular
coping strategies, such as telecommuting or the mobilizing of informal help by relatives or friends. While
insightful, foregrounding single strategies may oversimplify the complex reality of everyday life, in which
people often skilfully weave together multiple coping strategies. As well, advances in information and
communication technologies (ICTs) have further diversified the arsenal of possible coping strategies, but
the academic literature has yet to verify whether ICT usage complements or substitutes the adoption of
other coping strategies. Adopting a holistic quantitative approach this study assesses which
combinations of coping strategies prevail and which role ICTs play in this regard among one- and dualearner households in the Utrecht-Amersfoort-Hilversum area, the Netherlands. We also examine
systematic variations in strategy combination by socio-demographics, ICT possession, affordability and
skills, social network factors, employment and commute factors, spatial factors, lifestyle orientation and
other factors. We identify several distinct combinations of strategies and find that ICT-related strategies
are frequently adopted by highly educated employed parents in the Netherlands attempting to achieve a
satisfying work-life balance and tend to complement other types of strategies. Which combinations of
strategies have been adopted depends most strongly on the presence of young children, but also on
employment factors and characteristics of the environment surrounding the dwelling and main
workplace.
Key words: work-life balance, coping strategies, information and communication technologies,
Netherlands.
2
This is a pre-publication version of the following article:
Hubers, C., Schwanen, T. and Dijst, M. (2011). Coordinating
everyday life in the Netherlands. A holistic quantitative approach to
the analysis of ICT-related and other work-life balance strategies.
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography.
Introduction
Raising the Dutch female paid labour participation from 52% in the year 2000 to 65% in 2010 is one of
the targets of the Dutch national government (SZW, 2000). In 2009 the share had increased to 59,7%
(CBS, 2010), but it is highly unlikely that this goal will be realized (even had there not been an economic
crisis). Headlines in the United Kingdom like “Gender equality on the slide?” suggest that other countries
are hardly more successful in this regard. According to Professor Scott, the University of Cambridge,
whose research is behind this headline, “[i]t is conceivable that opinions are shifting as the shine of the
‘super-mum’ syndrome wears off, and the idea that women juggling high-powered careers while also
baking cookies and reading bedtime stories is increasingly seen to be unrealizable by ordinary mortals”
(University of Cambridge, 2008). In light of these recent developments, this paper seeks to increase our
understanding of what these ordinary mortals do to create an acceptable work-life balance (a term often
used to reflect the reconciliation of paid employment and domestic responsibilities).
The juggling of responsibilities often implies the juggling of different kinds of coping strategies.
We suspect that households often employ multiple coping strategies (sequentially and/or
simultaneously); those aimed at paid labour (e.g. adjusting one’s working hours) may often be combined
with strategies aimed at domestic responsibilities (e.g. bringing one’s children to a day-care centre). It is
therefore remarkable that many studies on work-life balance strategies concentrate on just a single
coping strategy (e.g. Van der Lippe et al., 2004; Wheelock and Jones, 2002). Telecommuting – one
proclaimed panacea of work-life stress – is a case in point; it is difficult to imagine how working one or
two days a week from home by itself is sufficient to accomplish a satisfactory work-life balance,
especially on the days people do not telecommute. Nonetheless, how telecommuting is combined with
other coping strategies is often neglected in studies about telecommuting and work-life balance
3
This is a pre-publication version of the following article:
Hubers, C., Schwanen, T. and Dijst, M. (2011). Coordinating
everyday life in the Netherlands. A holistic quantitative approach to
the analysis of ICT-related and other work-life balance strategies.
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography.
(Duxbury et al., 1998; Crosbie and Moore, 2004; Peters and Van der Lippe, 2007; Hilbrecht et al., 2008;
for an exception see Johnson et al., 2007). The general aim of the current study is therefore to shift focus
from individual coping strategies to combinations of strategies.
Although some research already exists on the combinations of coping strategies people adopt,
this research has in general used qualitative methods (Droogleever Fortuijn, 1993; Jarvis, 1999, 2005a).
As “all methods are partial in what they can reveal” (Perrons et al., 2005, page 59), the quantitative
approach of the current study allows several insights that qualitative methods do not readily afford. It
allows, for instance, the systematic interdependencies among coping strategies and their relative
frequency within a specific sample of individuals or households to be examined. As well, it enables the
detection of systematic variations in the adoption of coping strategy combinations along lines of gender,
household structure, occupational level, spatial context, and so forth. Our holistic quantitative approach
using data from a specifically designed questionnaire seeks to unite the nuanced conceptualisation, level
of detail and insight into processes that is typical of small-scale qualitative studies with the rigorous
analytical techniques typical of purely quantitative research. Our study is holistic not only because of its
examination of combinations of coping strategies but also with regard to factors evaluated as affecting
the choice for combinations of work-life strategies: people’s preferences, the constraints they
encounter, as well as the network capital they have regarding coping strategies will all be considered.
Additionally, the current paper seeks to contribute to the existing literature by paying particular
attention to ICT-related coping strategies that have recently been added to the already large arsenal of
work-life balance strategies. Although information and communication technologies (ICTs) may increase
the complexity of claims on one’s time (Jarvis and Pratt, 2006; Schwanen and Kwan, 2008), they are
widely believed to facilitate the juggling of responsibilities as they increase the efficiency with which
4
This is a pre-publication version of the following article:
Hubers, C., Schwanen, T. and Dijst, M. (2011). Coordinating
everyday life in the Netherlands. A holistic quantitative approach to
the analysis of ICT-related and other work-life balance strategies.
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography.
activities are executed (for example, by speeding up the tempo of activities), and reduce the
spatiotemporal fixity of activities which lies at the heart of many work-life balance issues (Kwan, 1999).
For instance, making private calls or e-mailing from the workplace enables domestic responsibilities to
be coordinated at-a-distance. Furthermore, by shopping or banking over the Internet, people can
perform these activities from sites other than brick-and-mortar stores or banks and outside official shop
opening hours. However, the academic literature is unclear about whether ICT usage stimulates,
supplements or substitutes other types of coping strategies. Consideration of possible combinations of
ICT-related and other kinds of strategies, characteristic of the holistic approach of the current study, will
provide initial understanding of the potential impact of ICTs.
In order to fulfil the general aim of this study, three distinct research questions have been
formulated. The first asks which combinations of coping strategies prevail among one- and dual-earner
households, and the second how these combinations are influenced by individuals’ and households’
background factors. Thirdly, we examine whether new ICT-enabled coping strategies are indeed
adopted, by whom, and how this affects the adoption of other kinds of coping strategies. To address
these questions, we will analyse survey data from 525 Dutch respondents in the Utrecht-AmersfoortHilversum area.
The next sections will present the conceptual framework and introduce the data used for this
research, which is followed by a discussion of the results. The paper ends with a conclusion and brief
discussion of the findings.
Studying coping strategy adopting: Preferences, constraints and network capital
5
This is a pre-publication version of the following article:
Hubers, C., Schwanen, T. and Dijst, M. (2011). Coordinating
everyday life in the Netherlands. A holistic quantitative approach to
the analysis of ICT-related and other work-life balance strategies.
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography.
According to some social theorists, standard biographies have been replaced by so-called ’choice’ or ‘doit-yourself’ biographies in the last decades (Beck, 1994; Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 2002; Giddens, 1991).
In a standard biography the choices people make while progressing along the life path are highly
predictable and dictated by such institutions as the state, family and/or church, which leaves little room
for personal preferences. In the industrial era, when the standard biography was considered to be at its
peak, this usually meant that security came from matrimony for women and from paid labour for men
(Saraceno, 1991). Often the only work-life strategy available to women after getting married was to quit
their job and become a full-time housewife. In contrast, the individualization thesis argues that changes
in the wider economic, employment and normative context have paved the way for biographies dictated
by individual choices in which people are not only enabled but also expected or even forced to create
their own personal biographies (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 2002). Hakim’s preference theory (Hakim,
2000, 2003) is generally regarded as a neat operationalization of the individualization thesis (Duncan,
2005). Whilst admitting that the social and economic context exerts some influence on women’s
employment choices and how these differ from men’s choices, Hakim holds that women’s choices are
determined first and foremost by their personal lifestyle preferences. Preference theory categorizes
women into three different ideal type groups: adaptive women, work-centred women and home-centred
women. Work-centred women prefer to prioritize their public careers, home-centred their home and
family life, whereas the priorities of adaptive women shift between work and home depending on their
life stage (Hakim, 2002).
The individualization thesis and preference theory have been criticized for over-emphasizing
agency and for neglecting constraints on choice resulting from external circumstances and the
importance of the structural and social context in the choice process (Crompton and Harris, 1998;
6
This is a pre-publication version of the following article:
Hubers, C., Schwanen, T. and Dijst, M. (2011). Coordinating
everyday life in the Netherlands. A holistic quantitative approach to
the analysis of ICT-related and other work-life balance strategies.
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography.
Brannen and Nilsen, 2005; Duncan, 2005; McDowell et al., 2005a, 2005b, 2006). As Halrynjo and Lyng
(2009, page 322) note in relation to women’s employment decisions, “[s]tudies in line with the
constraint-oriented perspective emphasize the impact of objective constraints in terms of scarcity of
childcare arrangements, availability and security of jobs, financial resources and work–family policies on
institutional and organisational levels.” These authors also argue that by redefining the current
distribution of paid and domestic labour between men and women as resulting from individual choice
rather than social and structural context, the individualization thesis and preference theory help to
justify existing inequalities in the gender division of household labour.
Partially in response to preference theory, geographers have argued that choices are constrained
by the spatial distribution of residences, employment and such services as childcare and that their
accessibility is often obstructed by congestion and malfunctioning infrastructures (Pratt, 1996; Jarvis,
2005a-b; McDowell et al., 2006; Schwanen and De Jong, 2008). Additionally, Holloway (1998, 1999) and
Duncan et al. (2003) have shown how divisions of labour are not only a matter of personal choice but at
least partly shaped by (local) social ties. These social ties are important in shaping and maintaining socalled gendered moral rationalities which are cultural norms prescribing what is appropriate behaviour
for a mother/father and worker, and which influence the real and potential choices people see and make
for reconciling paid and unpaid labour. Despite local variations, prevalent gender ideologies hold women
primarily responsible for household and care-giving tasks (Holloway, 1998, 1999; McDowell, 2005a).
Therefore, if both partners have access to equal resources, and even when those of the female partner
are better (e.g. because she has a better paid and/or more secure job than the male partner), it is still
often the female partner who reduces her employment hours in order to fulfil the households’ caregiving responsibilities, which lowers her monetary resources (see also Halrynjo and Lyng, 2009). In this
7
This is a pre-publication version of the following article:
Hubers, C., Schwanen, T. and Dijst, M. (2011). Coordinating
everyday life in the Netherlands. A holistic quantitative approach to
the analysis of ICT-related and other work-life balance strategies.
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography.
example, women’s potentially better bargaining position regarding their employment hours is offset by
societal norms concerning domestic responsibilities. Moreover, Debacker (2008) found that for Belgian
mothers, the impact of preferences on work-life strategies depends on their educational attainment.
Preferences were only taken into account by lower-educated mothers in decisions about paid and
unpaid work, and not by their high-skilled counterparts.
In short, it seems as if people’s freedom of choice in terms of how to combine work and home
demands may not have grown to the extent the individualization thesis suggests. On the other hand, the
diversity of ways in which people can juggle responsibilities – that is, the diversity in choice alternatives –
may well have become larger. For example, a woman who wants to remain in paid employment after
childbirth has multiple options: working full-time or part-time, participating in a job share, working from
home, at fixed or flexible hours, on a mothering contract, and so forth. ICTs are generally considered to
have increased the choice alternatives available to employed parents who can use them to overcome
constraints resulting from the spatial distribution of resources, for example by working from home (Dijst,
2004; Dijst and Kwan, 2005).
However, the feasibility of each choice alternative depends on the resources available to a
person. People, for example, can lack the necessary ICT equipment and/or skills, or the approval of their
employer to use these to carry out certain care-giving or paid work tasks at-a-distance. To better
understand the factors affecting the choice for a particular combination of strategies, we draw on the
concept of network capital. Urry (2007) introduced the term recently to understand differences in
individuals’ capacities to enter into and maintain social relations with people at a distance through
mobility. He defines it as the capacity to engender and sustain social relations that generate emotional,
practical and other benefits. He contends that it consists of several elements that in conjunction produce
8
This is a pre-publication version of the following article:
Hubers, C., Schwanen, T. and Dijst, M. (2011). Coordinating
everyday life in the Netherlands. A holistic quantitative approach to
the analysis of ICT-related and other work-life balance strategies.
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography.
a distinct social stratification in contemporary society (existing alongside class or race, among others), of
which the following three are of particular interest to our study:
(i)
Relevant others (family members or friends) at-a-distance;
(ii) Communication devices to make and update arrangements with others;
(iii) Time and other resources to acquire, manage and coordinate the above.
For our purposes, we redefine network capital as the capacity to combine different productive and
reproductive tasks and responsibilities. There are several reasons why Urry’s conceptualization is useful
for our purposes. First, it emphasizes the heterogeneous nature of the resources required for juggling
home and work demands, indicating that not just social connections matter but also technological,
institutional, environmental and other elements. As such, it offers a comprehensive approach well-suited
to study the influence of ICT factors in addition to other background factors possibly related to the
adoption of certain combinations of coping strategies. Second, in stressing that network capital should
not be seen as an individual attribute, but as “a product of the relationality of individuals with others and
with the affordances of the ‘environment’” (Urry, 2007, page 198) Urry underwrites the idea that even in
times of the choice biography, choices are never purely individual and always depend on available
resources. Third, by acknowledging the importance of the ability to use mobile phones and internet
applications, he foregrounds the relevance of skills for effectively using these new technologies in the
same way as Flamm and Kaufmann (2006) do.
Summing up, we propose that work-life strategies can be classified along two axes (Table 1).
Following among others preference theory, the first is the life domain, i.e. paid labour or unpaid
domestic/caring work, at which strategies are oriented (Hakim, 2000; Mennino and Brayfield, 2002;
Blair-Loy, 2003; Halrynjo and Lyng, 2009). Consistent with Urry’s network capital, the other dimension
9
This is a pre-publication version of the following article:
Hubers, C., Schwanen, T. and Dijst, M. (2011). Coordinating
everyday life in the Netherlands. A holistic quantitative approach to
the analysis of ICT-related and other work-life balance strategies.
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography.
distinguishes different strategies according to the type of agents besides the person in question that are
involved when opting for a certain strategy (material goods, professionals, partner or social network) and
hence what resources and skills are needed. We realize that the label ‘individual strategies’ in Table 1 is
to some extent a misnomer, as these do involve other agents (e.g. one’s employer). We nonetheless use
it to foreground that the individual is the primary agent in the strategies in this category.
Insert Table 1 here
The dimension distinguishing the agents involved in the work-life strategy is characterized by increased
complexity in the nature of dependency. While material goods can be said to ‘act’ in the sense of
mediating the actions of the humans using them (cf. Latour, 2005), they lack the reflexivity and
emotionality that characterize human agentive capacities. Professional workers are obviously endowed
with reflexivity and emotionality but can generally be expected to do the task they were employed for,
provided they receive appropriate payment for their services. This mechanism of monetary
compensation does, however, not apply to most of the help offered by the partner or social network.
Lack of a clear-cut contract in the case of informal support makes people more susceptible to, and
dependent on, the goodwill of informal helpers. Also, informal support is often premised on expectations
of reciprocity and embedded in a wider exchange of forms of practical or emotional support (Schwanen,
2008). At the same time, with individualization many individual activity schedules have become more
complex and diversified (Dijst, 2006; Flamm and Kaufmann, 2006), which can complicate the
synchronization of the activity schedules of informal helpers and receivers. In sum, it can be argued that
the more people or materials are involved in a certain combination of work-life strategies, the more
10
This is a pre-publication version of the following article:
Hubers, C., Schwanen, T. and Dijst, M. (2011). Coordinating
everyday life in the Netherlands. A holistic quantitative approach to
the analysis of ICT-related and other work-life balance strategies.
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography.
complex these arrangements become. Although ICTs themselves form part of the materials that have to
be co-present for the execution of certain activities, they are often viewed as playing a valuable role in
facilitating the activity coordination of working parents and their support networks (Schwanen and
Kwan, 2008; Hjorthol, 2008).
A question that remains is what determines the choice for a certain work-life strategy.
Summarizing the above literature review, we may expect the adoption of a work-life strategy to hinge on
personal preferences and the choice options available, which are a function of such resources as material
goods (e.g. ICT devices), other persons (e.g. partner, professionals and/or social network) and numerous
personal attributes (e.g. education, occupation factors, available services around the home or
workplace). Whether these resources translate into actual choice opportunities depends on existing
norms, rules and regulations and skills which may work as enablers or constraints.
Lifestyle orientation, an indicator of personal preferences, assesses which life domain(s) people
find important. Those considering paid labour more important than leisure or family are expected to
adopt coping strategies that outsource or readjust domestic responsibilities to paid labour or that allow
paid labour to be performed outside the workplace or standard employment hours. Factors that may
enable or constrain strategy adoption include socio-demographics, ICT-related factors, employment
attributes and the spatial context surrounding the residence and main workplace. Of the sociodemographics, the number and ages of children living at home are expected to be most influential,
because the presence of young children in the household increases the domestic workload significantly.
Three conditions regarding ICTs may influence work-life strategy choices: possession, affordability and
skills (Flamm and Kaufmann, 2006). People who possess multiple ICT devices, have to pay less for, or are
more experienced in, using them are more likely to adopt ICT-related coping strategies. It is difficult to
11
This is a pre-publication version of the following article:
Hubers, C., Schwanen, T. and Dijst, M. (2011). Coordinating
everyday life in the Netherlands. A holistic quantitative approach to
the analysis of ICT-related and other work-life balance strategies.
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography.
anticipate how ICT-related coping strategies are combined with other types of strategies. On the one
hand, they can be combined with, say, using a professional day-care centre, as the mobile phone
reassures parents that they can be reached should something be wrong with their child (Schwanen and
Kwan, 2008). On the other hand, the ability to work from home may make the use of a day-care centre
redundant, because the flexibility offered by telecommuting leaves enough time to mind the children
oneself (Casimir, 2001; Sullivan and Lewis, 2001). Telecommuting, however, does not only require
adequate ICTs as employment factors also play a crucial role in this respect. Not only should the specific
work tasks lend themselves for performance at a remote location, the employment organisation should
also support working from home. Organisations and professions show considerable variations in the
work-life policies available to employees, with public sector employers generally having a better
reputation when it comes to such policies than private companies. Therefore, we expect the work-life
strategies available to a person to differ according to both the sector of employment and the specific job
they hold.
The configuration of a person’s social network may especially affect the adoption of strategies in
the domestic domain. Not only the size but also the composition matter, given that outsourcing of
domestic responsibilities is more likely to women and to relatives (e.g. Gerstel and Gallagher, 2001;
Wheelock and Jones, 2002; Schwanen 2008). Hence, people with larger networks comprising many
women and relatives may be most inclined to adopt social network-based strategies. The spatial context
may affect the adoption of work-life strategies given geographical differences in the configuration of
residences, employment and facilities. As a result, men residing in higher density areas, for example,
tend to run more household errands (Schwanen et al., 2007) and have more egalitarian views regarding
gender roles (Scanzoni and Arnett, 1987; Bootsma, 1995). This relationship seems to be at odds with
12
This is a pre-publication version of the following article:
Hubers, C., Schwanen, T. and Dijst, M. (2011). Coordinating
everyday life in the Netherlands. A holistic quantitative approach to
the analysis of ICT-related and other work-life balance strategies.
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography.
Anglo-American gentrification and gender research, but has been observed in several studies of Dutch
households (Schwanen, 2007; De Meester and Van Ham, 2009) and may therefore be specific to the
Dutch context. At the same time, people living in urban areas might encounter more constraints in the
adoption of social network oriented coping strategies as the proximity to close-knit kin networks tends
to be lower in urban than in suburban areas (Droogleever Fortuijn, 1993). Combined with the generally
greater number of professional services and facilities in urbanized areas, urbanites may thus more likely
adopt material and professional coping strategies than those involving the social network.
Research design
Operationalisation of concepts
To achieve a comprehensive account of work-life coping strategies that may have been adopted, we
have first defined specific coping strategies appropriate for each cell in Table 1. The result of this exercise
is shown in Table 2 which portrays the strategies per type of agent and life domain (paid work and
domestic responsibilities).
Insert Table 2 here
Unless indicated otherwise, strategies were measured by simply asking whether or not the respondent
had taken these measures to facilitate the combination of paid work and domestic responsibilities. Since
people are unlikely to call in the help of professionals or their social network in the paid labour domain
to achieve a proper work-life balance, these types of strategies were not identified. The selection of
13
This is a pre-publication version of the following article:
Hubers, C., Schwanen, T. and Dijst, M. (2011). Coordinating
everyday life in the Netherlands. A holistic quantitative approach to
the analysis of ICT-related and other work-life balance strategies.
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography.
coping strategies was inspired by previous research aimed at specific individual coping strategies, policy
papers on work-life balance issues, as well as the authors’ prior research and everyday experience. ICTrelated strategies are mainly found in the work-related material and domestic material strategies.
Examples include purchasing a laptop to enable working anywhere and at anytime for the paid work
domain, and buying products online for the domestic domain. Some other coping strategies like working
from home, or regularly using one’s commute time for conducting paid work or personal activities might
also involve the use of ICTs, but as this was not stated explicitly in the wording of the questions it is not
entirely clear whether these strategies actually involve ICTs.
The potential determinants of strategy adoption discussed previously are given in Table 3. This
fairly elaborate set of factors include the resources and skills approximated by respondents’ sociodemographics, ICT factors, social network factors, commute and employment factors, and the spatial
context of the residential and main employment location. By measuring their agreement on five
statements about the importance of paid work, family/relationship and leisure, we assessed the
preferences of the respondents regarding their lifestyle orientation. These five statements repeated for
each separate life domain read as follows:
1. The major satisfaction in my life comes from my [life domain]
2. To me, my [life domain] is only a small part of who I am
3. Most things in life are more important than [life domain]
4. [life domain] should be considered central to life
5. In my view, an individual’s personal life goals should be [life domain] oriented
14
This is a pre-publication version of the following article:
Hubers, C., Schwanen, T. and Dijst, M. (2011). Coordinating
everyday life in the Netherlands. A holistic quantitative approach to
the analysis of ICT-related and other work-life balance strategies.
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography.
Additionally, to get an indication of the relative importance of each life domain, we asked respondents to
divide a total of 60 points across the three life domains, allocating the most points to the life domain
they deemed most important.
Insert Table 3 here
Survey and respondents
The data collection formed part of a wider study on the relation between ICTs and space-time paths and
routines of professional workers, with a special focus on the relation between ICTs and the
spatiotemporal fragmentation of activities (see also Hubers et al., 2008; Alexander et al., 2010). As part
of this study, we have conducted a survey among one and dual-earner households residing in the
Utrecht-Amersfoort-Hilversum area in the central part of the Netherlands in February-July 2007. Both
one and dual-earner households were selected as this allowed us to examine the relations between
different gender divisions of household labour and combinations of coping strategies. 26
neighbourhoods throughout the study area were selected so as to obtain systematic variation in terms of
average income level at the neighbourhood level, urban density and the availability of a train station
within walking distance. We wanted to systematically vary these neighbourhood characteristics in order
to be able to examine whether work-life strategy adoption and ICT use are affected by the type of
neighbourhood in which households reside. Addresses within each neighbourhood were randomly
drawn from digital files containing all street addresses. 13,500 selection questionnaires were sent to
these addresses by mail. 1645 households (approximately 12 percent) returned the selection
15
This is a pre-publication version of the following article:
Hubers, C., Schwanen, T. and Dijst, M. (2011). Coordinating
everyday life in the Netherlands. A holistic quantitative approach to
the analysis of ICT-related and other work-life balance strategies.
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography.
questionnaires of which 1010 households comprised at least one person willing to participate in the
main part of the research. 1066 individuals from 714 households in which at least one member was
gainfully employed were eligible for the main research as we considered work-life balance issues to be
most relevant to these household types. They were sent a questionnaire and a two-day combined
activity, travel and communication diary. Since the current paper only uses the questionnaire data, only
this part of the survey is discussed here.
Of the 742 respondents who completed the questionnaire (a response rate of approximately 70
percent), 525 were living with a partner. As partner-related coping strategies are not applicable to
singles, the analyses have been limited to 525 individuals in couples. Because the data collection was
targeted at professional workers, our sample is not representative of the Dutch population as a whole.
Higher-educated persons are over-represented in our data; as shown in Table 4, the share of people with
a bachelors or masters degree amounts to about two-thirds of our sample against roughly one-third in
2007 for the complete Dutch population (CBS, 2010). Additionally, more of our respondents are from the
higher income brackets and our male respondents especially have a relatively high frequency of Internet
use. The level of car possession, however, is almost identical to the Dutch population as a whole.
Insert Table 4 here
In short, it seems that in spite of the variations in average income level at the neighbourhood
level across the original sample, the framing of our study (ICT, professional workers, work-life balance)
has appealed more strongly to households with higher income and education levels in neighbourhoods
with medium and lower average incomes. Since the current study has an exploratory character,
16
This is a pre-publication version of the following article:
Hubers, C., Schwanen, T. and Dijst, M. (2011). Coordinating
everyday life in the Netherlands. A holistic quantitative approach to
the analysis of ICT-related and other work-life balance strategies.
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography.
representativeness in terms of the marginal distributions for income, educations and other factors is not
so critical as long as there is sufficient variation across the range of categories for these factors (cf.
Babbie, 1998). Table 4 suggests that this is indeed the case. Further, the abundance of detailed
information provided by this data set on the various coping strategies adopted by respondents of both
genders, including ICT-related strategies, outweigh its lack of representativeness.
What is more, the over-representation of households with higher incomes and education levels
is to a certain extent advantageous in light of the aims of this specific study. Firstly, highly educated
women tend to perform more hours of paid labour (Beckers et al., 2009) and are therefore expected to
experience more problems with their work-life balance than women with a lower educational
attainment. Secondly, our respondents are likely to have more resources than the average Dutch
household and may consequently have a greater diversity of choice alternatives available and use ICTs
for work and other reasons rather extensively. Nonetheless, the over-representation of households with
higher incomes and education levels needs to be kept in mind when interpreting the empirical results;
the diversity in adopted coping strategies found as well as the role of ICT-related strategies may be larger
in our sample than for the Dutch population as a whole.
Methods of analysis
To assess which combinations of the different kinds of coping strategies exist, we used the work-life
balance strategies as input for a hierarchical cluster analysis (Ward’s method, which is based on analysis
of variance and attempts to minimise variances within clusters. See Ward, 1963). Cluster analysis is an
explorative method whose main aim is to group observations such that the differences within clusters
are minimized and those between clusters maximized. Some of the employment-related and domestic
17
This is a pre-publication version of the following article:
Hubers, C., Schwanen, T. and Dijst, M. (2011). Coordinating
everyday life in the Netherlands. A holistic quantitative approach to
the analysis of ICT-related and other work-life balance strategies.
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography.
coping strategies were not applicable to non-working partners in single-earner households or
households without children under the age of 131. Nevertheless, we decided to perform the cluster
analysis on the total sample instead of running separate analyses for people in or out of paid
employment, or with or without children. A combination of a limited number of respondents and large
number of strategies and independent variables rendered analysis segmented by household type and/or
employment status unreliable. We recognize that grouping one and two-earner households with and
without young children together is not ideal. However, we do feel that the results for all respondents
together are meaningful and afford a better understanding of differences in the adoption of coping
strategies within households with one or two workers and with and without children.
Discriminant analysis has been employed to evaluate what individual factors are most strongly
related to adoption of certain combinations of coping strategies. Because the number of people per
cluster differed substantially (see table 6 in the following section), we set the a priori probabilities (used
to assign individuals to clusters) equal to the proportion of each cluster’s size in the total number of
respondents in the analysis. Furthermore, because of the large number of individual characteristics,
preliminary discriminant analyses were performed first for each group of factors separately using a
stepwise method for entering variables into the analysis. All statistically significant variables were then
used as the input to a final discriminant analysis, the results of which are presented in the section titled
Discrimant analysis of background factors of the seven clusters.
1
The 12/13 age boundary is chosen because it marks the transition from primary to secondary education in the Netherlands and
is the age from which children are generally expected to function more independently (for example, by cycling to school without
the company of an adult).
18
This is a pre-publication version of the following article:
Hubers, C., Schwanen, T. and Dijst, M. (2011). Coordinating
everyday life in the Netherlands. A holistic quantitative approach to
the analysis of ICT-related and other work-life balance strategies.
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography.
Combinations of work-life strategies
Coping strategies adopted most frequently
Before turning to the results of the cluster analysis indicating what combinations of coping strategies
prevail, we first consider which work-life coping strategies are the most popular among all respondents
together. For this purpose, the average adoption level of all different coping strategies combined was
calculated, which was 0,31. Strategies whose individual adoption average was equal to or higher than
this total average are included in Table 5.
Insert Table 5 here
The fact that purchasing timesaving domestic appliances and adopting flexible working hours rank
among the highest scoring strategies seems to reflect the generally high educational level of our
respondents, as they possess both the financial resources and types of occupations that facilitate
adoption of these specific strategies. With regard to our classification of coping strategies (see Table 1),
it is clear that domestic strategies are most frequently adopted, and that for both the domestic and paid
labour domain individual and material strategies are most widely used. Whilst not belonging to the most
frequently adopted coping strategies, nearly all of the ICT-related strategies are adopted more than
average, with the exception of buying products online. Apparently there is a need for decreasing the
space-time fixity of activities by, for example, working from home, or regularly making private calls or
sending private e-mails during working hours. However, as the frequency of adoption does not say much
about combinations of coping strategies adopted, we will discuss the results of the cluster analysis.
19
This is a pre-publication version of the following article:
Hubers, C., Schwanen, T. and Dijst, M. (2011). Coordinating
everyday life in the Netherlands. A holistic quantitative approach to
the analysis of ICT-related and other work-life balance strategies.
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography.
Interpretation of the seven clusters
A total of seven reasonably sized clusters (for the exact n of each, see Table 6) have been used for
further analysis. Several smaller clusters have been excluded because they contained too few
observations. As a result, only 474 respondents are included in the presented analysis. Table 6 presents
the mean scores of each cluster on the different work-life balance strategies. For ease of comparison,
Figure 1 summarizes the results per category of coping strategies. As care-giving strategies only applied
to households with small children, the domestic responsibilities sub-category was divided into
housework and care-giving strategies. Strategies involving the social network were also applicable to
households with small children only; however, because there were no statistically significant differences
in the adoption of these strategies between clusters, they were excluded from Figure 1. Table 6 provides
more detailed information about the strategies that are popular in the different clusters. A concise
description of the main characteristics of each cluster concerning the types of work-life strategies
adopted is given below. The order in which the clusters are presented is determined by the number of
coping strategies adopted by the members of each cluster, ranging from hardly any to nearly all of them.
Where the number of coping strategies adopted by the different clusters’ members was almost similar,
the type of agents involved in the coping strategy was taken into account. Therefore, clusters whose
members have adopted partner or social network-based strategies, which involve more complex forms
of dependency, are discussed later than clusters where self-supporting, material or professional coping
strategies prevail.
Insert Figure 1 here
20
This is a pre-publication version of the following article:
Hubers, C., Schwanen, T. and Dijst, M. (2011). Coordinating
everyday life in the Netherlands. A holistic quantitative approach to
the analysis of ICT-related and other work-life balance strategies.
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography.
Insert Table 6 here
Cluster 1: Marginal users (30 percent). Members of this cluster make little use of basically all types of
coping strategies (Figure 1), but there are a few exceptions (see Table 6). For example, they regularly use
their commute time to perform work-related activities, have an average number of days on which they
work from home and many of them have purchased a laptop to enable working anywhere and at
anytime. This all suggests that for respondents in this cluster paid labour is not necessarily fixed to a
single work location but somewhat flexible spatially. In the domestic domain too, relatively few
strategies are adopted. Most notably, the members of this cluster tend to do groceries for multiple days
at once. The use of material goods in the domestic domain is limited to the use of the car and of a
multitude of timesaving domestic appliances. The Internet is rarely used for the performance of
domestic tasks however. Although the services of a cleaning lady are often employed, other professional
domestic services are neglected, and male partners tend to perform few domestic tasks. In general,
then, this cluster shows few signs of paid work being adjusted to domestic tasks (or vice versa), or
regular use of ICT-related coping strategies.
Cluster 2: Hybrid caregivers (9 percent). The diagram in Figure 1 clearly shows that members of this
cluster tend to rely on a combination of individual and nonhuman material work-life strategies; the label
hybrid caregivers reflects that they extend their own personal capabilities mainly by drawing on
nonhuman agents (cf. Haraway, 1991; Latour, 2005). Respondents tend to have adjusted paid work to
domestic activities, with the exception of finding a job closer to the home. This reflects that most people
in this cluster already lived very close to their work, which is probably also the reason why they tend not
to use their commute time for arranging private or domestic tasks. Members of this cluster work from
21
This is a pre-publication version of the following article:
Hubers, C., Schwanen, T. and Dijst, M. (2011). Coordinating
everyday life in the Netherlands. A holistic quantitative approach to
the analysis of ICT-related and other work-life balance strategies.
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography.
home the least often of all clusters. At the same time, many of its members have purchased a laptop to
enable working anywhere and at anytime, and regularly make work calls or send work e-mails outside
office hours. Of all clusters, it has the most unequal division of working hours and household tasks. It
appears that instead of using professional domestic services to compensate for the limited involvement
of the male partner in domestic tasks, the members in this cluster prefer to adopt mainly material and
individual strategies (with the exchange of paid work for unpaid domestic work hours by the female
partner as an important example of the latter), and additionally make an appeal to their social network.
Cluster 3: The outsourcers (8 percent): The kite-shape resembling the domestic strategies in Figure 1
indicates that people in this cluster mainly use strategies that involve purchasing material domestic
goods, and both timesaving material and especially professional services. Nearly all of the work-life
strategies that involve the use of material goods and services are adopted above average, the exceptions
being regularly consuming ready-made meals or take away food, as well as buying products via the
Internet which is least often done by this cluster’s members (although the Internet is often used to
search for store or product information). Besides, all three types of professional domestic services are
employed relatively often. Combined with the small contribution the male partner makes to the
performance of domestic tasks, this seems to justify labelling this cluster as outsourcers. Since the
members of this cluster are non-working partners in single earner households, none of the work-related
strategies are applicable.
Cluster 4: All but the partner (16 percent): Figure 1 clearly shows how respondents in this cluster have
adopted almost all types of coping strategies more than those in other clusters on average have, except
22
This is a pre-publication version of the following article:
Hubers, C., Schwanen, T. and Dijst, M. (2011). Coordinating
everyday life in the Netherlands. A holistic quantitative approach to
the analysis of ICT-related and other work-life balance strategies.
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography.
for strategies which make an appeal to the (male) partner. The results for the individual and material
work-related strategies give the impression that paid labour has a high priority in this cluster. Individuals’
relatively high use of ICT-related strategies, such as working from home or purchasing a laptop, seems to
enable them to perform work-related activities outside the workplace and official office hours (Table 6).
At the same time, people in this cluster rarely adopt strategies involving a readjustment of paid work to
domestic activities. Out of all seven clusters, they are least likely to have decreased the number of hours
of paid work or to get a job in an organisation with an extensive work/life policy. Supplementary to the
spatiotemporally flexible way in which members of this cluster perform paid labour, the keyword in
performing domestic tasks is ‘efficiency’: they are more likely to increase the pace of domestic activities,
purchase groceries for multiple days at once and save up their domestic activities to perform them all at
once. Other regularly deployed strategies involve material goods and professional services in the
domestic domain (e.g. a cleaning lady or dry cleaner’s and/or ironing service). Perhaps this compensates
for the relatively low participation of the male adult in the organisation and performance of domestic
activities.
Cluster 5: Keeping it in the nuclear family (16 percent): Individuals in this cluster have a preference for
both individual and partner-related work-life strategies (Figure 1). They have adjusted paid work
activities to domestic responsibilities (Table 6) but tend not to have flexible working hours, or to have
purchased a laptop to enable working anywhere and at anytime. Nonetheless, they do sometimes search
for store/product information on the Web. Material coping strategies are not used much, nor are
professional domestic services. Although the division of employment hours between the partners is
more unequal than in most other clusters suggesting a rather traditional division of tasks, working hours
are often adjusted to those of the partner, and moving closer to the workplace of one of the two
23
This is a pre-publication version of the following article:
Hubers, C., Schwanen, T. and Dijst, M. (2011). Coordinating
everyday life in the Netherlands. A holistic quantitative approach to
the analysis of ICT-related and other work-life balance strategies.
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography.
partners is rare, which corresponds with a more gender-role egalitarian outlook. Perhaps the
participation of the male partner in the organisation and performance of domestic tasks compensates
for the lack of help from the social network. That the members of this cluster rely on individual and
partner-related strategies may suggest that no form of help outside the nuclear family is either available
or appreciated.
Cluster 6: All but material strategies (12 percent): Most characteristic of the individuals in this cluster is
their non-use of material coping strategies (see Figure 1). As far as timesaving domestic material
strategies are concerned, only take-away food or ready-made meals are used regularly. The individual
strategies the members of the all but material strategies cluster employ most commonly are working
from home (paid labour domain) and lowering the standards for cleaning/tidying up (domestic domain).
Timesaving professional services are also employed on a regular basis, apart from hiring a cleaning lady.
Another distinctive feature of respondents in this cluster is their relatively high use of coping strategies
involving the partner. This is particularly true for the performance and organisation of domestic tasks.
Further, the fact that women work slightly longer hours than men suggests relatively egalitarian
attitudes about gender roles.
Cluster 7: Intense combiners (9 percent): Respondents in this group not only use all but one (help of
social network) kinds of strategies more than average (Figure 1), they also adopt these very frequently
(Table 6). Members of the intense combiners cluster frequently adopt the strategies that are aimed at a
time-saving readjustment of paid work to domestic responsibilities (e.g. decreasing the number of hours
of paid labour and finding a job closer to the home). In addition, by working from home and at flexible
times, they also employ strategies which increase the spatial and temporal flexibility of their paid labour
24
This is a pre-publication version of the following article:
Hubers, C., Schwanen, T. and Dijst, M. (2011). Coordinating
everyday life in the Netherlands. A holistic quantitative approach to
the analysis of ICT-related and other work-life balance strategies.
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography.
and domestic activities. Furthermore, of all clusters, the intense combiners cluster is the one that uses
ICT-related strategies most frequently.
Coping strategy arrangements
Whereas the previous section described the combinations of strategies found on the individual cluster
level, to get a sense of the systematic interdependencies among the coping strategies this section
examines all charts in Figure 1 simultaneously offering a more general impression of the combinations in
which work-life strategies occur. Figure 1 shows that people tend to use a certain type of coping strategy
in both life domains simultaneously. Those who frequently adopt individual work-related coping
strategies also tend to use individual strategies for domestic tasks. The contribution of the male partner
to the household, however, appears to be of key importance in explaining the combinations of coping
strategies. Households in which the male partner performs relatively few domestic tasks tend to make
more use of individual, material and professional strategies than those in which the division of unpaid
work is more equal, suggesting a trade off between the involvement of the male spouse and the
involvement of other agents. The marginal users and intense combiners clusters form the exceptions
that prove the rule: in the marginal users cluster hardly any coping strategies are adopted even though
the male partner does not have an equal share in domestic activities. For the intense combiners cluster
the opposite holds true. Most likely these deviations, especially for the intense combiners cluster, have
to do with the magnitude of households’ paid and unpaid workloads. As both are quite sizeable,
households in this cluster might need to pull out all the stops in order to keep the household running
smoothly.
25
This is a pre-publication version of the following article:
Hubers, C., Schwanen, T. and Dijst, M. (2011). Coordinating
everyday life in the Netherlands. A holistic quantitative approach to
the analysis of ICT-related and other work-life balance strategies.
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography.
ICT-related strategies: substitutes or supplements?
One remaining issue is whether ICT-related strategies tend to substitute or rather supplement other
work-life strategies. Although longitudinal data are more suitable to study such processes, our crosssectional data nevertheless provide some provisional understanding of how ICTs relate to the other
types of coping strategies. Respondents in the two clusters that make most use of ICT-related strategies,
the all but the partner cluster and the intense combiners cluster, also use almost all other types of
coping strategies most frequently. This combination of ICT-related with multiple other work-life
strategies therefore suggests that ICTs are more likely to supplement than to substitute other work-life
strategies. ICT-related strategies are thus added to the repertoire of other adopted strategies. The
supplementary role of ICT-related strategies implies that they should always be examined in conjunction
with the non-ICT-related coping strategies people have adopted.
Discrimant analysis of background factors of the seven clusters
In this section our understanding of the seven clusters is advanced through an evaluation of sociodemographic, ICT, social network, employment and commute factors and spatial factors as well as
lifestyle orientation. The discriminant analysis reveals which factors are most influential in determining
to which cluster a person belongs and thus what kind of coping strategies are adopted. The first
subsection of this section briefly describes the five significant discriminant functions that have been
obtained. The second subsection discusses how these functions distinguish between the seven clusters.
26
This is a pre-publication version of the following article:
Hubers, C., Schwanen, T. and Dijst, M. (2011). Coordinating
everyday life in the Netherlands. A holistic quantitative approach to
the analysis of ICT-related and other work-life balance strategies.
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography.
The results of our quantitative analyses are related to previous qualitative research on coping strategies
in the third subsection.
Description of resulting five discriminant functions
All bar one of the resulting six discriminant functions were statistically significant and the first two
discriminant functions together account for 92.3 percent of the variance in the data. This suggests that
the first two functions are by far the most successful in detecting differences among the clusters. The
standardized canonical discriminant function coefficients (Table 7) of the first function indicate that the
presence of children between 0 and 4, but especially between 5 and 12 years of age, is the most
important discriminator between the seven clusters. It is not surprising that having children in this age
group plays such an important role, as the associated high level of domestic labour responsibilities may
require the adoption of different coping strategies. Clusters with a higher score on the second
discriminant function contain more respondents belonging to households in which children up to the age
of 13 are present. Other variables that load strongly on the second discriminant function are holding a
management position and having a main employment location that is located in an area with a higher
density of shops and restaurants (indicating an employment location in a more urbanized area). The
coefficient signs for these variables indicate that a higher value on the second discriminant function is
found for clusters with many respondents in households with young children and with few respondents
holding management positions or working in urbanized areas.
Insert Table 7 here
27
This is a pre-publication version of the following article:
Hubers, C., Schwanen, T. and Dijst, M. (2011). Coordinating
everyday life in the Netherlands. A holistic quantitative approach to
the analysis of ICT-related and other work-life balance strategies.
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography.
The third discriminant function singles out clusters with many respondents from households without
children aged 13-16 in high-density neighbourhoods or with long experience in using the Internet. The
fourth discriminant function shows that cluster membership is also related to the number of children in
the household, the number of ICT devices respondents possess and again whether there are elementary
school-aged children (5-12) present in the households. Having a mobile phone plan with unlimited
minutes, whether one is gainfully employed in the (semi-)public or private sector and the occupational
level of the respondent are the most important discriminant variables for the fifth and final discriminant
function. In sum, the presence of young children is most strongly related to cluster membership, but
several other variables are also relevant. These include the number of children present in the household,
employment factors (management position, sector and occupational level), ICT possession, affordability
and skills and the spatial context around the residence and main workplace.
How the five functions discriminate between the seven clusters
Figure 2 shows the mean values (group centroids) of the seven clusters on the five significant
discriminant functions. As expected, discriminant functions one and two display a clear distinction
between the clusters with children on the right (intense combiners, keeping it in the nuclear family,
hybrid caregivers) and without children on the left (all but the partner, marginal users, all but material
strategies). The outsourcers constitute an island of their own, as they have neither young children living
at home, nor are they substantially involved in paid employment. Nonetheless, the first two discriminant
functions fail to explain the differences in coping strategies between the clusters with young children
and between the three clusters without young children as these two overarching groups seem to show
28
This is a pre-publication version of the following article:
Hubers, C., Schwanen, T. and Dijst, M. (2011). Coordinating
everyday life in the Netherlands. A holistic quantitative approach to
the analysis of ICT-related and other work-life balance strategies.
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography.
little within group variation on these functions. The other three discriminant functions are more
successful in this regard.
For the clusters whose members are less likely to have young children living at home but who
are gainfully employed, Figure 2 shows that the third and fourth discriminant functions distinguish
between the marginal users cluster on the one hand and the all but the partner and all but material
strategies clusters on the other, whereas the fifth function separates the all but the partner cluster from
the other two. Together the third and fourth function indicate that members of the marginal users
cluster can be characterized as having more children, especially in the 13-16 age group, residing in lowdensity areas and possessing more ICT devices whilst also having less Internet experience than members
of the all but the partner and all but material strategies clusters. The number and diversity of coping
strategies adopted by respondents who live in households without young children is thus related to the
number and ages of children (if present), ICT possession and skills, and residential location factors. The
respondents in the marginal users cluster can be characterized as more traditional households who seem
to be in a slightly more advanced life course stage compared to the other two clusters without children.
The fifth discriminant function indicates that compared to the all but material strategies cluster,
members of the all but the partner cluster are more likely to be gainfully employed in the private sector,
have jobs in the middle echelon of the occupation ladder and have a mobile phone plan with unlimited
hours (which is likely to be associated with a higher frequency of mobile phone use). In households
without young children the adoption of partner-related coping strategies is thus most strongly related to
employment and ICT affordability factors. Given that ICT-related strategies are commonly adopted by
members of the all but the partner cluster, these compensate at least to some extent for the generally
29
This is a pre-publication version of the following article:
Hubers, C., Schwanen, T. and Dijst, M. (2011). Coordinating
everyday life in the Netherlands. A holistic quantitative approach to
the analysis of ICT-related and other work-life balance strategies.
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography.
rather limited availability of work-life policies in private companies compared to those in (semi) public
organisations.
Insert Figure 2 here
Regarding the three clusters that tend to comprise households with young children, Figure 2 shows that
the third and fourth discriminant functions distinguish between the intense combiners cluster on the one
hand and the keeping it in the nuclear family cluster and the hybrid caregivers cluster on the other.
Members of the intense combiners cluster are less likely to have children aged 13-16 than members of
the other two clusters, but have more years of Internet experience, and live in more densely populated
areas. They also tend to possess a greater number of different ICT devices than the other two clusters
and are less likely to have children aged 5-12 present in the household, even though the number of
children tends to be higher than in the households in the other two clusters. The adoption of all types of
coping strategies simultaneously (i.e. individual, material, professional and partner-related strategies) is
related to the number and age of children, population density of the residential neighbourhood, the
number of communication devices owned and Internet skills. It is especially the urbanite with young
children and familiar with modern communication technologies who uses the different types of coping
strategies most intensively. The first and second discriminant functions distinguish between members of
the keeping it in the nuclear family cluster and the hybrid caregivers cluster. People holding a
management position, working in urbanized areas and having children aged 5 or more, are more likely to
combine individual and material strategies, as in the hybrid caregivers cluster, than to adopt partnerrelated coping strategies.
30
This is a pre-publication version of the following article:
Hubers, C., Schwanen, T. and Dijst, M. (2011). Coordinating
everyday life in the Netherlands. A holistic quantitative approach to
the analysis of ICT-related and other work-life balance strategies.
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography.
Based on the above information, we can identify which combinations of coping strategies prevail
among the households that arguably struggle the most with their work-life balance, i.e. those with young
children. As ICT-related strategies are commonly adopted by the 86 respondents in the hybrid caregivers
and intense combiners clusters (18% of those considered in the cluster analysis), we can conclude that in
general these coping strategies are of significance to highly educated employed parents. Nevertheless,
consisting of 75 respondents (16%), the keeping it in the nuclear family cluster represents almost half of
the households with young children. This seems to suggest that still many highly educated employed
parents in the Netherlands combine individual and partner-related work-life strategies to the relative
neglect of material (including ICT), professional and social network based coping strategies.
Comparison with results of qualitative research on coping strategies
Studies by Jarvis (2005) and Duncan and colleagues (Duncan et al. 2003; Duncan 2005) have used
qualitative methods to explore the combinations of coping strategies people adopt. These studies have
also classified participating households into various clusters. The factors they have used to classify
households differ from ours, which makes direct comparison difficult. At least two points can
nonetheless be made. First, the clusters Duncan and Jarvis have distinguished are based more than ours
on the goals people seek to achieve or maintain and the different viewpoints people can hold of what
constitutes a satisfactory work-life balance. This focus on goals is reflected in the labelling of clusters.
Jarvis, for instance, identifies ‘career egalitarians’ for whom a satisfactory work-life balance exists when
the household succeeds in maintaining two equal careers and a ‘resist the treadmill’ group, which
defines work-life balance as a family oriented life consisting of shared parenting and reducing long
working hours. Duncan (2005) in his study of partnered mothers comes to a similar division of primarily
31
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Hubers, C., Schwanen, T. and Dijst, M. (2011). Coordinating
everyday life in the Netherlands. A holistic quantitative approach to
the analysis of ICT-related and other work-life balance strategies.
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography.
worker, primarily mother and mother/worker integral groups. In contrast, our study has foregrounded
the specific means people have used to reach their goals. Both types of research are therefore
complementary to one another; our analysis has found statistical evidence of the existence of certain
combinations of coping strategies that had been identified on a smaller scale in the qualitative studies,
thereby providing these studies’ findings with a quantitative basis. For example, the combination of
individual and nonhuman material work-life strategies typical of our hybrid caregivers cluster is highly
similar to the ‘The path of least resistance’ cluster identified by Jarvis (2005). Both clusters are
characterized by an unequal division of working hours and household tasks between the partners,
extensive use of private motorized transport and of their social networks.
Second, in spite of the differences between the studies, both the studies by Jarvis and Duncan
and ours find evidence of considerable differences with regard to work-life balance issues within groups
of households that are rather homogeneous and advantaged in terms of socio-demographic profile
(income and education levels). This seems to be the key finding of all studies that have been conducted
on this topic until now.
Discussion and conclusion
Using a holistic quantitative approach, we have examined what different kinds of coping strategy
combinations prevail among single and dual-earner households in the Netherlands. A cluster analysis has
produced seven distinct clusters, each portraying a specific combination of coping strategies. This shows
that there are systematic interdependencies among the coping strategies on the basis of which people
can be classified. The clusters differ in the number and types of strategies adopted, ranging from hardly
any use to application of almost all types. Some of these combinations suggest a trade-off between the
32
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Hubers, C., Schwanen, T. and Dijst, M. (2011). Coordinating
everyday life in the Netherlands. A holistic quantitative approach to
the analysis of ICT-related and other work-life balance strategies.
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography.
role of the (male) partner and other types of agents. The list of most frequently adopted strategies
featured mostly domestic strategies but also many ICT-related strategies. As the latter are often adopted
together with other types of strategies, our results indicate that they tend to complement rather than
substitute other strategies. Apparently the spatiotemporal flexibility ICTs offer enabling people to
perform certain activities at various times and locations alone is not enough to manage the different and
often competing demands placed on them by paid labour and domestic responsibilities. ICTs can thus be
seen as extra components of the repertoire of strategies and resources available to people who seek to
create a satisfactory work-life balance. However, proper evaluation of the role of ICTs requires
longitudinal data; more research on this issue is thus wanted. Longitudinal qualitative data could also
help shed more light on the dynamic nature of coping strategy combinations. McDowell et al. (2005b)
show how the strategies people adopt are by no means static but rather pragmatic, flexible and often reevaluated in response to changing circumstances. To capture some of this transient and reactive nature
of the juggling of employment and domestic responsibilities, the questionnaire employed in the current
study also asked respondents which coping strategies they thought they would adopt in the coming
three years. In a follow-up paper we will compare already adopted with anticipated work-life strategies
to see if the latter also vary systematically within the sample and depend on the former.
Differences in the number and types of strategies adopted between the clusters are first and
foremost attributable to the presence of young children in the household and the resulting volume of
the domestic responsibilities. Generally speaking, the larger the domestic workload, the larger the
number of coping strategies employed. Of the three clusters that mainly consisted of households with
small children, a small majority used ICT-related strategies as these were commonly adopted in both the
hybrid caregivers and intense combiners cluster. Using ICT-related coping strategies thus appears to be a
33
This is a pre-publication version of the following article:
Hubers, C., Schwanen, T. and Dijst, M. (2011). Coordinating
everyday life in the Netherlands. A holistic quantitative approach to
the analysis of ICT-related and other work-life balance strategies.
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography.
common way in which highly educated households in the Netherlands try to achieve a satisfying worklife balance. Nevertheless, with almost half of our respondents from households with young children
belonging to the keeping it in the nuclear family cluster, alternatively the combination of individual and
partner-related strategies is also widespread. The results also confirm that people differ in their
capacities to combine different productive and reproductive tasks – that is, their network capital. The
emphasis network capital places on the heterogeneous nature of the resources required to combine paid
and unpaid labour tasks is warranted: our results show that not just social connections matter but also
technological (ICT factors), institutional (employment factors) and environmental (spatial context)
elements. The adoption of partner-related strategies, for example, is less common in households with
young children if one partner is employed in the private sector and holds a management position. These
households are more likely to combine individual with material strategies (hybrid caregivers). Adoption
of partner-related strategies in households with young children is also more common practice in
households residing in more urbanized areas, such as the intense combiners, and to a lesser extent, in
the keeping it in the nuclear family cluster. This may reflect that more egalitarian views regarding the
gender division of domestic responsibilities are more common in urbanized areas (Scanzoni and Arnett,
1987; Bootsma, 1995). Additionally, the better accessibility of shops, childcare centres and other
facilities in urban areas may make participation in such activities more acceptable (Schwanen et al.,
2007).
That ICT possession, affordability and skills are associated with strategy adoption suggests that
recent technological developments do affect the ways in which people seek to establish a satisfactory
work-life balance. There were also some indications that jobs in the private sector more readily lend
themselves to using ICTs. For instance, respondents in the all but the partner cluster tended to have a
34
This is a pre-publication version of the following article:
Hubers, C., Schwanen, T. and Dijst, M. (2011). Coordinating
everyday life in the Netherlands. A holistic quantitative approach to
the analysis of ICT-related and other work-life balance strategies.
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography.
mobile phone plan with unlimited minutes which stimulates the use of the mobile phone, and many of
them were employed in the private sector. Not surprisingly, they often adopted ICT-related strategies.
However, the blurring of the boundaries between the paid labour and domestic domain enabled by ICTs
could also result in more intrusions of work into the personal sphere and a so-called “always on”mentality of workers, thereby complicating attempts to create a satisfactory work-life balance. More
research into the positive or negative contributions ICTs offer in this regard is thus wanted (see Jarvis
and Pratt, 2006; Schwanen and Kwan, 2008).
Not only social network-related factors but also gender was conspicuously absent in the
discriminant analysis. That gender was no statistically significant discriminator among clusters might
reflect the inclusion of many employment factors in the analysis. The Dutch labour market is still strongly
gender segregated and the differences between men and women are likely to be picked up by variations
in the specific jobs and positions they hold and the individual arrangements they have made with their
employers. Also, certain other factors, such as the population density around the residence, may have
picked up some of the effects of gender role orientations (which were unfortunately not directly
measured in our data to reduce respondent burden). Additionally, the fact that our respondents mostly
comprised highly educated respondents, whose gender role orientations tend to be more egalitarian
(Harris and Firestone, 1998) could also explain the lack of gender differences. Finally, compared to the
British context where many previous studies into work-life balance issues have been conducted (e.g.
Duncan, 2005; Duncan et al. 2003; Jarvis, 1999, 2005a-b; McDowell et al., 2005a-b, 2006), gender
differences in the Netherlands tend to be less pronounced and the redistribution of domestic
responsibilities seems to be more advanced (Cousins and Tang, 2004).
35
This is a pre-publication version of the following article:
Hubers, C., Schwanen, T. and Dijst, M. (2011). Coordinating
everyday life in the Netherlands. A holistic quantitative approach to
the analysis of ICT-related and other work-life balance strategies.
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography.
The theoretical section discussed how the choice for certain coping strategies is by some
considered to be mainly influenced by people’s preferences, whereas others – among whom many
geographers – emphasise the importance of constraints resources and skills (e.g. McDowell et al., 2005a;
Schwanen and De Jong 2008). Our study supports earlier geographical studies in foregrounding the
importance of constraints and resources; it finds no direct impact of preferences on work-life coping
strategies. As such it corroborates Debacker’s (2008) finding that preferences have no impact on the
work-life choices of highly educated mothers. However, this does not imply that preferences do not
matter to work-life choices. For the respondents in the current study they might have played a role in
earlier stages, for example, when choosing whether or not to have children and between a job or a
career. Our data did not allow us to study this further. It could therefore be argued that ideally future
research on creating satisfactory work-life balances should pay attention to both means and goals. The
comparison of our findings with those from studies by Jarvis (2005) and Duncan and colleagues (Duncan
et al. 2003; Duncan 2005) after all showed that people can adopt various strategies to attain a certain
goal, and vice versa, a certain strategy can be adopted in the pursuit of various goals. An example of the
latter can be found in Jarvis (2005) where although various households adopted coping strategies aimed
at adjusting domestic to paid labour activities, for some such as the ‘career egalitarians’ this was done to
enable both partners to make a career, whereas others like the ‘all hands to the pump’ group proclaimed
doing so out of sheer necessity and purely financial reasons (e.g. high housing costs). Only by
understanding people’s specific means and goals can effective policies be designed and implemented to
help people improve their work-life balance.
But there are several other findings of relevance to policy makers. First of all, we have shown
that work-life strategies are rarely employed in isolation but usually combined with other strategies.
36
This is a pre-publication version of the following article:
Hubers, C., Schwanen, T. and Dijst, M. (2011). Coordinating
everyday life in the Netherlands. A holistic quantitative approach to
the analysis of ICT-related and other work-life balance strategies.
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography.
Therefore, new work-life policies should consider the interrelatedness of work-life strategies and adopt a
more holistic approach. Instead of isolating and facilitating individual coping strategies, they should
preferably enable certain arrangements of work-life strategies. In promoting telecommuting as a way to
ease the combination of paid and unpaid responsibilities, for example, policies aimed at this particular
strategy should also address such issues as childcare provision, as even people working from home lack
the time to mind the children all by themselves. But most importantly, this study shows how work-life
policies should take into account the diverse needs of the different sections of the population and
workforce. Consistent with earlier studies, strong relations were found between various background
factors and the adoption of specific combinations of coping strategies. Differences regarding individuals’
resources and how these affect the adoption of strategies resulting from these work-life policies should
be taken into account in the evaluation of work-life policies. Current discussions in the Dutch
government about abolishing the financial compensation for host mothers, for example, might have
more detrimental effects for people residing in less urbanized areas which in general provide fewer
childcare alternatives than urbanized areas. Not only are formal childcare facilities less numerous in less
urbanized areas, the local moral climate also tends to favour informal, small-scale childcare provisions.
Disregarding these differential policy outcomes might preserve, or even increase, existing differences in
strategy adoption between more and less urbanized areas.
To create and maintain a satisfactory work-life balance, the ordinary mortals referred to by
Professor Scott in the introduction, often develop extraordinary work-life strategy arrangements.
Although these people do not quite have to resort to superhuman powers (yet), nonhuman agents such
as ICTs certainly do play an important, and perhaps growing, role. For a deeper understanding of the
37
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Hubers, C., Schwanen, T. and Dijst, M. (2011). Coordinating
everyday life in the Netherlands. A holistic quantitative approach to
the analysis of ICT-related and other work-life balance strategies.
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography.
adoption of individual coping strategies and how to influence or stimulate them, these interrelations
should be addressed in future studies and policies.
Acknowledgements
The research reported on is part of the Innovative Land Use programme, financed within the context
financed within the context of the Investments in Knowledge Infrastructure Directive (BSIK) of the Dutch
government. The insightful comments by the reviewers and editor are gratefully acknowledged.
38
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Hubers, C., Schwanen, T. and Dijst, M. (2011). Coordinating
everyday life in the Netherlands. A holistic quantitative approach to
the analysis of ICT-related and other work-life balance strategies.
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography.
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Hubers, C., Schwanen, T. and Dijst, M. (2011). Coordinating
everyday life in the Netherlands. A holistic quantitative approach to
the analysis of ICT-related and other work-life balance strategies.
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List of Figures and Tables
Figure 1 Overview of adoption level per category of coping strategies for individual clusters
Figure 2 Overview of group centroids on five discriminant functions
Table 1 Dimensions of coping strategy classification
Table 2 Overview of coping strategies per type of agent and life domain
Table 3 Mean cluster scores on independent variables, N=474
Table 4 Comparison of key characteristics of study sample to Dutch population average in percentages
Table 5 Most frequently adopted coping strategies by all respondents combined. All values lie between 0
and 1a
Table 6 Mean cluster scores for each work-life strategy
Table 7 Standardized canonical discriminant function coefficients. Most important discriminant variables
emphasized in grey.
47
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Hubers, C., Schwanen, T. and Dijst, M. (2011). Coordinating
everyday life in the Netherlands. A holistic quantitative approach to
the analysis of ICT-related and other work-life balance strategies.
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography.
Figure 1 Overview of adoption level per category of coping strategies for individual clusters
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everyday life in the Netherlands. A holistic quantitative approach to
the analysis of ICT-related and other work-life balance strategies.
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography.
Figure 2
Overview of group centroids on five discriminant functions
49
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Hubers, C., Schwanen, T. and Dijst, M. (2011). Coordinating
everyday life in the Netherlands. A holistic quantitative approach to
the analysis of ICT-related and other work-life balance strategies.
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography.
Table 1 Dimensions of coping strategy classification
Life domain
Type of agents
Paid labour
Domestic responsibilities
Individual
Dependent on material goods
Dependent on professional workers
Dependent on partner
Dependent on social network
50
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everyday life in the Netherlands. A holistic quantitative approach to
the analysis of ICT-related and other work-life balance strategies.
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography.
Table 2 Overview of coping strategies per type of agent and life domain
Life domain
Type of agents
Individual
Dependent on
material goods
Paid labour
Domestic responsibilities
Decrease number of hours paid labour
Flexible working hours
Work in shifts/irregular hours
Adjust employment hours to opening hours of schools/day
care centres
Get a job in an organisation with extensive work/life policy
Get job closer to the home
Regularly use commute time to perform work-related tasks
Regularly use commute time to perform or arrange/organise
personal matters
Work from home
Sacrifice leisure time for caring tasks
Perform domestic tasks faster
Stay home yourself in case of child being sick
Use parental leave/care leave
Changed to a faster commute mode to save travel time
Do groceries by car
Buy laptop to enable working anywhere, anytime
Regularly make private calls/send private e-mail during
working hours
Regularly make work calls/send work e-mail outside office
hours
Buy timesaving domestic appliancesa
Use timesaving services:
take away food or ready-made meals
Carwash
Lower standards for cleaning/tidying up
Limit number of extracurricular activities of children
Teach children to do things independently
Do groceries for multiple days at once
Save up domestic tasks to perform them all at once
(bundle)
Perform domestic tasks at fixed days
Limit number of days on which children can attend
extracurricular activities
Combine daily shopping trips with other activities
Choose childcare close to home
Regularly search for product information on the Internet
Buy products online
Own second car
Use timesaving services:
Dependent on
professional
workers
Dependent on
partner
cleaning lady
window-cleaner
dry cleaner's and/or ironing service
Number of days of childcare by professional day care
provider
Division of number of hours of paid labour between partners
Have partner look after sick child
Adjust one's working hours to working hours of partner
Division of household management between partners:
make shopping list
Division of domestic tasks between partners:
laundry, ironing, cooking, cleaning
Choose residence closer to one's workplace
Dependent on
social network
a
Have someone from social network look after sick child
Number of days of childcare by grandparents
Number of days of childcare by friends or other relatives
Freezer, dishwasher, tumble drier, microwave oven
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Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography.
Table 3 Mean cluster scores on independent variables, N=474
Sig.a
Mean
Socio-demographics
Age
Educational level [1=primary school, 5=(polytechnic) university]
Net household income [1=1000 euro or less, 5=4000 euro or more]
Number of children
Children aged:
0-4
5-12
13-16
Gender [0=female, 1=male]
ICT possession, affordability and skills
Number of ICT devices
Mobile phone plan: limited number of free minutes
unlimited number of minutes
Prepaid
Receive (partial) reimbursement expenses: for mobile phone costs
for Internet costs
Be highly interested in ICTs
Number of years of Internet experience
Social network factors
% women among five most important:
family members
friends
Total social network size
Share of relations type within total social network:
kinship
friends
neighbours
colleagues
Employment and commute factors
Average commute time in minutes
Commute mode:
Walking
Car
Bicycle
Train
Occupational level [1=low, 3=high]
Occupational level of partner [1=low, 3=high]
Sector of employment:
Business
Education
Healthcare
Governmental
Respondent holds management position [expressed in number of employees one supervises]
Partner holds a management position [expressed in number of employees partner supervises]
Avoid home-to-work and work-to-home spillovers
Spatial factors
Months residing in current home
Log of minimum geographical distance to family member with whom one has the most F2F contact
Log of minimum geographical distance to friend with whom one has the most F2F contact
Log of population density at home location [number of residents per m2 of 4-digit zip code area]
Log of density of shops and restaurants [number of employees per m2 of 4-digit zip code area]:
around home location
around work location
Geographical distance from current home to place of birth
Lifestyle orientation
Relative importance of paid work
Relative importance of nuclear family
Relative importance of leisure
Overall importance attached to: paid labour
nuclear family
46.42
4.34
3.78
1.03
0.15
0.24
0.21
0.49
0.000
0.014
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.258
3.17
0.26
0.34
0.39
0.27
0.12
0.05
8.83
0.000
0.243
0.000
0.014
0.002
0.089
0.002
0.000
60.52
54.70
17.10
34.25
37.40
18.92
9.22
0.846
0.446
0.347
0.064
0.707
0.090
0.315
30.24
0.03
0.49
0.27
0.08
2.25
2.18
0.19
0.15
0.22
0.11
0.69
0.61
-0.04
0.707
0.382
0.000
0.000
0.203
0.002
0.003
0.001
0.095
0.007
0.274
0.194
0.004
0.001
142.38
2.05
1.49
0.98
0.000
0.101
0.021
0.000
0.11
0.30
45.70
0.000
0.606
0.039
26.44
49.64
23.93
3.19
5.19
0.023
0.041
0.010
0.290
0.288
52
This is a pre-publication version of the following article:
Hubers, C., Schwanen, T. and Dijst, M. (2011). Coordinating
everyday life in the Netherlands. A holistic quantitative approach to
the analysis of ICT-related and other work-life balance strategies.
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography.
a Last
Leisure
column indicating statistical significance of differences between clusters
3.61
0.193
53
This is a pre-publication version of the following article:
Hubers, C., Schwanen, T. and Dijst, M. (2011). Coordinating
everyday life in the Netherlands. A holistic quantitative approach to
the analysis of ICT-related and other work-life balance strategies.
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography.
Table 4 Comparison of key characteristics of study sample to Dutch population average in percentages
Study sample
Women
Men
Dutch population average a
Women
Men
Frequency
internet use
daily
weekly
monthly
hardly ever
76
16
8
0
91
6
2
0
75
20
4
1
82
15
2
1
Educational level
Lower and medium education
Higher education: (polytechnic) university degree
39
61
32
68
73
27
69
31
Net household
income per year
< 40.000
40-50.000
> 50.000
42
30
28
63
17
21
Number of cars
in household
0 cars
1 car
2 cars
> 2 cars
6
49
40
4
7
50
38
6
a
Source: CBS Statline. Figures are for the year 2007. Income and car possession compared to average f other Dutch multi-person households.
54
This is a pre-publication version of the following article:
Hubers, C., Schwanen, T. and Dijst, M. (2011). Coordinating
everyday life in the Netherlands. A holistic quantitative approach to
the analysis of ICT-related and other work-life balance strategies.
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography.
Table 5 Most frequently adopted coping strategies by all respondents combined. All values lie
between 0 and 1a
Coping strategy
Buy timesaving domestic appliances
Do groceries for multiple days at once
Flexible working hours
Teach children to do things independently
Sacrifice leisure time for caring tasks
Lower standards for cleaning/tidying up
Stay home yourself in case of child being sick
Work from home
Own second car
Regularly make work calls/send work e-mail outside office
hours
Perform domestic tasks at fixed days
Choose childcare close to home
Combine daily shopping trips with other activities
Do groceries by car
Adjust employment hours to opening hours of schools/day
care centers
Save up domestic tasks to perform them all at once (bundle)
Perform domestic tasks faster
Decrease number of hours paid labour
Regularly make private calls/send private e-mail during
working hours
Adjust one's working hours to working hours of partner
Use timesaving services:
take away food or ready-made meals
Regularly search for product information on the Internet
a ICT-related
Average
Dimension
Life domain
Domestic
Domestic
Paid labour
Domestic
Domestic
Domestic
Domestic
Paid labour
Domestic
Type of agent
Material
Individual
Individual
Individual
Individual
Individual
Individual
Individual
Material goods
Paid labour
Domestic
Domestic
Domestic
Domestic
Paid labour
Material goods
Individual
Individual
Individual
Material goods
Individual
0.38
0.37
0.35
0.34
Domestic
Domestic
Paid labour
Individual
Individual
Individual
0.33
0.33
Paid labour
Paid labour
Material goods
Partner
0.31
0.31
Domestic
Domestic
Material goods
Material goods
0.82
0.79
0.78
0.69
0.60
0.52
0.47
0.46
0.45
0.44
0.42
0.42
0.40
0.39
strategies in gray.
55
This is a pre-publication version of the following article:
Hubers, C., Schwanen, T. and Dijst, M. (2011). Coordinating
everyday life in the Netherlands. A holistic quantitative approach to
the analysis of ICT-related and other work-life balance strategies.
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography.
Table 6 Mean cluster scores for each work-life strategy
Cluster
Work related individual strategies
Decrease number of hours paid labour
Flexible working hours [1=no, 3=total control
over working hours]
Work in shifts/irregular hours
Adjust employment hours to opening hours
of schools/day care centres
Get a job in an organisation with extensive
work/life policy
Get job closer to the home
Regularly use commute time to perform
work-related tasks
Regularly use commute time to perform or
arrange/organise personal matters
Work from home [# of days]
Work related material strategies
Changed to a faster commute mode to save
travel time
Buy laptop to enable working anywhere,
anytime
Regularly make private calls/send private email during working hours
Regularly make work calls/send work e-mail
outside office hours
Work-related partner strategies
Division of number of hours of paid labour
between partners [hours– hours]
Adjust one's working hours to working hours
of partner
Choose residence closer to one's workplace
Domestic individual strategies
Sacrifice leisure time for caring tasks
Perform domestic tasks faster
Stay home yourself in case of child being sick
Use parental leave/care leave
Lower standards for cleaning/tidying up
Limit number of extracurricular activities of
children
Teach children to do things independently
Do groceries for multiple days at once
Save up domestic tasks to perform them all
at once (bundle)
Perform domestic tasks at fixed days
Limit number of days on which children can
attend extracurricular activities
Combine daily shopping trips with other
activities
Choose childcare close to home
Domestic material strategies
Do groceries by car
Buy timesaving domestic appliancesa
Use timesaving services [1=hardly ever,
5=several times a week]:
take away food or ready-made meals
Carwash
1
N=140
Mean
2
N=45
Mean
0,27
3
N=40
Mean
4
N=75
Mean
5
N=74
Mean
6
N=59
Mean
7
N=41
Mean
Total
N=474
Mean
Sig.
0,53
0.13
0.59
0.15
0.61
0.34
0.000
0,98
0,18
1,02
0,24
1.20
0.15
0.92
0.12
1.02
0.22
1.41
0.10
1.06
0.17
0.002
0.403
0,16
0,41
0.61
0.38
0.000
0,12
0,17
0,20
0,16
0.08
0.12
0.27
0.19
0.12
0.10
0.34
0.37
0.17
0.17
0.001
0.012
0.16
0.07
0.16
0.11
0.12
0.29
0.15
0.058
0.19
0.68
0.13
0.49
0.20
0.69
0.15
0.54
0.15
0.69
0.37
1.05
0.19
0.68
0.061
0.010
0.09
0.09
0.13
0.07
0.05
0.10
0.09
0.642
0.12
0.13
0.15
0.04
0.05
0.22
0.11
0.036
0.30
0.31
0.33
0.30
0.29
0.51
0.33
0.190
0.41
0.47
0.47
0.38
0.36
0.66
0.44
0.041
13.14
21.89
10.96
14.48
-5.24
9.85
10.74
0.000
0.25
0.07
0.49
0.04
0.14
0.15
0.54
0.07
0.12
0.02
0.56
0.15
0.33
0.08
0.000
0.051
0.54
0.71
0.41
0.54
0.30
0.63
0.60
0.35
0.47
0.25
0.52
0.087
0.080
0.642
0.735
0.016
0.23
0.69
0.79
0.019
0.999
0.062
0.49
7.10
0.47
0.66
0.38
0.47
0.25
0.60
0.84
0.15
0.69
0.71
0.65
0.80
0.18
0.69
0.78
0.37
0.40
0.44
0.51
0.15
0.33
0.52
0.33
0.27
0.50
0.27
0.38
0.36
0.35
0.45
0.51
0.49
0.45
0.23
0.65
0.75
0.43
0.70
0.90
0.37
0.44
0.41
0.41
0.37
0.42
0.003
0.271
0.15
0.16
0.410
0.09
0.31
0.20
0.31
0.58
0.35
0.40
0.25
0.50
0.38
0.37
0.59
0.56
0.40
0.42
0.000
0.095
0.49
3.50
0.58
3.71
0.48
3.35
0.41
3.56
0.23
3.01
0.15
2.08
0.39
3.88
0.39
3.30
0.000
0.000
1.86
1.62
2.02
1.58
1.83
1.83
2.00
1.91
1.91
1.45
2.15
1.53
2.46
1.83
1.99
1.66
0.053
0.004
56
This is a pre-publication version of the following article:
Hubers, C., Schwanen, T. and Dijst, M. (2011). Coordinating
everyday life in the Netherlands. A holistic quantitative approach to
the analysis of ICT-related and other work-life balance strategies.
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography.
Regularly search for product information on
the Internet
Buy products online
Own second car
Professional domestic help strategies
Use timesaving services [1=hardly ever,
5=several times a week]:
cleaning lady
window-cleaner
dry cleaner's and/or ironing service
Number of days of childcare by professional
day care provider
Partner domestic help strategies
Have partner look after sick child
Division of household management between
partners [1=mostly, 7= mostly]:
make shopping list
Division of domestic tasks between partners
[1=mostly, 7= mostly]:
laundry, ironing, cooking, cleaning
Social network domestic help strategies
Have someone from social network look
after sick child
Number of days of childcare by grandparents
Number of days of childcare by friends or
other relatives
a
0.26
0.05
0.54
0.44
0.20
0.91
0.35
0.03
0.58
0.35
0.13
0.64
0.34
0.07
0.08
0.14
0.08
0.03
0.46
0.27
0.44
0.31
0.10
0.45
0.003
0.000
0.000
1.81
1.26
1.23
1.18
1.33
1.09
2.03
1.60
1.50
1.92
1.37
1.39
1.27
1.18
1.05
1.07
1.42
1.34
3.78
1.59
1.71
1.78
1.35
1.29
0.000
0.000
0.000
0.38
0.61
1.16
0.66
0.007
0.22
0.35
0.27
0.29
0.304
2.84
2.24
2.85
2.77
3.24
3.17
3.10
2.90
0.010
2.49
2.09
2.24
2.48
2.81
3.20
3.22
2.63
0.000
0.38
0.26
0.21
0.18
0.23
0.27
0.26
0.21
0.116
0.232
0.25
0.16
0.15
0.17
0.919
Number of the following four domestic appliances one owns: freezer, dishwasher, tumble drier, microwave oven
57
This is a pre-publication version of the following article:
Hubers, C., Schwanen, T. and Dijst, M. (2011). Coordinating
everyday life in the Netherlands. A holistic quantitative approach to
the analysis of ICT-related and other work-life balance strategies.
Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography.
Table 7 Standardized canonical discriminant function coefficients. Most important discriminant
variables emphasized in grey.
Respondent holds management position
Children aged 5-12
Children aged 0-4
Log of density of shops and restaurants around work
location
Children aged 13-16
Number of children
Number of ICT devices
Occupational level
Log of population density at home location
Avoidance of work-to-home and home-to-work
spillover
Age
Mobile phone plan with unlimited number of minutes
Number of years of Internet experience
Partner holds a management position
Employed in (semi-)public or private sector
Relative importance of leisure
Percent variance explained
Discriminant function
3
4
0.112
0.021
0.058
-0.400
0.053
0.183*
0.122
-0.170
1
0.157
1.115*
0.961
0.341
2
-0.466*
0.612
0.540
-0.359*
0.280
-0.381
0.133
0.192
0.054
0.133
0.146
-0.190
0.183
-0.236*
0.061
0.016
-0.785*
0.051
-0.005
-0.095
0.407*
-0.235
-0.168
-0.090
-0.018
0.114
0.036
-0.089
62.4
0.104
0.029
0.012
-0.166*
-0.186*
0.007
29.9
0.210
-0.147
0.398*
0.055
-0.092
0.046
3.5
5
-0.097
0.189
0.012
0.094
6
-0.201
-0.028
0.352
0.110
0.202
0.629
0.562*
0.023
0.222
-0.197
0.032
-0.353
0.055
-0.420
-0.300
0.033
0.251
-0.562*
0.243
0.253
0.059
0.477*
0.047
0.181
0.012
0.135
-0.054
0.221
2.8
0.291*
0.613*
0.314
0.073
0.592
-0.130
1.0
0.098
0.000
0.037
-0.050
-0.054
0.581*
0.4
* Largest absolute correlation between each variable and any discriminant function
58