Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-pjpqr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-20T10:15:14.541Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Women Lawyers and Their Working Arrangements: Time Crunch, Stress and Career Paths*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2014

Jean McKenzie Leiper
Jean McKenzie Leiper
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, King's College, University of Western Ontario
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Life in industrial societies is governed by different kinds of “time”: mathematical or monochronic time predominates in the workplace but sociocultural or polychronic time prevails at home, particularly where young children are present. Many women report high levels of “time crunch” as they move between these two spheres and these effects are heightened for women in the professions. In this study, I test four hypotheses: women lawyers have higher time crunch levels than women in the general population. Time crunch is heightened among women who take primary responsibility for the care of young children and those who work in large law firms. As women grow older and shed some of the demands of child care, their time crunch levels drop. This study incorporates both quantitative and qualitative approaches: a regression analysis of “time crunch stress” is used to test the major hypotheses and excerpts from unstructured interviews deal with time management problems in the lives of these women. Findings from the regression analysis reveal heightened time crunch stress for the women in this study, particularly if they assume major responsibility for child care. Neither firm size nor age has a statistically significant effect on time crunch stress. Women lawyers are caught between two kinds of time and, over the long term, their careers assume shapes that differ from those of their male counterparts. These divergent career patterns suggest that current career theories are in need of reassessment and revision.

Résumé

Dans les sociétés industrielles, la vie est soumise à différents types de «temps»: le temps mathématique ou monochrone prédomine sur les lieux du travail, mais le temps socio-culturel ou polychrone prévaut à la maison, particulièrement en présence de jeunes enfants. De nombreuses femmes signalent qu'elles sont très «coincées par le temps» lorsqu'elles passent d'une de ces sphères à l'autre, et cet effet est encore plus fort chez les femmes professionnelles. Quatre hypothèses seront examinées ici. Les femmes avocates seraient davantage coincées par le temps que les femmes dans la population en général. Ce phénomène serait aggravé chez les femmes qui assument à titre principal la responsabilité et le soin de jeunes enfants. Il le serait aussi chez celles qui travaillent dans de grands bureaux d'avocats. À mesure que ces femmes avancent en âge et sont délestées de leurs responsabilités familiales, elles deviendraient moins coincées par le temps. L'étude recourt à des approches à la fois quantitatives et qualitatives: elle utilise une analyse régressive du «stress de surmenage» (“time crunch stress”) pour vérifier les hypothèses majeures et se sert d'extraits d'entrevues non structurées pour examiner les problèmes de gestion du temps de ces femmes dans leur vécu. Les résultats de l'analyse régressive révèlent une hausse du stress de surmenage chez celles qui assument la responsabilité principale d'élever des enfants. Ni la taille du bureau d'avocats ni l'âge n'ont d'effet significatif au plan statistique sur le stress de surmenage. Les femmes avocates sont coincées entre deux types de temps et, à long terme, leur carrière prennent des formes qui diffèrent de celles de leurs vis-à-vis masculins. Cette différence de modèles de carrière suggère que les théories courantes à ce sujet ont besoin d'être réévaluées et révisées.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Law and Society / La Revue Canadienne Droit et Société , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , Fall/automne 1998 , pp. 117 - 134
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Law and Society Association 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. See Schor, J., The Overworked American (New York: Basic, 1991)Google Scholar; Neal, M. et al. , Balancing Work and Care Giving for Children, Adults, and Elders (Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 1993)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Scharlach, A., “Caregiving and Employment: Competing or Complementary Roles?” (1994) 34 The Gerontologist 378.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed

2. See Daley, K., Families & Time: Keeping Pace in a Hurried Culture (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1996)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hochschild, A. Russell, The Time Bind (New York: Harry Holt, 1997)Google Scholar; J. Read, “Your Life on a Computer Screen” (1998) Your Life on a Computer Screen Information Page <http://www.tcp.ca/Jan96/Yourlife.html>; “Sally Forth Comics” The [Toronto] Globe and Mail (13 May 1998) C6; ibid. (14 May 1998) D6; ibid. (15 May 1998) D10; Goetz, T. (1998) “Relaxation on the Run” The [Toronto] Globe and Mail (24 June 1998) C7Google Scholar [reprinted from the Wall Street Journal, Newark, NJ].

3. See Pahl, J. & Pahl, R., Managers and Their Wives (Baltimore: Penguin, 1971)Google Scholar; Papanek, H., “Men, Women, and Work: Reflections on the Two-Person Career” in Huber, J., ed., Changing Women in a Changing Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973) 90Google Scholar; Abelda, R., Glass Ceilings and Bottomless Pits: Women, Income and Poverty in Massachusetts (Boston: Women's Statewide Legislation Network, 1994).Google Scholar

4. Sorokin, P., Sociocultural Causality, Space, Time (New York: Russell & Russell, 1943) at 158.Google Scholar

5. Hall, E., The Dance of Life: The Other Dimension of Time (New York: Doubleday Anchor, 1989).Google Scholar

6. See Wilensky, H., “Orderly Careers and Social Participation: The Impact of Work History on Social Integration in the Middle Mass” (1961) 26 American Sociological Review 521CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Doeringer, P. & Piore, M., Internal Labor Markets and Manpower Analysis (Lexington, MA: Heath, 1971)Google Scholar; Becker, G., Human Capital (New York: Columbia University Press, 1964)Google Scholar; Becker, G., “Human Capital, Effort and the Sexual Division of Labour” (1985) 3 Journal of Labor Economics [supplement] S33CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Rosenbaum, J., “Organization Career Systems and Employee Misperceptions” in Arthur, M., Hall, D. & Lawrence, B., eds., Handbook of Career Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989) 329CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bryant, W., “Human Capital, Time Use, and Other Family Behavior” (1992) 13 Journal of Family and Economic Issues 395.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7. See Robinson, J., “Your Money or Your Time” (1991) 13:11American Demographics 22.Google Scholar

8. See Frederick, J., “Are You Time Crunched?” (1993) 31 Canadian Social Trends 6.Google Scholar

9. Robinson, supra note 7.

10. Ibid.

11. Fast, J. & Frederick, J., “Working Arrangements and Time Stress” (1996) 43 Canadian Social Trends 17.Google Scholar

12. Lee, C., Duxbury, L. & Higgins, C., Employed Mothers: Balancing Work and Family Life (Ottawa: Canadian Centre for Management Development, 1994) at 10.Google Scholar

13. Ibid. at 24.

14. Ibid. at 19.

15. Ibid. at 11.

16. Ibid. at 28.

17. For more information on regression analysis, see Fox, J., Applied Regression Analysis, Linear Models, and Related Methods (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1997).Google Scholar

18. At the time of writing, 28 of the 30 women from the 1994 study had been interviewed again. One woman had not responded to repeated letters and telephone messages. A second woman was very busy so her interview had been postponed until later in the year.

19. For more information on the design of the 1994 and 1996 studies, see Leiper, J. McKenzie, “It Was Like ‘Wow!’: The Experience of Women Lawyers in a Profession Marked by Linear Careers” (1997) 9 C.J.W.L. at 115.Google Scholar

20. Robinson, supra note 7.

21. Frederick, supra note 8.

22. Lee, Duxbury & Higgins, supra note 12. The main time management question was “[d]o you feel that there are enough hours in the day to accomplish everything you have to do?”

23. Analysis of the time crunch data from the Statistics Canada Time Use Survey reveals a Cronbach's alpha of 852.

24. These findings are based on an SPSS analysis of the 1992 Statistics Canada General Social Survey Time Use data set.

25. Lee, Duxbury & Higgins, supra note 12.

26. Firm size was included in a preliminary regression analysis but it had no appreciable effect on time crunch.

27. See Seidel, J., Kjolseth, R. & Seymour, E., The Ethnograph: A User's Guide (Corvalis, OR: Qualis Research Associates, 1988).Google Scholar

28. See McKenzie Leiper supra note 19 for more detail on the attitudes of senior male partners to pregnancy and the practice of law.

29. See also Kay, F. & Hagan, J., “Raising the Bar: The Gender Stratification of Law-Firm Capital” (1998) 63 American Sociological Review 728.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

30. Human Capital, 1964, supra note 6.

31. One of the senior partners who was interviewed again in 1998 expressed very strong concern about her firm's commitment to longer hours. She felt that women would suffer because the billing demands would make it impossible for them to manage work and family responsibilities.

32. Sorokin, supra note 4.

33. Hall, supra note 5.

34. Ibid. at 52.

35. J. Marshall, “Re-visioning Career Concepts” in Arthur, Hall & Lawrence, eds., supra note 6, 275.

36. J. Gallos, “Exploring Women's Development: Implications of Career Theory, Practice, and Research” in Arthur, Hall & Lawrence eds., ibid., 110.