IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/vrs/finprj/v4y2018i2p51-68n1003.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Flexible Work: Barrier to Benefits?

Author

Listed:
  • Laundon Melinda

  • Williams Penny

Abstract

The Australian financial services industry has been a leader in offering flexible work policies, positioning them as a solution to the tensions between women’s dual work and family roles. While Australian legislation provides the right to request flexible work, this study uncovers how, in one finance organisation, flexible work is framed as an employee benefit within a suite of benefits. The study shows that employees using flexible work arrangements are less likely to understand and know how to access the full range of benefits, many of which have short- and longterm financial implications. This has consequences for the long-term financial security of women (as the heaviest users of flexible work arrangements) and for financial planners, both as employees of organisations in the Australian finance industry and as providers of advice to women working in this sector.

Suggested Citation

  • Laundon Melinda & Williams Penny, 2018. "Flexible Work: Barrier to Benefits?," Financial Planning Research Journal, Sciendo, vol. 4(2), pages 51-68.
    • Handle: RePEc:vrs:finprj:v:4:y:2018:i:2:p:51-68:n:1003
    DOI: 10.2478/fprj-2018-0007
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.2478/fprj-2018-0007
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.2478/fprj-2018-0007?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Colin P. Green & Gareth D. Leeves, 2013. "Job Security, Financial Security and Worker Well-being: New Evidence on the Effects of Flexible Employment," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 60(2), pages 121-138, May.
    2. Anup K. Basu & Michael E. Drew, 2009. "The Case for Gender‐Sensitive Superannuation Plan Design," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 42(2), pages 177-189, June.
    3. M. Haley & Laurie Miller, 2015. "Correlates of flexible working arrangements, stress, and sleep difficulties in the US workforce: does the flexibility of the flexibility matter?," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 48(4), pages 1395-1418, June.
    4. Mirko Draca & Colin Green, 2004. "The Incidence and Intensity of Employer Funded Training: Australian Evidence on the Impact of Flexible Work," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 51(5), pages 609-625, November.
    5. Lusardi, Annamaria & Mitchell, Olivia S. & Curto, Vilsa, 2014. "Financial literacy and financial sophistication in the older population," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 13(4), pages 347-366, October.
    6. Yuile, Colleen & Chang, Artemis & Gudmundsson, Amanda & Sawang, Sukanlaya, 2012. "The role of life friendly policies on employees' work-life balance," Journal of Management & Organization, Cambridge University Press, vol. 18(1), pages 53-63, January.
    7. Inge Noback & Lourens Broersma & Jouke Dijk, 2016. "Climbing the Ladder: Gender-Specific Career Advancement in Financial Services and the Influence of Flexible Work-Time Arrangements," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 54(1), pages 114-135, March.
    8. Tay K. McNamara & Marcie Pitt-Catsouphes & Melissa Brown & Christina Matz-Costa, 2012. "Access to and Utilization of Flexible Work Options," Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(4), pages 936-965, October.
    9. Urvi Neelakantan & Yunhee Chang, 2010. "Gender Differences in Wealth at Retirement," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(2), pages 362-367, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Daniel W Richards & Helen Roberts & Rosalind H Whiting, 2020. "Female financial advisers: Where art thou?," Australian Journal of Management, Australian School of Business, vol. 45(4), pages 624-644, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Robert J. Bianchi & Michael E. Drew & Adam N. Walk & Osei K. Wiafe, 2016. "Retirement Adequacy of Indigenous Australians: A Baseline Study," Economic Papers, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 35(4), pages 359-374, December.
    2. Inga Laß & Mark Wooden, 2019. "The Structure of the Wage Gap for Temporary Workers: Evidence from Australian Panel Data," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 57(3), pages 453-478, September.
    3. Inga Laß, 2020. "The Effects of Non-standard Employment on the Transition to Parenthood Within Couples: A Comparison of Germany and Australia," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 36(5), pages 843-874, November.
    4. Bottazzi, Laura & Lusardi, Annamaria, 2021. "Stereotypes in financial literacy: Evidence from PISA," Journal of Corporate Finance, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    5. Colin P. Green & John S. Heywood, 2011. "Flexible Contracts And Subjective Well‐Being," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 49(3), pages 716-729, July.
    6. Mariacristina Rossi & Eva Sierminska, 2014. "Single again? Asset and portfolio changes due to widowhood shock," CeRP Working Papers 146, Center for Research on Pensions and Welfare Policies, Turin (Italy).
    7. Plamen Nikolov & Steve Yeh, 2021. "Reaping the Rewards Later: How Education Improves Old-Age Cognition in South Africa," Papers 2109.02177, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2021.
    8. Fabrizio Mazzonna & Franco Peracchi, 2018. "Self-assessed cognitive ability and financial wealth: Are people aware of their cognitive decline?," EIEF Working Papers Series 1808, Einaudi Institute for Economics and Finance (EIEF), revised Sep 2018.
    9. Kemal Temel & Yener Pazarcık, 2022. "The Results of Work Models Applied During the COVID-19 Pandemic," Istanbul Management Journal, Istanbul University Business School, vol. 0(92), pages 1-28, June.
    10. Zhou, Jun & Korkmaz, Aslihan Gizem & Li, Youwei & Yue, Pengpeng & Yan, Yuhan, 2025. "The sword of damocles: Debt and depression," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 98(C).
    11. repec:osf:osfxxx:6cwk7_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Francesco Bartolucci & Aleksandra Baschina & Giovanni S. F. Bruno & Olga Demidova & Marcello Signorelli, 2015. "Determinants of Job Satisfaction in Young Russian Workers," Discussion Papers 7_2015, CRISEI, University of Naples "Parthenope", Italy.
    13. Dylla, Carolin & Ries, Dorothea & Schütt, Karolina, 2024. "Is there no women in investment?," IPE Working Papers 236/2024, Berlin School of Economics and Law, Institute for International Political Economy (IPE).
    14. Avram, Silvia, 2020. "Zero-hours contracts: flexibility or insecurity? Experimental evidence from a low income population," ISER Working Paper Series 2020-10, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    15. Alyssa Schneebaum & Miriam Rehm & Katharina Mader & Patricia Klopf & Katarina Hollan, 2014. "The Gender Wealth Gap in Europe," Department of Economics Working Papers wuwp186, Vienna University of Economics and Business, Department of Economics.
    16. Amit Kaplan & Anat Herbst-Debby, 2018. "Fragile Employment, Liquid Love: Employment Instability and Divorce in Israel," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 37(1), pages 1-31, February.
    17. Amina Ahmed Lahsen & Alan T. Piper, 2019. "Property rights and intellectual property protection, GDP growth and individual well-being in Latin America," Latin American Economic Review, Springer;Centro de Investigaciòn y Docencia Económica (CIDE), vol. 28(1), pages 1-21, December.
    18. Paladino, Giovanna, 2022. "Quanto conta il modo in cui viene posta la domanda? Un’analisi dell’effetto “framing” sul livello di alfabetizzazione finanziaria in Italia [Does the question wording matter? A study of the framing," MPRA Paper 111527, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. M. Ryan Haley & Laurie Miller, 2023. "Predicting preferences for flexible working arrangements in future employment: A gender analysis," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 43(2), pages 882-893.
    20. Plamen Nikolov & Steve Yeh, 2021. "Reaping the Rewards Later: How Education Improves Old-Age Cognition in South Africa," Working Papers 2021-045, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    21. Timothy Kyng & David Pitt & Sachi Purcal & Jinhui Zhang, 2021. "Financial `metrics for comparing Australian retirement villages," Accounting and Finance, Accounting and Finance Association of Australia and New Zealand, vol. 61(4), pages 5581-5611, December.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:vrs:finprj:v:4:y:2018:i:2:p:51-68:n:1003. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.sciendo.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.