This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in ISI Web of Science Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via ISI Web of Science (5) Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Osnowitz, D. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                   What's this?

Managing Time in Domestic Space

Home-Based Contractors and Household Work

Brandeis University

Much research shows that paid work performed at home supports a gendered division of household labor, leaving women disproportionately responsible for unpaid domestic work. For contract professionals, however, the flexibility to manage working time outside the constraints of a standard job allows both men and women to meld paid employment with household responsibilities. Interspersing paid and unpaid work, home-based contractors—both women and men—accommodate family needs. They arrange daily schedules to be available parents and household managers, and they develop longer-term career trajectories that allow adjustment over time. For women, however, long-standing notions of domesticity make such accommodation invisible, normative, and unremarkable. For men, in contrast, home-based contracting can create the space with which to challenge gender norms. For these home workers, therefore, the same arrangement simultaneously reinforces and resists conventional constructions of gender.

Key Words: flexibility • gender • gender salience • home-based work • household division of labor • nonstandard work • working time • family

CiteULike    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    What's this?