Family-friendly organizational policies, practices, and benefits through the gender lens

Abstract

This chapter examines past literature on organizational family-supportive benefits and policies through the lens of gender. It focuses on three broad areas of research involving formal organizational benefits and policies. First, it addresses gender differences in employee perceptions and utilization of available family-friendly benefits and policies (e.g., Family and Medical Leave Act, telecommuting, flextime). Second, it examines whether policy availability and utilization differentially impacts male and female employee outcomes (e.g., psychological and physical wellbeing, work-family conflict/facilitation, family functioning, work engagement, counterproductive work behaviors). In light of previous research emphasizing the critical role of supervisors in shaping organizational work-family culture, the third focus centers around the interplay between supervisor gender and perceived supervisor supportiveness of employee family life (e.g., family-supportive supervisor behaviors). Thus, the chapter provides insight into the supervisor-employee dyad by examining the effect of gender combination (i.e., same-sex, male supervisor-female employee, female supervisor-male employee) on employee perceptions and utilization of family-friendly benefits. To help further contextualize the effect of gender, the chapter consistently addresses underlying individual characteristics (e.g., personality, marital status and other family-related factors) that may contribute to the existence of gender differences within the proposed areas of focus.