Revisiting the 'flexibility paradox': degree of work schedule flexibility and time use patterns across gender and occupational groups

The study investigates whether flexible work schedules help balance work and non-work time or, paradoxically, lead to longer working hours. Despite growth in flexible arrangements—especially during COVID-19—evidence is mixed. Existing research often relies on stylised survey measures of time use, treats schedule flexibility as a binary construct, and insufficiently examines heterogeneity across gender and occupational class, all of which may obscure important nuances. This study addresses these gaps by: (1) distinguishing limited flexible schedules with core hours from unlimited flexible schedules without core hours and examining their associations with daily time use (paid work, unpaid work, personal care, free time); and (2) assessing whether these associations differ by gender and occupational class, given well-established gendered and class-differentiated time use patterns and cultural norms.

Flexible schedules and the 'flexibility paradox': Governments and organizations promote flexible schedules to support work–family balance, aiming to increase free time, maintain work–life boundaries, and improve well-being. Some studies suggest schedule flexibility facilitates balance and well-being by enabling temporal control and reducing conflicts; others document longer paid and unpaid work time among flexible workers—the 'flexibility paradox.' Prior work often uses stylised time-use measures and overlooks heterogeneity across types of flexibility and social groups. Degree of schedule flexibility and time use: The degree of flexibility is a critical but understudied dimension. The study distinguishes limited flexibility (with core hours) from unlimited flexibility (without core hours). The Job Demand–Control (JDC) model predicts a linear benefit of higher schedule control for well-being and time balance. In contrast, temporal regularity and work–family border theories argue that unlimited control may blur boundaries and increase conflicts, recommending some rigidity to protect non-work time. No prior empirical work has explicitly contrasted degrees of schedule flexibility in relation to diary-based time use. Gender and occupational differences: Time use is gendered and class-differentiated. Time availability theory predicts flexible schedules could reduce gender gaps by increasing women’s paid work and men’s unpaid work. Conversely, gender structure and doing gender perspectives suggest flexibility may reinforce traditional norms (men prioritizing paid work; women shouldering more unpaid work). Occupational class may moderate flexibility’s impacts: lower-class workers may use flexibility to increase paid hours (due to precarity and weaker bargaining power), sacrificing free time; higher-class workers may also work longer to reciprocate employer ‘gifts,’ though evidence is mixed. Intersectional dynamics of gender and class may shape these effects, yet prior empirical tests are scarce.

Data: UK Time Use Survey (UKTUS) 2014/2015, nationally representative. Respondents completed two 24-hour diaries across 144 ten-minute episodes (one weekday, one weekend day), plus an interview on socio-demographics. Sample: Adults in paid employment on typical workdays. Exclusions: weekend and non-work days; diaries with missing key measures. Final analytic sample: 1,933 employees with complete diaries; regression models report N ≈ 1,929 due to listwise deletion. Measures: - Dependent variables (minutes/day, primary activities from diaries): paid work (including work-related travel), unpaid work (household care, childcare, routine/non-routine housework), personal care (sleeping, grooming, dressing), free time (all remaining non-work, non-care activities). - Key independent variable: type of schedule flexibility (categorical): no flexible schedules; limited flexible schedules (with fixed core hours, e.g., 10:00–15:00, M–F, schedule choice outside core); unlimited flexible schedules (without core hours; full schedule control). - Moderators/confounders: Occupational class (NS-SEC three-category: high/professional-managerial; middle/intermediate; low/routine-manual). Controls: age, gender, logged monthly household income, presence of children <16, general health status. Analytic approach: Weighted analyses to account for complex survey design. Descriptive statistics by flexibility type. Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regressions estimate associations between flexibility type and time-use outcomes, with controls. Interaction terms test moderation by occupational class and gender; three-way interactions assess intersections of gender × class × flexibility. Multicollinearity diagnostics acceptable (all VIF < 5).

Descriptive patterns (Table 1): - Flexibility use: 69% no flexible schedules; 23% limited; 8% unlimited. - Those with any flexibility, on average, report less paid work and personal care, more unpaid work, and more free time than those without flexibility (unadjusted). Main effects (Table 2; OLS with controls; minutes per weekday): - Limited flexible schedules vs none: - Paid work: −17.32 (SE 8.58), p<0.05 - Unpaid work: +2.95 (SE 4.36), n.s. - Personal care: −2.17 (SE 5.97), n.s. - Free time: +16.53 (SE 8.37), p<0.05 - Unlimited flexible schedules vs none: - Paid work: −28.99 (SE 15.21), n.s. - Unpaid work: +16.70 (SE 7.03), p<0.05 - Personal care: −4.50 (SE 9.98), n.s. - Free time: +16.79 (SE 13.54), n.s. Moderation by occupational class (Table 3, Panel A): - Limited flexibility × high class: - Paid work: −52.79 (SE 23.04), p<0.05 - Free time: +64.39 (SE 23.03), p<0.01 - No significant moderation by class for unpaid work or personal care. Unlimited flexibility interactions largely non-significant. Moderation by gender (Table 3, Panel B): - Gender does not significantly moderate the effects of limited or unlimited flexibility on time use overall. Three-way intersections and gendered class differences (Table 4; Figs. 1–2; Supplementary): - Men: Limited flexibility interacts strongly with class: - Paid work (ref: low-class men). Limited flexibility main effect: +58.70 (SE 23.37), p<0.05 for low-class men, indicating more paid work; interactions indicate reductions among higher classes: - × middle: −109.43 (SE 40.16), p<0.01 - × high: −95.76 (SE 27.91), p<0.001 - Free time (ref: low-class men). Limited flexibility main effect: −62.66 (SE 24.94), p<0.05 for low-class men; interactions indicate increases among higher classes: - × middle: +85.81 (SE 37.87), p<0.05 - × high: +112.96 (SE 30.52), p<0.001 - Interpretation: Limited flexibility benefits men in middle/high classes (less paid work, more free time) but is associated with longer paid hours and less free time for low-class men. - Women: Occupational class, not flexibility, primarily shapes paid work and free time; interactions between class and limited flexibility are not significant for women. Women in higher occupations have longer paid work and less free time than those in lower classes. - Unpaid work and personal care: Most interactions across gender and class are non-significant; one exception noted in supplementary results—unlimited flexibility associated with less unpaid work for men in middle-class vs low-class. Controls (Appendix): Women have shorter paid work and longer unpaid and personal care time than men; parents of children <16 have longer unpaid work, less paid work, and less free time; older respondents spend more time on unpaid work and free time; higher income correlates with more paid work and less unpaid work; poorer health associates with less paid work and more free time.

Findings address whether different degrees of schedule flexibility support work–nonwork balance and for whom. Limited flexible schedules (with core hours) are linked to shorter paid work and more free time overall, aligning with temporal regularity and work–family border theories that emphasize maintaining stable temporal rhythms and clearer boundaries. Unlimited flexibility does not significantly reduce paid work or increase free time and is associated with more unpaid work, reflecting potential boundary blurring and a flexibility paradox in the domestic domain. Crucially, benefits and drawbacks are unevenly distributed. Limited flexibility advantages men in higher occupational classes (less paid work, more free time), but appears detrimental for men in lower classes (more paid work, less free time), consistent with differences in bargaining power, job security, and risks of underemployment across classes. Gendered divisions of labor persist despite flexibility: women continue to spend more time in unpaid and personal care work, and flexibility does not close these gaps. For women, occupational class rather than flexibility type more strongly shapes paid work and free time. These results underscore the importance of disaggregating flexibility by degree and examining intersections of gender and class when evaluating flexible work policies.

This study advances debates on the flexibility paradox by leveraging diary-based UK time-use data to differentiate limited (with core hours) from unlimited (without core hours) schedule flexibility. Limited flexibility is associated with shorter paid work and greater free time, whereas unlimited flexibility is associated with more unpaid work and no clear gains in free time or reductions in paid work. Benefits of limited flexibility are concentrated among men in higher occupational classes, while men in lower classes may be disadvantaged, experiencing longer paid hours and reduced free time. Women’s time use remains shaped more by occupational class than by flexibility type, and traditional gender divisions persist. Policy implications include: recognizing heterogeneous impacts across social groups; targeting sectors with lower-income jobs for additional supports (e.g., social support, skills development); and promoting measures such as shared parental leave to reduce gender disparities. Ongoing evaluation and adjustments are needed to avoid exacerbating inequalities as flexible work policies expand. Future research should expand analyses to weekends/holidays, incorporate additional dimensions of schedule flexibility (formality, irregularity, place), consider household-level cross-over effects, integrate energy-use outcomes, and examine flexible scheduling in the context of widespread remote work during COVID-19.

- Time-use analyses focus on weekdays only; weekend/holiday patterns were not examined. - Other dimensions of flexibility (formality, schedule irregularity, place mobility) were not measured. - Analyses are at the individual level; cross-over effects within households (e.g., couples) were not assessed. - The study discusses implications for energy consumption but does not directly analyze energy-relevant outcomes. - COVID-19-era time-use data with explicit flexible working measures were unavailable for the UK; remote work interactions with flexibility during the pandemic were not analyzed.