The Role of Workplaces in Changing Conventional Definitions of Ideal Workers

Indiana University, Bloomington IN

Investigators

Abstract

Workers have increasingly been expected to work long hours in American workplaces, yet doing so carries negative consequences for their health and family life. This overwork culture stems from the expectation that ideal workers should put work before family and demonstrate unlimited and undivided commitment to work. This norm may be especially problematic for American women, whose time availability is more likely to be limited by caregiving responsibilities. This study investigates this ideal worker norm, and the conditions under which the norm might change. The project studies organizational policies that allow time off and flexibility in work schedules and locations, as well as conditions under which these policies are implemented. It also investigates female managerial representation in the organization, which may be important for organizational adoption of new policies to help women in the workplace. The project will also examine how these organizational conditions affect employee outcomes, such as employee assessment of their fit to the ideal worker norm, and their careers and health. This project shows how changes in the overwork culture may be possible in contemporary American workplaces. The project conducts a nationally representative, probability-based survey of employees and then matches employee data to organization-level data drawn from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) EEO-1 database. EEO-1 data offer workplace gender and race composition at the establishment level, as well as basic workplace characteristics, such as industry and establishment size. This linked employee-employer data will allow examination of how the ideal worker norm varies by workplace characteristics, and how different organizational conditions influence employee outcomes while controlling for other organizational characteristics. The probability-based employee sample allows findings to generalize to employed adults working in medium to large organizations in the United States. The employee-employer linked data set will provide a unique opportunity to address questions that span the individual and the organization-level, and in identifying the macro conditions that may reshape the ideal worker norm and its impact on individual workers. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.