'Women’s work penalty' in the access to flexible working arrangements across Europe

Do women and workers in female dominated workplaces have better access to flexible working arrangements? Given women’s roles in caregiving and due to the ‘flexibility stigma’ that may come with the use of flexible working arrangements, women and workers in female-dominated workplaces are expected to have greater access. However, flexible working arrangements are also used for performance enhancing purposes, hence, following the gendered rewards/organisation literature, men and workers in male-dominated workplaces may actually have greater access. I examine workers’ access to schedule control across 27 European countries using the European Working Conditions Survey of 2010 to examine this question. I find that there are no discernible differences between men and women in their access to schedule control when individual and company level characteristics are taken into account. Men are less likely to have access to schedule control in male-dominated sectors/jobs, but for both men and women, especially for the latter, female-dominated jobs/sectors provided the least access. This 'women’s work penalty' found in female dominated sectors varies across European countries to a certain degree but in no country was the access better compared to sectors where both genders are equally represented. This raises concerns regarding the provision of good working conditions in disadvantaged workplaces, as well as the prevalence in gender gap in favourable working conditions in addition what is found for pay.