[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":3,"doc-seo-503914-105":59,"doc-detail-503914-en":130},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",[7,13,18,23,28,33,38,43,48,51,55],{"id":8,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":10,"show_sort_weight":11,"slug":12},1,"Document","Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":14,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":15,"show_sort_weight":16,"slug":17},2,"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":19,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":20,"show_sort_weight":21,"slug":22},4,"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":24,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":25,"show_sort_weight":26,"slug":27},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":29,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":30,"show_sort_weight":31,"slug":32},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":34,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":35,"show_sort_weight":36,"slug":37},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":39,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":40,"show_sort_weight":41,"slug":42},8,"Research & Report",30,"research-report",{"id":44,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":45,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":47},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":46,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":49,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":50},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":52,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":53,"show_sort_weight":52,"slug":54},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":56,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":57,"show_sort_weight":24,"slug":58},19,"General","general",{"code":4,"msg":60,"data":61},"ok",{"site_id":62,"language":63,"slug":64,"title":65,"keywords":66,"description":67,"schema_data":68,"social_meta":123,"head_meta":125,"extra_data":127,"updated_unix":129},105,"en","family-friendly-policies-and-equal-opportunities-a-contradiction-in-terms","Family-friendly policies and equal opportunities: a contradiction in terms?","","This paper presents findings from a research study of a large public sector organisation’s strategy to promote gender equality and family friendliness. Analysis of policy documentation and a staff questionnaire covering women and men across professional, technical, administrative, secretarial, cleaning, catering, and security roles inform the results. The study examines knowledge, perceived impacts, and suggestions for development, while also exploring views on gender equality within society and their connection to resistance to change.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":40,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/family-friendly-policies-and-equal-opportunities-a-contradiction-in-terms/503914/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/family-friendly-policies-and-equal-opportunities-a-contradiction-in-terms/503914.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Taylor Morgan","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-17","2026-10-03",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":44},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"What is the paper’s main research focus?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"It investigates a public sector organisation’s strategy combining gender equality and family-friendliness, using policy document analysis and an organisation-wide staff questionnaire.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"How were employees’ views gathered and analyzed?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"The study examined staff across multiple job categories using a questionnaire with both closed and open-ended questions, assessing knowledge of the strategy, perceived impacts, and suggestions for improvement.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"Does the paper argue that EO/FF policies affect all employees equally?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"No. It discusses existing research suggesting effects can vary by sub-population factors such as gender, age, and family development stage, and it highlights disagreements about universality.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},503914,1791061792,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":39,"category_name":40,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":44,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":139,"language":140,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":141,"faqs":142,"seo_title":143,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":144,"read_time":145},1099523885336,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_276721f389ce27ea32af1340a28f341c","British Journal of Guidance & Counselling, Vol. 34, No. 3, August 2006  \nFamily-friendly policies and equal opportunities: a contradiction in terms?  \nBARBARA BAGILHOLE  \nDepartment of Social Sciences, Loughborough University, Leicestershire, LE11 3TU, UK;  \nemail: [b.m.bagilhole@lboro.ac.uk](b.m.bagilhole@lboro.ac.uk)  \nABSTRACT This paper presents the findings from a research study of one large public sector organisation’s strategy to promote gender equality and family friendliness. An examination was made of the organisation’s policy documentation in this area and a questionnaire survey containing both closed and open-ended questions was undertaken across all staff in the organisation: women and men, professional, technical, administrative, secretarial, cleaning, catering and security staff. This paper reports the findings from this investigation. It analyses the informants’ knowledge of, and views on, the impact of the equal opportunities strategy, and any suggestions they had for its development. Also, their views on gender equality more generally within society were interrogated to explore any interconnection between these views and resistance to change within their organisation. By exposing the complex nature of this equal opportunities/family-friendly (EO/FF) project in one organisation, the findings have potentially interesting implications for gender equality, which could benefit from further investigation.  \nIntroduction  \nThere has been a recent surge of research, which has primarily focused on the positive benefits that family-friendly policies bring to the workplace (for example, Dex & Smith, 2002) . Specifically, it is argued that the availability of EO/FF policies within an organisation alleviates the conflict employees experience between work and personal life (Van Rijswick et al., 2004; Warren & Johnson, 1995) and facilitates abetter balance between the two spheres of life (Madsen, 2003; Tausig & Fenwick, 2001) . EO/FF policies are also reported to improve organisations’ competitiveness by increasing their ability to attract employees (Casper & Buffardi, 2004), inducing employees to exercise discretionary effort in performing their work (Konrad & Mangel, 2000) and helping them to be more productive (Eaton, 2003) .  \nOther research even suggests that EO/FF policies have a positive effect upon employee attitudes irrespective of whether they are likely to use them or not. For example, Grover and Crooker (1995) assessed the impact of child care and flexibility  \nISSN 0306-9885/print/ISSN 1469-3534/online/06/030327-17 \\# 2006 Careers Research and Advisory Centre DOI: 10.1080/03069880600769456  \n328 Barbara Bagilhole  \npolicies on the organisational commitment of parents and non-parents. They report that, whereas providing assistance with the costs of child care was not associated with higher commitment among either group, employees who had access to flexible working hours had greater affective commitment, irrespective of whether they were parents or not. Similarly, Casper and Buffardi (2004) report that EO/FF policies of flexibility and dependant care assistance increased employees’ commitment to the organisation even if they were unlikely to use these policies.  \nHowever, there is a lack of consensus about whether the positive effect of EO/FF policies is universal for all employees or whether the effect differs for particular subpopulations. Roehling et al. (2001) explored the effect of gender, age and stage of family development upon the extent to which EO/FF policies contribute to employee loyalty to their organisation. They report that flexible time policies are associated with increased loyalty for men and women at all life stages but that the impact of child care policies varied by employees’ gender and age of youngest child. McKeenand Burke (1994) found that women’s age and parental status affected the value they placed on different types of EO/FF policies. Blair-Loy and Wharton (2002) report that, in a hom","cbCaijPZyXXdXiLK","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaijPZyXXdXiLK","pdf",109105,18,"English","# Introduction\n## The positive benefits of EO/FF policies\n## Attitudes and employee commitment\n## Evidence of differential effects across sub-populations\n## Implementation effectiveness and organisational typologies","[{\"question\":\"What is the paper’s main research focus?\",\"answer\":\"It investigates a public sector organisation’s strategy combining gender equality and family-friendliness, using policy document analysis and an organisation-wide staff questionnaire.\"},{\"question\":\"How were employees’ views gathered and analyzed?\",\"answer\":\"The study examined staff across multiple job categories using a questionnaire with both closed and open-ended questions, assessing knowledge of the strategy, perceived impacts, and suggestions for improvement.\"},{\"question\":\"Does the paper argue that EO/FF policies affect all employees equally?\",\"answer\":\"No. It discusses existing research suggesting effects can vary by sub-population factors such as gender, age, and family development stage, and it highlights disagreements about universality.\"}]","Family-friendly policies and equal opportunities: a contradiction in terms? | PDF",1791061640,45]