British Journal of Industrial Relations

41:2 June 2003 00071080 pp. 175195

High-performance Management
Practices, Working Hours and
WorkLife Balance
Michael White, Stephen Hill, Patrick McGovern,
Colin Mills and Deborah Smeaton

Abstract
The effects of selected high-performance practices and working hours on
worklife balance are analysed with data from national surveys of British
employees in 1992 and 2000. Alongside long hours, which are a constant source
of negative job-to-home spillover, certain high-performance practices have
become more strongly related to negative spillover during this period. Surprisingly, dual-earner couples are not especially liable to spillover if anything,
less so than single-earner couples. Additionally, the presence of young children
has become less important over time. Overall, the results suggest a conflict
between high-performance practices and work-life balance policies.

1. Introduction
By working faithfully eight hours a day, you may eventually get to be boss and
work twelve hours a day.
Robert Frost (18751963), US poet (attrib.)

Robert Frosts acerbic observation on the costs of success at work has a particular resonance in an age when the concept of worklife balance is never
far from the public discourse. National newspapers, for instance, frequently
carry stories about the damage that workers do to their families by working long hours (e.g. Guardian, 21 November 2000: 21; Financial Times, 13
September 2001: 16; Sunday Times, 20 January 2002: 8). The conventional
wisdom in these accounts is that much of the problem is due to Britains long
hours culture, for it is widely known that full-time workers in Britain work
the longest hours in the European Union. British men work an average of
Michael White and Deborah Smeaton are at the Policy Studies Institute; Stephen Hill is at Royal
Holloway, University of London; Patrick McGovern is at the London School of Economics and
Political Science; and Colin Mills is at Nuffield College, Oxford.
Blackwell Publishing Ltd/London School of Economics 2003. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd,
9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA.

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3.5 hours per week more than those in the second highest country (Greece),
while British women work 0.8 hour per week longer than the second highest
(Sweden) (Social Trends 2001).
Politicians have been quick to propose solutions, and so the concept of
worklife balance has emerged as a potentially important focus of workplace
regulation. In a 1998 Green Paper (DTI 1998), the Department for Trade and
Industry linked the regulation of working time to family policy and the
National Childcare Strategy, and this was followed in 2000 by the New
Labour governments WorkLife Balance Campaign, which seeks to persuade
employers of the business benefits of practices that enhance the worklife
balance. The notion of worklife balance encompasses the family-friendly
perspective of the earlier Green Paper, but is wider, seeking to help all
employed people, irrespective of marital or parental status, to achieve a better
fit between their professional and private lives. Possible solutions include
some combination of family-friendly employer policies, such as flexible
working hours, homeworking and state assisted nursery places. The underlying assumption is that worklife balance can be achieved without threatening the economic success of either party, possibly even promoting it for both.
However, this assumption is not self-evident. There may, for example, be
other practices that employers regard as important for their own success
which may exacerbate the worklife balance problem irrespective of the positive contribution of family-friendly policies.
It is with this possibility in mind that we examine the effects of certain
human resource management or work organization practices associated with
various models of high-performance or high-commitment management
(e.g. Huselid 1995; MacDuffie 1995; Wood and de Menezes 1998; Appelbaum
et al. 2000). Given the lack of consensus about this terminology, in this paper
we adopt the convention of referring to these as high-performance practices.
We are aware that there is considerable debate about their performance
effects, but it is reasonable to assume that many employers adopt them
in order to improve performance. Furthermore, there is evidence (e.g.
Appelbaum et al. 2000: 22930; Appelbaum and Berg 2001: 279; see also
discussion in next section) to indicate that these best practice models of
human resource management/work organization commonly serve to obtain
greater discretionary effort from employees. It is therefore plausible to expect
that these will make demands of individuals that will have repercussions that
fall beyond the workplace. We test this proposition by examining the impact
of working hours and selected high-performance practices on negative jobto-home spillover (Bond et al. 1998; Maume and Houston 2001). In doing so,
we draw together three previously separate literatures, predominantly from
the United States those on the time squeeze, the workfamily spillover,
and high-performance work systems with the explicit aim of opening up
a new area of research. To our knowledge, the possible spillover effects
of these so-called high-performance practices have not been investigated
previously.
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2. Long hours, time-pressed families and high-performance management

Much of the intellectual energy behind the debate on worklife balance
comes from the United States, notably through Juliet Schors (1991) influential study The Overworked American (see also Hochschild 1997). Using evidence from a range of secondary sources, Schor challenges the widespread
assumption that average hours of work are continuing to fall in advanced
industrial economies, much as they have done over the past century. Instead,
she claims that US employees are working an additional 163 hours on average
that is, about an extra months work per annum (see also Leete and Schor
1994). Since the increase in hours is three times greater among women than
among men, she claims that dual-earner couples are more likely to experience a time squeeze (Schor 1991: 17). Indeed, several other US studies report
substantial increases in the combined hours of such couples (Bluestone and
Rose 1997: 66; Clarkberg and Moen 2001: 1117), though still others dispute
Schors claim of a general increase in hours, for example by arguing that there
has been a growing tendency for hours to be over-estimated by employees
(Coleman and Pencavel 1993; Robinson and Bostrom 1994). In contrast with
the United States, average working hours do not appear to have increased
during the 1990s for British workers. Rather, the dispersion of hours has
increased, with more people working either very long or very short hours
(Green 2001: 5861).
For our purposes, Schors estimates are less relevant than her attempt to
explain them by examining both employer policies and employee motives. On
the employers side, Schor points to their desire to extract increasing returns
from labour, which many now see as a fixed cost; to the growing proportion
of white-collar employees, where there is no tradition of premium overtime
payments; and to an increase in the bargaining power of employers relative
to that of labour, through either a reduction in job security, a declining union
presence or both. Employees for their part choose demanding jobs to fulfil
material ambitions in a consumer society that has developed powerful forms
of advertising and credit purchase systems. According to Schor, many
workers are obliged to accept high work demands simply to service their
personal debt. The last point resonates with the British experience, where
consumer debt and house prices (hence mortgage commitments) have
reached unprecedented levels: outstanding loans secured on dwellings rose by
37 per cent between 1995 and 2000, a period in which the Retail Price Index
rose by 11 per cent (Consumer Trends 2001, Tables S8 and S9; Guardian, 30
November 2001: 27).
Schors discussion does not review employer practices that exert pressure
to work longer hours, but it is natural to inquire what these might be. Specifically, it seems plausible that high-commitment or high-performance management practices will have a negative impact on the private lives of workers,
to the extent that they are designed to evince greater discretionary effort in
pursuit of the organizations goals. Yet much, though not all, of the related
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literature, regardless of whether it is termed high-commitment management

(e.g. Walton 1987; Wood 1996), high-performance work organization
(HPWO) (e.g. MacDuffie 1995; Becker and Huselid 1998; Wood 1999a) or
high-performance work systems (e.g. Appelbaum et al. 2000; Appelbaum and
Berg 2001), claims that it is good for both employers and employees. Employers, it is argued, gain through improved quality, productivity and financial
returns (Huselid 1995; Ichniowski et al. 1997; Appelbaum et al. 2000), while
employees benefit from higher wages and job satisfaction (Huselid 1995;
Appelbaum et al. 2000).
How is this achieved? Proponents of high-performance work systems claim
that they are characterized by a common desire to raise employee skills, motivation and empowerment (Appelbaum and Berg 2001: 2756), although these
may be realized in various ways. The practices, which typically involve a combination of work organization and human resource management (HRM)
policies, are designed to provide greater participation in decision making, the
opportunity to learn new skills and the financial incentive to offer greater discretionary effort in the service of the employers goals. Generally, the practices include some form of teamworking, quality circles, training and career
development, appraisals and performance-related pay.
It is not necessary, for the purposes of this paper, for us to reach a conclusion about the strength of the evidence concerning the contribution of
such practices to organizational performance. More importantly (from the
present viewpoint), the evidence on its benefits for employees is mixed at best.
With regard to the bundles of practices associated with HPWO, an analysis
of the British workplace employee relations (WERS, 1998) survey by Ramsay
et al. (2000) finds that they are associated with job strain and lower pay
satisfaction, while Godards survey of Canadian employees reports that high
levels of adoption are linked with low job satisfaction and self-esteem, possibly because the work is considered to be more stressful (Godard 2001: 797).
In relation to individual practices, there is both qualitative and quantitative
evidence to challenge claims that employees gain from their introduction.
Case studies by scholars on both sides of the Atlantic report that
autonomous working groups, which require high levels of individual participation, are associated with feelings of constant pressure and stress (Parker
and Slaughter 1988; Barker 1993; Graham 1995; Danford 1998). Using data
from a nationally representative survey of employees, Gallie and colleagues
found that a composite variable reflecting appraisals, target setting and merit
pay was associated with greater work pressure for non-manual employees,
while a second composite variable partly based on performance related pay
was associated with higher work pressure for both manual and non-manual
employees (Gallie et al. 1998: 7780).
However, Osterman (1995) reports that organizations in the United States
that adopt high-performance practices also adopt flexible working time and
career-break practices, thereby giving employees more scope to adapt work
demands to family or non-work aims. Thus, the employers most active in pursuing high-performance may also strive for practices that offset or balance
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their adverse effects outside work. By contrast, Wood (1999b) reports, on the
basis of an analysis of Ostermans data, that the extent to which an integrated
family-friendly management approach is practised is unrelated to highcommitment management in the United States, a result that he has found to
be similar in the UK (Wood, personal communication, 2002). A recent
national survey of British employers finds that family-friendly policies are
little more than an aspiration for the majority (Hogarth et al. 2001, passim).
In summary, the idea that both employers and employees can only benefit
from high-performance practices has already been challenged by a wide range
of evidence. Our aim is to extend this line of investigation with a particular
focus on the relatively unexplored area of worklife balance.

3. High-performance management, working hours and work spillover:

some hypotheses
In developing our hypotheses, we have replaced the policy-related concept of
worklife balance by one of negative job-to-home spillover (Bond et al. 1998;
Maume and Houston 2001). This was necessary for two reasons. First, we
wished to give a more focused, if narrower, indicator of worklife balance
which captured the effects on the employees domestic life. Second, given our
focus on high-performance practices, we wished to capture the spillover
effects of work demands as a whole rather than simply assess the effects in
terms of the division of hours between work and non-work activity. The
survey measures that we have constructed to represent negative job-to-home
spillover (described in detail in Section 4) emphasize the consequences of the
job for family relations.
We use the term work demands to indicate those aspects of employment
that have the potential to create negative job-to-home spillover. Work
demands include hours worked, work intensity (the pace of work, and proportion of working hours spent in work activity), and work pressures of any
other kind (e.g. peaks in work load). Additional work hours subtract from
home time, while high work intensity or work pressure may result in fatigue,
anxiety or other adverse psycho-physiological consequences that can affect
the quality of home and family life.
The discussion in the preceding section indicates that two sets of hypotheses need to be considered with regard to negative job-to-home spillover. The
first relates to employer practices, while the second relates to an employees
personal and family circumstances, as discussed earlier in relation to the work
of Schor and others.

Hypotheses concerning Employer Practices

There are two general hypotheses that relate to employer practices: (i) practices that increase work demands increase negative work-to-home spillover;
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(ii) practices that increase employee choice or flexibility over work demands
reduce negative job-to-home spillover.
We divide practices that increase work demands into two main types.
1. The setting of working hours by employers tends to raise work demands
above the optimal choice level for employees (Clarkberg and Moen
2001: 11256). Thus, actual hours worked will be positively related to
negative job-to-home spillover.
2. We hypothesize that three types of high-performance practices will
generate more work demands and hence more negative spillover from
work to home: performance appraisal practices; work organization
practices that emphasize group or team collaborations, hence potentially increasing concertive control (Barker 1993: 408); and incentive
or performance-related pay practices. Note that, rather than considering high-performance practices in a general way, we focus on types of
practice in which the literature reviewed above points to serious implications for work demands. We expect negative spillover to be reduced
where there are practices that increase employee choice and flexibility
over work demands. Such practices might include those that allow
choice over starting and finishing times, flexible hours systems and individuals control over their own hours of work. (For parents with young
children, career-break schemes, term-time working contracts and
various forms of childcare assistance would also be relevant. These are
not considered within the scope of the present paper.)
Hypotheses concerning Individual Circumstances
A range of personal circumstances may generate or increase negative
spillover. More specifically, financial pressures, or lack of resources, may lead
to longer hours and have negative consequences for domestic life. Also, a
variety of family circumstances may add to financial pressures; for example,
young children impose higher childcare costs, while single-earner families
tend to have lower incomes than dual-earner families. On the other hand,
single-earner families (and also single people) will tend to have additional
time available for household and family activities. In general, the literature
reviewed above suggests that on balance dual-earner families are more prone
to a spillover problem, and this is the hypothesis we adopt.

4. Data sources and measures

The data used in this paper were taken from two representative surveys of
the employed and self-employed in Great Britain, with samples restricted to
those aged between 20 and 60 inclusive. Working in Britain 2000 (WIB2000)
was conducted between June 2000 and January 2001 and produced a sample
of 2466 employed people with a response rate of 65 per cent. Employment
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in Britain (EIB1992) was conducted in 1992 and generated a sample of 3855

employed people with a response rate of 72 per cent. The employee subsamples were 2132 in WIB2000 and 3458 in EIB1992. Both WIB and EIB
were multi-stage household surveys using postal address files as the sampling
frame and a Kish grid method to select individuals randomly within each
sampled household. Primary sampling units were postal sectors, with 167
selected (by a stratified random sampling method) for WIB and 150 for EIB.
In both WIB2000 and EIB1992, interviews were face-to-face, of approximately one hour in duration, with an additional self-completion questionnaire. In EIB there were two different versions of the self-completion
questionnaire, each of which was administered to a random one-half of the
total sample. The dependent variable in the present analysis was obtained in
a half-sample, so that the available sample size was reduced. After sample
losses arising from other missing data, the samples available for analysis were
1474 employees for 1992 and 1915 employees for the year 2000.
To make the two surveys more representative, each was weighted in the
same way by data from the population estimates of the Labour Force Surveys
of 1992 and 2000, respectively. The weighting variables were sex, age, socioeconomic group and part-time or full-time employment status. All analyses
reported here incorporated these weights, which were combined with the
weights required to correct for Kish sampling.
The Dependent Variable: Negative Job-to-Home Spillover
The concept of negative job-to-home spillover is measured in a manner
similar to that of Maume and Houston (2001: 177), in that it seeks to capture
the effects of work on time for partner/family as well as time for family
responsibilities. In addition, our version asks directly about the effects of the
employees jobs on their partners or families. This three-item index variable
is worded as follows:
How often would you say the following statements are true of yourself ?
1. After work I have too little time to carry out my family responsibilities
as I would like.
2. My job prevents me from giving the time I would like to my
partner/family.
3. My partner/family gets a bit fed up with the pressure of my job.
The response scale was Almost always, Often, Sometimes, Rarely, Never.
Item 2 from the 1992 survey was reversed in 2000 to read My job allows me
to give the time I would like to my partner/family. This does not affect the
meaning of the scale. The three items are highly inter-correlated and have a
reliability (Cronbach alpha) of 0.85 in 1992 and 0.75 in 2000. They also form
a distinct and significant factor in a principal components factor analysis
involving other variables relating to work demands. The scoring and
scaling of the items to produce the dependent variable are discussed in
Section 5.
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The items are assumed to be applicable to single people as well as to those

with spouses or partners. We checked this assumption by item non-response
analysis, which showed (by age group) 24 per cent non-response in 1992 for
those with no spouses or partners and no children, and 12 per cent nonresponse in 2000. It is also worth noting that, even when people live apart
from their families, they generally maintain family contacts. In the 1992
survey 48 per cent of those without spouses, partners and children said that
they saw relatives at least once a week, and 72 per cent at least once a month.
Only 2 per cent of this group stated that they never saw relatives.
Explanatory Variables Representing the Hypothesized Influences
(a) Working hours
This was defined as the weekly hours worked during the most recent pay
period, inclusive of paid overtime but exclusive of unpaid meal breaks and
unpaid overtime.
(b) Employers high-performance practices
Our selection of items focuses on those types of practice that are linked in
the research literature with high work demands, as reviewed earlier.
Appraisal systems are often represented, in human resource management,
as relating to personal development and motivation. Although our own interpretation is more in terms of control, the items reflect the HRM background.
As well as establishing whether the individual takes part in an appraisal
system, the surveys asked whether appraisals helped to plan training; whether
appraisals affected promotion; whether appraisals affected pay; and whether
appraisals influenced how hard the individual works.
Group-working practices are here represented by four items: whether or not
the individual works in a group; whether co-workers influence how hard the
individual works; whether the person takes part in a work improvement
group or quality circle; and whether pay depends in part on the performance
of the work group.
Evidently, the last item above can also be construed as an element of
performance-related pay (PRP). Other items representing this element were:
whether part of the pay depended on the individuals own performance;
whether part of the pay depended upon the performance of the workplace
or organization; whether the organization had a profit-sharing or share
scheme; whether pay incentives influenced how hard the individual worked;
and whether pay increases were given to those people who worked hard and
performed well (merit pay).
We used factor analysis and item analysis to assess whether it would be
more efficient to retain the separate items or construct composite variables.
In the case of the appraisal variables, construction of a composite variable
was supported; since each item had a uniqueness of less than 0.5, they collectively constituted a distinct and significant factor, and had a Cronbach
alpha greater than 0.7 in each survey. Accordingly, we constructed a
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summative scale (labelled appraisal intensity) from the five appraisal items,
scoring each item as binary (hence the scale takes values 05). However, on
the same criteria, construction of scales for the other two sets of items was
not supported. These have therefore been retained as separate items in the
analyses, each being represented as a dummy variable.
Factor analysis was also used to examine the validity of separating these
items from other HPWO type practices. It might be, for example, that these
items considered separately increase negative job-to-home spillover, yet the
wider HPWO systems (of which they form part) do not have these consequences or may even have benign consequences. The preliminary question,
however, is whether such wider systems exist at a detectable level in the data.
In an exploratory factor analysis, we were unable to find any general factor;
the majority of the 26 HRM or work organization items available in both
surveys had uniqueness greater than 0.8. Indeed, there were only three interpretable factors, one loading on the appraisal scale (see above), another
loading somewhat less strongly on a subset of pay items, and the third
loading on two items concerning managementemployee communications.
Thus, there was nothing to suggest that our selection of variables had artificially detached items from their natural groupings or had ignored an underlying structure.
(c) Employer practices: flexibility and choice in working time
In our analysis the practices expected to reduce job-to-home spillover are:
availability of personal choice from a range of pre-specified starting and
finishing times; participation in a flexible hours system; and personal discretion (on a day-to-day basis) over ones own starting and finishing times. The
surveys treat these as mutually exclusive situations, and each is represented
by a dummy variable. The implicit base category is having to work standard
hours that are set by the employer.
(d) Individual circumstances: financial pressure and home time
The respondent was coded as working under financial pressure if giving, as
the single most important reason for working, need money for basic essentials such as food, rent, mortgage. Other variables relating to financial pressures were: having an employed partner; having a non-employed partner;
having a youngest child aged under 3, 34, 511, or 1215. (These age bands
reflect public educational arrangements in Britain, where in most areas
nursery classes begin at age 3, primary school at age 4 or 5 and secondary
school at age 11 or 12.) Dual-earner couples should (other things being equal)
experience less financial pressure, while single-earner couples should experience more financial pressure. Children of dependent age increase financial
pressure, and the lower the age of the youngest child, the greater will be the
potential childcare costs.
The employment status of the spouse or partner, as well as having a financial interpretation, has implications for home time, as discussed earlier in
connection with the US literature. Dual-earner couples are expected to face
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a time squeeze on home time resulting from their high combined working
hours.
Control Variables for the Analysis
Variables were included in the analysis to control for aspects of the workplace and of individual circumstances that could affect negative job-to-home
spillover.
A potentially important workplace variable is the exercise of arbitrary or
discretionary power by the supervisor, which has been interpreted as part of
the simple or drive system of labour control (Edwards 1979). The item used
here asked whether the supervisor treats some people better than others,
and a positive response is indicative of the abuse of discretionary power.
In Schors (1991) discussion, job insecurity is assumed to be one of the
drivers of longer working hours. Indicators of security in our analysis were
the employees job tenure in months, and its square (to capture nonlinearity);
and a single item reporting whether (as perceived by the employee) the size
of the organizations workforce had increased, decreased or remained stable
over the previous three years.
The other workplace variable included in the analysis was whether trade
unions were recognized. Individual control variables were: age and its square;
social class a seven-category version of the EricksonGoldthorpe class
schema (Erickson and Goldthorpe 1993); hours worked in a second job (0
if no second job); whether individuals had a non-financial commitment to
employment; and whether individuals used IT in their jobs. All analyses were
produced separately for men and women.

5. Analysis procedure
The analysis was devised with the aim of testing the hypotheses concerning
workplace practices, individual circumstances and negative job-to-home
spillover. For this purpose regression modelling, with its capability of estimating the independent effects of each explanatory variable, provides an
appropriate framework. The main technical issue is how to scale the dependent variable. Three variant forms of scaling were used to assess the sensitivity of results to this choice. (i) The three items were summed to produce
an assumed interval scale, which had a range of 13 points, and this scale was
used in OLS (linear) regression models. (ii) The 13 points of the summative
variable were treated as an ordinal scale (a weaker measurement assumption),
and this was used in ordered probit models. (iii) A principal components
factor analysis was conducted on the three items (each assumed to be
measured on an interval scale), and the derived factor score was used as the
dependent variable. This method weights the items in accordance with their
contributions to the assumed underlying common factor, rather than giving
them equal weight, and generates a closer approximation to a continuous
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variable than does version (i). The factor-scored dependent variable was used
under OLS regression models.
The important result from this series of variant analyses was that the
results were qualitatively the same across all three, with no substantial difference in the significance level of any explanatory variable. Thus, the analysis was not sensitive to the choice of scaling. Also, the customary diagnostics
showed the residuals in the OLS models to be approximately normally distributed. In the following, only the results using the variable derived from the
principal component analysis (iii) are presented. Results of the above variant
analyses, and of other results referred to subsequently but not reported in
full because of space limitations, may be obtained from the first-named
author.
The results are derived from four regression models, which were estimated
separately for the sub-samples: women in 1992, women in 2000, men in 1992,
and men in 2000. The availability of the two surveys makes it possible to
assess whether the relationships of the high-performance management practices to negative spillover were changing over this period. This could occur,
for instance, through the wider diffusion of practices or through qualitative
changes in their application.
Standard errors in all the models were computed by a robust estimator (the
HuberWhite estimator), which takes account of the complex survey design
and of heteroscedasticity. (For explanation of robust estimation, see Skinner
1989: 2358.)

6. Results
Table 1 shows the descriptive statistics for the explanatory variables. These
are of interest in indicating whether the prevalence of hypothesized influences
on negative spillover was changing over the period. Average hours worked
were nearly two hours higher in the sample of 2000 than in 1992, but this
should be regarded with caution, as it is not supported by analysis of the
Labour Force Survey (see also Green 2001). We can however say with confidence, based on these surveys and the LFS, that average hours of work did
not fall over the period.
Of the high-performance practices, the appraisal index remained static
across the surveys, but three of the four group-working practices showed a
clear increase, as did three of the five performance-related pay practices. This
is part of a steady diffusion of HRM practices over the period, which we
have documented elsewhere (White 2001). Among the working time practices,
only one participation in a flexible hours system rose appreciably,
although overall the rigid setting of hours by employers decreased.
Turning to individual circumstances, we find that the proportion of people
working primarily from financial necessity has fallen slightly. There was a
slightly higher proportion with a dependent child in the 2000 sample, but also
more people without a spouse or partner. The proportion of dual-earner
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TABLE 1
Descriptive Statistics for the Dependent and Explanatory Variables
2000

Index of jobhome
negative spillover
Actual hours/week
Appraisal index
Work in group
Effort determined
by co-workers
Take part in work
improvement group
Group PRP
Profit sharing
Individual PRP
Workplace PRP
Effort determined
by pay incentives
Merit increases
Start/finish times
Fixed by emplr*
Have choice
Flexible hours
Own discretion
Work from financial
necessity
Age of youngest child
None*
02
34
511
1215
Marital status
No partner*
One-earner couple
Two-earner couple

1992

Mean or
proportion

s.d.

Mean or
proportion

s.d.

7.72

2.776

7.20

2.952

37.79
2.195
0.582
0.338

13.692
1.950

36.39
2.176
0.460
0.356

12.440
1.949

0.304

0.205

0.170
0.150
0.221
0.260
0.243

0.054
0.157
0.153
0.215
0.183

0.373

0.378

0.537
0.133
0.222
0.108
0.597

0.601
0.113
0.173
0.113
0.641

0.579
0.109
0.058
0.162
0.093

0.615
0.093
0.052
0.159
0.081

0.296
0.125
0.580

0.247
0.154
0.598

The sample size for the analysis in 2000 is 1915 and for the analysis in 1992 is 1474.
* Indicates reference category in OLS analysis.
+
This is the simple summative scale; the factor score variable is standardized with mean 0 and
standard deviation 1.

couples changed little, but single-earner couples decreased as a proportion of

the sample while the proportion of single people increased.
We now turn to the results of the four regression models. Estimates are
shown in Table 2 for the hypothesized explanatory variables. Also shown are
the estimates relating to fairness of supervision, which (although designated
a control variable) turned out to provide information of interpretative value.
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TABLE 2
Models of Negative Job-to-home Spillover
Women

Men

1992

2000

1992

2000

Weekly hours

0.020
(4.50)**

0.022
(6.41)**

0.023
(6.20)**

0.026
(8.84)**

Appraisals index
(scored 05)

0.080
(3.45)**

0.040
(2.07)*

0.051
(2.36)*

0.034
(1.80)+

Take part in work

improvement group

-0.071
(0.72)

0.117
(1.74)+

0.072
(0.80)

0.012
(0.17)

Work in group/team

0.002
(0.02)

-0.001
(0.03)

0.001
(0.01)

-0.005
(0.07)

Co-workers influence
effort

0.152
(1.99)*

0.072
(1.07)

-0.056
(0.74)

0.143
(1.88)+

Have group PRP

-0.131
(0.41)

0.247
(2.11)*

0.016
(0.10)

-0.037
(0.33)

Pay incentives
influence effort

-0.064
(0.55)

0.008
(0.10)

0.186
(2.40)*

0.160
(2.12)*

Have individual PRP

-0.052
(0.40)

0.026
(0.30)

-0.260
(2.76)**

-0.089
(1.06)

Have workplace or
organizational PRP

0.117
(0.87)

0.016
(0.19)

0.072
(0.99)

-0.030
(0.32)

Have profit-sharing
or share scheme

-0.241
(2.16)*

-0.018
(0.16)

-0.019
(0.24)

0.003
(0.03)

Pay increases based

on effort/performance

-0.013
(0.16)

0.043
(0.68)

-0.057
(0.73)

-0.071
(0.96)

Choose work times

from set list

0.196
(1.72)+

0.001
(0.02)

0.176
(1.68)+

-0.065
(0.57)

Have flexible hours

system

-0.079
(0.72)

-0.174
(2.12)*

0.004
(0.05)

-0.080
(0.94)

Decide own starting

and finishing times

0.210
(1.55)

0.155
(1.21)

0.556
(5.11)**

-0.215
(1.99)*

Work mainly from

financial necessity

0.070
(1.02)

0.143
(2.53)*

-0.045
(0.52)

0.101
(1.52)

Youngest child aged

02

0.440
(3.39)**

0.308
(2.59)**

0.246
(2.03)*

0.056
(0.58)

Youngest child aged

34

0.675
(4.36)**

0.402
(2.65)**

0.365
(2.98)**

0.167
(1.15)

Youngest child aged

511

0.350
(3.11)**

0.311
(2.93)**

0.582
(5.58)**

0.136
(1.29)

Youngest child aged

1215

0.239
(1.85)+

0.163
(1.76)+

0.216
(1.76)+

0.152
(1.13)

One-earner couple

0.276
(2.18)*

0.236
(2.04)*

0.508
(4.86)**

0.376
(3.63)**

Dual-earner couple

0.183
(2.13)*

0.070
(1.00)

0.386
(4.13)**

0.100
(1.12)

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Table 2 (contd )
Women

Supervisor treats
people the same
Constant
Observations
Adjusted R-squared

Men

1992

2000

1992

2000

-0.166
(2.25)*
-1.71
(2.81)**

-0.258
(4.14)**
-1.06
(2.10)**

0.014
(0.18)
-0.89
(1.85)+

-0.162
(2.37)*
-1.78
(3.08)
914
0.21

718
0.24

1001
0.24

756
0.31

Dependent variable is the factor score derived from three items relating to negative job-to-home
spillover (see text for further explanation). OLS regression models with robust variance estimator. Cell entries are the estimated coefficients, with t-statistics (absolute values) in parentheses
below.
+
Significant at 10%; * significant at 5%; ** significant at 1%.
PRP = performance-related pay. The following control variables were also included in all
analyses: hours worked in second job; age; age-squared; tenure; tenure-squared; 7 social class
dummies; trade union representation dummy; 3 dummies for change of size of workplace in past
3 years; use of IT in job (dummy); non-financial work commitment (dummy).

For reasons of space we do not show the results for the other control variables, but they can be obtained from the first-named author.
Employers Practices: Hours Worked
The results show that negative job-to-home spillover increased with additional hours worked, to a similar degree for both women and men, and to a
similar degree in both 1992 and 2000. Indeed, actual hours worked proved
to be by far the strongest explanatory variable in this analysis: when omitted
in variant analyses, adjusted R2 values fell by nearly one-half. This relationship between hours and negative spillover was, of course, net of any correlation with the various work control and time control practices included
in the model. The strength and stability of the relationship between hours
worked and negative job-to-home spillover testifies to the importance of
working hours practices within the workplace. Whatever changes have
occurred in the workplace during the 1990s, they have done nothing to reduce
the effects of hours worked on negative spillover.
Employers Practices: Appraisals, Group Working and
Performance-Related Pay
The results also confirm that Britains worklife balance problem is not
simply a matter of working hours. We find clear evidence that highperformance practices are an important, if previously ignored, source of
negative spillover, even after controlling for working hours.
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189

In particular, appraisal systems had a clear effect on increasing negative

spillover for both men and women, and this extended across both years, albeit
with smaller coefficients, and a fall in significance to the 10 per cent level for
men, in 2000. Other theoretically significant results concerned group or team
motivational practices. There was some tendency for group-orientated practices to have an increased relationship with this form of workfamily conflict
in 2000, which suggests that group-working practices are playing a larger role
in work demands. Gender differences are also evident. For men, being in a
situation where co-workers controlled work effort resulted in more negative
spillover in 2000. For women, there was a particularly large impact on
negative spillover in 2000 if they participated in a group incentive scheme.
Women were also adversely affected, in 2000, if they took part in a work
improvement group; although the coefficient was significant only at the 10
per cent level, the sign had also changed over the period. On the other hand,
women in 1992 had more negative spillover if their co-workers influenced
their work effort: this effect had become non-significant by 2000.
There were also changes over time in the impact of performance-related
payment systems on job-to-home spillover. In 1992, men receiving individually based bonuses had less negative spillover than other men, a finding consistent with much of the older research showing that incentive workers were
often able to gain control over work demands (e.g. Lupton 1963; Roy 1952).
By 2000, however, this relationship had become smaller and non-significant.
A similar pattern was observed for women in respect of profit-sharing or
share-option schemes, which reduced negative spillover in 1992 but not in
2000. Finally, men who reported that pay incentives (of any kind) had an
important influence on their work effort were more likely to experience
negative spillover in both years.
Overall, ten of the estimates relating to the selected high-performance practices were significant at least at the 10 per cent level (eight at the 5 per cent
level), and with positive sign that is, they increased negative spillover, as
hypothesized. Two of the estimates were significant with negative sign, contrary to hypothesis, but both of these occurred in 1992 with a subsequent
shift towards the expected sign by 2000. The latter point, alongside other evidence, suggests that the hypothesized relationships may on balance have been
strengthening over time. In 1992 there were four significant and positive coefficients, while in 2000 there were six.
Employers Practices: Hours of Work and Flexible Hours
The effects of individual flexibility and discretion over hours in ameliorating
negative spillover were partly as hypothesized, but not altogether consistent.
Consistent with our hypothesis, taking part in a flexible hours system significantly reduced negative spillover for women in 2000, while making no
difference either way to men. Contrary to our hypothesis, however, having
discretion to decide ones own working times was positively signed though
non-significant for women in both years, and was both positive and
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British Journal of Industrial Relations

significant for men in 1992, suggesting that men at that time used their
discretion chiefly to impose more work demands on themselves. By 2000,
however, this was no longer the case: the relationship for men had moved
significantly in the negative direction, with discretion over hours being linked
to a reduction in negative spillover (p < 0.05). This was the largest single
change over time observed in this set of analyses, and one that suggests an
important shift in the male perspective.
Connected with the issue of individual discretion over work-times is that
of supervisory discretion. The fairness or unfairness of the supervisor is an
important influence on negative spillover over the entire period for women
(with an increasing coefficient), and in 2000 for men. When the supervisor is
seen as fair, negative spillover is lower; when the supervisor is seen as unfair,
the reverse applies. These results suggest that supervisory equity is becoming
increasingly important as an influence on spillover between work and home.
Individual and Family Circumstances
All the variables concerning individual and family circumstances produced
significant effects on negative spillover, and some of these results were not as
hypothesized. Consistent with our hypothesis, working from financial necessity was significantly linked to negative spillover for women in 2000, although
this did not hold in 1992. For male employees the sign of the coefficient was
moving in the same direction across surveys, although the change was not
statistically significant.
The general assumption in the time-squeeze literature, which we have
adopted as a hypothesis, is that dual-earner families are most adversely
affected by work demands. In the present analysis, however, those in dualearner couples consistently reported less negative spillover than those in
single-earner situations, although this difference was statistically significant
only for men in 2000. In other words, it was the single-earner couples that
had the highest levels of negative spillover.
The analyses provided little support for the idea that negative spillover has
been exacerbated by parents child-centred values. Indeed, children were
becoming less central to negative spillover over the decade. By 2000, mens
experience of negative spillover appeared unaffected by the age of the
youngest child a marked change from 1992. It is true that womens sense
of negative spillover was much affected by having young children, but this
influence was also tending to weaken somewhat by 2000. The overall impression is that concern for time with children is playing a decreasing part in the
experience of negative job-to-home spillover.

7. Summary and conclusions

The analyses were designed to test hypotheses about the role of workplace
practices, hours of work and individual circumstances in relation to negative
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191

job-to-home spillover. The results show that actual hours worked are the
largest influence, with little change between 1992 and 2000; but negative
spillover is also affected by a range of workplace practices, albeit with considerable differences between male and female employees. Appraisal systems,
group-based forms of work organization and individual incentives all contribute to the imposition of the public sphere on the private. Flexible hours
systems and personal discretion over starting and finishing times tend to
reduce the problem, especially in 2000.
Alongside individual discretion over working time, the way supervisors use
their discretion is also of increasing importance, for good or ill. With regard
to individual circumstances, external financial pressures are becoming
increasingly significant although the overall impact of children (or of child
development values) is decreasing. Surprisingly, there is no indication that
dual-earner couples are more affected by workfamily spillover than singleearner couples: if anything, the reverse applies. Thus, two of the main
explanations in the existing literature for negative spillover on the individual
side are not supported, whereas employers workplace practices are found to
play a significant and perhaps a growing role.
In devising this analysis of worklife balance, we were guided largely by
debates in the United States concerning increasing working hours and the
time squeeze, which we juxtaposed with the literature on high-performance
management practices. The results of our analysis indicate that some of the
claims from the time-squeeze literature are not supported, while our decision
to incorporate a selection of practices associated with various highperformance models has been vindicated. In relation to the latter, our
evidence clearly shows that employees do not always benefit from highperformance work practices. As Ramsay and colleagues argued (Ramsay et
al. 2000: 521), advocates of high-performance management best practice
models should take care when proclaiming the unitarist assumption that
everyone gains from managerial innovation (e.g. Appelbaum et al. 2000: 228).
Ideas about dual-earner and single-earner families also seem in need of
revision. Dual-earner families do not experience more workfamily spillover
problems than single-earner families: among men, in 2000 it was clearly
the reverse that applied. This counterintuitive finding requires us to reconceptualize the nature of workfamily spillover, since we can no longer
simplistically assume that it is an inverse function of the couples home time.
So, what might explain this surprising result?
One possibility is that the average earner in the single-earner couple works
longer hours to make up for only having one wage; and that it is the earners
home time, not the couples, that matters. However, neither the means nor the
dispersions of hours differ appreciably between employees in the singleearner and dual-earner situations, so this possibility must be rejected.
Another possibility is that additional resources available to dual-earner
couples enable them to offset the time squeeze by putting domestic activities
out to the market (in the form of cleaners, childminders, nurseries and outof-school clubs, etc.). Finally, those in dual-career households may select or
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British Journal of Industrial Relations

remain in jobs that have less negative spillover precisely because both partners wish to have careers. Female partners, in particular, may be less inclined
to take demanding jobs, given that they still do most of the domestic labour
(Gershuny 2000: 1657). Other interpretations are also possible (see e.g.
Clarkberg and Moen 2001: 11279). Obviously, these are issues requiring
further research.
Policy responses to the findings will need to take account of the strength
of the forces arrayed, so to speak, against workfamily or worklife balance.
Of paramount importance is policy to regulate working hours, since these
exert the strongest influence by far on negative work-to-home spillover.
However, a further and complex policy issue arises from the various highperformance practices that have become more prevalent over the past decade,
and are now shown to be an additional and independent source of
workfamily spillover. If these practices continue to diffuse, they will lead to
further work intensification and the creation of more severe pressures on
home life. Some individuals or couples will of course be able to develop alternative worklifestyles and walk away from pressurized employment, but our
findings do not encourage complacency on this score. Too many employees
are constrained in their choices by financial pressures.
Against this opposition, flexible and family-friendly practices to promote
the worklife balance look feeble by comparison. Flexible hours systems
and personal discretion over time clearly enable employees to have a more
balanced lifestyle, even if these practices are currently enjoyed by only small
proportions of the labour force (22 and 11 per cent, respectively). Men, in
particular, seem to have become increasingly willing to use such practices to
reduce spillover, which suggests that there may be a latent demand for such
policies among male employees. Yet the effects of such flexible hours polices
are small in comparison with the effects of Britains long working hours and
of steadily diffusing high-performance practices. It is also more disquieting
than comforting to note that by the year 2000 the ability of supervisors
to influence negative spillover, for better or worse, had grown; the more so
when 43 per cent of employees felt that their supervisor did not treat all
employees fairly. When supervisors are increasingly relied upon to intervene,
it is a reasonable inference that systems of workplace regulation are failing
to cope.
A more fundamental approach would be for employers to look inside each
of their working practices, and seek an improved design that builds in safeguards for the worklife balance. Work teams, for example, could themselves
be charged with addressing worklife balance issues when setting output
targets for their members. This admittedly untried suggestion contrasts with
the prevalent approach, which is to embrace high-performance practices even
if they have adverse consequences, while seeking separate means of damage
limitation such as flexible hours. Practices such as appraisal systems, teamworking and performance-related pay need to be reviewed in such a way as
to respect and value the diversity of life circumstances and worklife
preferences among employees. This is an inherently difficult project, but the
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High-performance Management Practices

193

chances for substantially improving the worklife balance in its absence seem
slender.
Final version accepted 3 January 2003.

Acknowledgements
The research for this paper was financed under Grant no. L212252037 of the
ESRC Future of Work programme and by the Work Foundation (previously
the Industrial Society). The survey Working in Britain 2000 was conducted
by NFO System Three Social Research to the project teams design, under
the direction of Bruce Hayward. We are grateful to the interviewers and to
those who gave of their time for the interview. We would also like to thank
the referees and the editors of this special edition for their comments.

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