Flexible work arrangements for women

According to the Center for Gender in Organizations newsletter Insights in the US, in the past 50 years, the number of stay-at-home mothers has dropped from 76 percent to 28 percent. And many of the women who are in the work force are using flexible work arrangements in order to remain working full time.

Some women report having had their ambition and commitment questioned by the media and the workplaces themselves for using flexible work arrangements to meet the complex demands on their lives.

A 2006 survey of over 400 women by The Center for Gender in Organizations at the Simmons School of Management in Boston reported these findings:

• Ninety percent of respondents report using some type of flexible work arrangement at some point in their careers (this can include working part-time, putting boundaries around workload, temporarily not working at all and many other options).
  
  
• Flexible work arrangement use goes up as women get older (from 80 percent by women under 30 to 90 percent by women over 30).
  
  
• FWA participation rates vary according to industry:
  technology - 96 percent
  nonprofit - 92 percent
  medical - 88 percent
  finance - 86 percent
  Telecommuting is used twice as much in technology, at 69 percent, than nonprofits and the finance industry. Flexible hours were also most used by the technology industry at 54 percent, followed by nonprofits at 39 percent, finance at 38 percent and medical at 33 percent.
  
  
• Women were twice as likely to use an FWA to keep employed full time than to use an FWA that entailed part-time employment. Forty-eight percent of respondents reported exclusively using FWAs to stay employed full time.
  
  
• Respondents overwhelming reported that organisations offering FWAs would be rewarded with increased loyalty and willingness on their parts to go the extra mile for those employers.