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New work-life reality raises equity and inclusion concerns, says Stanford sociologist

With work, school and family life all taking place in our homes, the challenges may be greater for women, according to a focus group consisting of corporate and nonprofit leaders convened by Stanford’s VMware Women’s Leadership Innovation Lab.

For the first time in modern history, three of our major social institutions – work, school and family life – are all happening in one physical place: our homes. And that shift may have a greater adverse effect on women according to Shelley Correll , professor of sociology in Stanford’s School of Humanities and Sciences .

Shelley Correll, sociologist and director of Stanford’s VMware Women’s Leadership Innovation Lab. (Image credit: Drew Kelly)

“Even in the best of times, the great majority of employees report experiencing conflict between the demands of work and the demands of family,” said Correll, who is the Michelle Mercer and Bruce Golden Family Professor of Women’s Leadership and director of the VMware Women’s Leadership Innovation Lab. “For heterosexual couples, resolving this conflict is decidedly gendered, with women continuing to perform significantly more housework and childcare, leaving men more time to focus on work.”

To better understand inclusion and equity concerns during the pandemic, Correll and her team recently convened a focus group of 27 leaders from the corporate and nonprofit sectors. “We were interested in understanding how the new work-family arrangements occasioned by the pandemic are affecting employees and what organizations are doing to support their employees during these challenging times,” she said.

Correll’s research centers on gender, workplace dynamics and organizational culture including biases and barriers that limit women’s full participation in society. Here, Correll discusses some of the findings from the group’s discussions.

What do employers need to understand about the challenges around work-life balance during the pandemic?

The first thing employers need to do is adjust expectations of what productivity looks like during this time. Some of the focus group participants shared how their organizations were canceling or deferring performance reviews, recognizing that it is not possible to evaluate performance against goals set prior to the pandemic.

Second, several participants expressed the need to “center the employee at this moment.” Employers shouldn’t assume there’s a single experience for their workforce. Some employees have young children to take care of, and these families vary in their circumstances and composition. Many are increasing eldercare responsibilities. Others may be feeling extreme isolation, and some are facing mental health challenges compounded by this crisis. Many are worried about family or community members “on the front lines.” And economic anxiety is being experienced across the spectrum.

Third, employers should arm managers to support their employees. A large body of research shows that having a supportive manager can lead to greater job satisfaction, engagement, performance and lower turnover. Several of our participants stressed that managers should “lead with empathy” and “model vulnerability” by openly sharing their own concerns and challenges.

What are the particular issues around inclusion and equity that are arising now?

Going to a fully virtual workforce is creating immediate challenges. Without clear norms for communication and managing airtime on platforms like Zoom, employers report that some employees feel less visible and less able to contribute. This reinforces status dynamics that tend to favor members of the majority and leave out the contributions of underrepresented employees. There’s also a danger of replacing the value we used to place on “face time” with “Zoom time,” even though some employees may not be in a position to show up at a certain virtual meeting time.

Another issue raised in the focus groups is that the fear associated with the pandemic is increasing prejudice and discrimination. For example, Asian employees are suffering from the increase in negative stereotypes that have led to hate crimes, fueled by racist rhetoric coming from our federal government.

There are also considerations around the perception of who is showing up to help the organization through this crisis and who is unable to because of their personal circumstances. I am concerned that when organizations make layoffs they will be more likely to eliminate those who can’t live up to ideal worker norms, which is more likely to be women and people of color. We also see inequality over who is deemed to be more “essential.” In the service sector, for example, women of color have been the first hit by the wave of unemployment.

There is concern that the current economic situation will worsen workplace bullying and sexual harassment, especially when social distancing eases. When resources are scarce, as they are now, power dynamics are heightened, which makes sexual harassment by those who control resources more likely. An example is that we are hearing about graduate students struggling to secure funding, which can heighten their dependence on those who fund them. Increased dependence can be associated with increased sexual harassment.

What should companies consider doing in terms of work-from-home infrastructure, policies and communications?

Adjust performance expectations and be mindful that well-known biases in performance evaluations could be exacerbated in this crisis. What are appropriate criteria for evaluation in this “new normal”? If the answer is ambiguous, research suggests that the probability of bias will increase and further disadvantage women, people of color and others. If organizations are continuing with their performance review cycles, they should be especially mindful of providing clear criteria for managers. Several companies we talked to in our focus group are simply delaying or canceling performance review cycles.

Paying attention to the role of managers, and providing them with the right resources and skills to support employees is critical. In our research, we see that managerial decisions and behaviors are at the crux of inclusion and equity. Managers may not be used to leading a remote team and being in charge of crisis management, so they need access to frameworks and research-based insights. Providing tools and infrastructure to work from home safely is also important. At Stanford, trainings on using telework software, for example, have been useful.

How can leaders and managers best support their workers now and plan for the future?

One difficult component of this crisis is that it is a moving target. We talk about a “new normal,” but not a week goes by without another change. Managers and leaders are faced with planning for multiple future scenarios – ongoing social distancing, a partial reopening of certain sectors, or a return to “normal.”

Now more than ever, employers need to reaffirm their commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion. During past economic downturns, some leaders put inclusion goals on the back burner and focused on issues that they perceived to be more critical. If we back off our diversity and inclusion goals now, we run the risk of losing all of the gains we have worked so hard for during the past several years.

Are there any opportunities for improving inclusion and equity in the current situation?

Based on our research, we are seeing some unexpected and promising reasons to be hopeful. Several of our participants shared that this crisis has dispelled the notion that “face time” is absolutely necessary for team and individual performance and innovation.

We also have seen some great examples of online teamwork increasing inclusion when managed well and with the appropriate norms. Several of our participants reported that Zoom meetings made it easier to equalize participation. By requiring people to raise their hand on Zoom before speaking, it is easier to avoid interruptions and ensure that all voices are heard than during an in-person meeting.

We’ve also heard from executives that younger employees, who were less able to contribute to the team before, have now been stepping up and teaching organizational leaders best practices in telework and digital communication tools. Finally, employees now have more of a window into their colleagues’ lives, which we are hearing is leading to increased empathy.

In our lab, we are now focused on studying how we can solidify these new, inclusive practices as organizations create the “new normal.” As one of our participants put it, “This is a test for us for healthier times.”

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The Equity Research Associate: Remnant of a Dying Industry, or the Hero That Gotham Deserves?

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• Many people do not understand what equity research (ER) means, or they conflate it with other industries that happen to have “equity” in their names.
• Many sources mix up the Associate and Analyst roles, or they mistakenly assume that “Associate” means the same thing that it does in investment banking or private equity .
• And then other sources have not updated their coverage to reflect the post-MiFID II world and how the entire industry is changing.

We’re previously covered equity research careers and equity research recruiting , so this article will build on those and cover the Associate role in detail:

The Equity Research Associate Job Description

In sell-side equity research at an investment bank, you analyze public companies, speak with management teams and investors, and make Buy, Sell, and Hold recommendations on stocks.

Although the division is best known for its equity research reports , the reports are not the key “value add.”

Instead, institutional investors value equity research professionals mostly for additional “color” or “nuggets” they can extract from management teams and then relay.

Particularly if someone at a hedge fund or asset management firm covers dozens of names, that person will not have time to dig into every last nuance of each company.

Research professionals can add value by relaying information and even setting up meetings between management and current or prospective investors.

This setup remains the same even though institutional investors now pay directly for the reports (because of MiFID II ) – it’s just that these services are now limited to paying clients.

In research, the senior staff are called “Analysts,” and the junior team members are “Associates” or “Research Associates” – the opposite of the investment banking hierarchy .

But those are just the external titles; within the “Analyst” title, you can still advance from the VP level up to the MD level internally.

And “Analysts” at different internal levels get paid differently and have slightly different responsibilities.

As an Associate , you’ll be responsible for supporting the Analyst in your group.

Research groups vary widely because each Analyst runs his/her group differently, but “support” includes tasks such as:

• Speaking with market participants (management teams and investors).
• Doing industry research (e.g., collecting data on market share, pricing, etc.).
• Writing the reports (both short, update reports and longer thought pieces).
• Building models and valuations.
• Determining market sentiment.

The Equity Research Analyst does more relationship building (#1 and #5 in the list above) and sets the overall direction and culture of the group, while the Associate faithfully executes orders (#2 to #4 in this list).

But if you want to advance to the Analyst level, you’ll need to start interacting with management teams, setting up meetings, and developing your reputation with institutional investors.

Therefore, you need to strike a delicate balance between “doing/checking the work” and becoming a relationship broker.

It’s the same challenge bankers go through when they’re trying to move beyond the VP level .

Equity Research Associate Hours

Equity research operates based on two main “periods”:

• Normal Days – These take up most of the quarter. You do normal work updating models and reports and answering questions, and you can expect to work ~12 hours per weekday, on average.
• Days During Earnings Season and Industry Conferences – These might take place over 2-3 weeks per quarter, and you will work more like ~16 hours per day as you listen to companies report their earnings, ask questions, update your models, and send out new reports to clients.

Your hours will also be affected by how the Analyst runs the group and what he/she focuses on (e.g., on-the-ground research vs. modeling vs. vs. industry analysis vs. relationship-building).

Even something like the number of names you cover, such as 10 vs. 20 companies, makes a difference.

On average , you’ll have a better and more predictable lifestyle than the one offered by investment banking .

You might work an average of 55-60 hours per week , with spikes to 70-80 hours per week in earnings season.

Weekend work is rare, but it may come up when there’s a massive industry change or company announcement that forces you to reevaluate all your views and ratings.

Ironically, your hours might get worse as you advance because Analysts have to travel and do more work outside the office while still overseeing published reports.

Why Would You Want to Be an ER Associate?

In a previous article on equity research recruiting , we mentioned that equity research is in decline.

Headcount reductions and MiFID II – which requires banks to charge directly for research rather than “bundling it” with other products – will continue to hurt the industry.

Plus, the clients that research teams serve, such as asset managers and hedge funds, have been doing poorly because of declining fees, the rise of passive investing, and massive manipulation of the financial markets by central banks.

So, why would you want to pursue an entry-level Associate role in this industry?

Here are some of the top reasons:

• Interesting Work and Solid Pay – The pay is a discount to investment banking salaries , but you’ll still make well into the six figures. And the work is arguably more interesting, with more creativity, less grunt work (e.g., pitch books , briefing books, buyer status logs, etc.), and reduced hours.
• It’s Possible to Break in as a Non-Traditional Candidate – The ER recruiting process is more random and unstructured than the one in IB, and it’s sometimes more feasible to break in as a career changer or “industry expert.”
• Exit Opportunities – You’ll build a solid network of institutional investors and company executives, and you can leverage these connections to move into other roles, such as hedge funds, asset management, and corporate finance at companies.
• Long-Term Career Potential – While equity research careers have become less appealing, top ER Analysts can still earn into the high six figures and beyond.

You can also use the role to switch to other divisions within a bank, such as investment banking industry groups , equity capital markets , or potentially even sales & trading (if you switch early enough).

Equity Research Associate Salary (and Bonus)

Total compensation for Associates in major financial centers is in the “low six figures” – we’ll say between $125K and $200K, with the majority from the base salary.

Yes, this is lower than investment banking pay, but you also work fewer hours and have a less stressful life.

We cover the full salary + bonus progression in this equity research careers article , but as you move up to the VP, Director, and MD levels within the “Analyst” title, you’ll progress to the mid-six-figures and might eventually earn $1 million in a good year.

A Day in the Life: What Does an Equity Research Associate Do?

During earnings season, days are frantic and not that interesting since they’ll all look something like this:

7 AM: Arrive at the office early and join your first earnings call of the day. Ask a few questions about the company’s EPS and operating margin misses, and start updating your model and preparing a 2-page update note for clients.

8 AM: Your Analyst is busy fielding questions about this company’s earnings miss, so he refers a few clients to you. You answer their questions and sheepishly explain why you had a “Buy” rating on the company, even though its stock price just fell by 10%.

9 AM: The next earnings call begins. You still haven’t finished updating the model and report for the first company, so you’ll have to return to that later in the day.

[Repeat the tasks above until 11 PM or midnight.]

Rinse, wash, and repeat this all day as you join these calls, make updates, and answer questions from panicked investors.

You’ll often stay late because you won’t have time to update all the models and reports during the day.

It’s more interesting to look at a “normal day” where there are no earnings calls or panicked investors calling to ask about earnings misses.

Here’s what that might look like in a biotech equity research group :

8 AM – 9 AM: Arrive at the office and check the news for anything involving your coverage universe.

You also read a few emails from traders and salespeople and send off a quick note to them about a regulatory development that might affect one of your companies.

9 AM – 11 AM: Start working on an Initiating Coverage Report for a new biotech company that your Analyst wants to add to the group’s coverage universe.

This will be a 100-page report with tons of industry data, and it will take months to complete. You get started by reading the company’s filings and setting up the revenue and expense categories in your model.

11 AM – 12 PM: Your Analyst is busy with several clients, so she refers a few hedge fund portfolio managers to you instead.

They’re looking for extra insights into one company’s pricing power based on a meeting the management team just held.

They didn’t say anything concrete, so you give your opinion while also downplaying your certainty.

12 PM – 2 PM: Review some valuation work submitted by the equity research intern in your group and a more junior Associate who joined last year.

Their Excel formatting is terrible, but their projections and data sourcing are fairly good.

2 PM – 3 PM: Your Analyst is now on the road, and she calls to ask if you can set up meetings between a few hedge fund clients and 3-4 biotech firms of interest. You start placing the calls and sending emails.

3 PM – 5 PM: One of the companies in your coverage universe has just announced a divestiture of one of its pipeline drugs, which is currently in Phase 3 clinical trials.

This news comes out of nowhere, so you scramble to update your projection model to reflect the inflow of cash and loss of potential future cash flow from this drug.

You also call the Junior Associate and Intern over to help check the numbers.

5 PM – 7 PM: You finish the update and send it out to clients, immediately receiving questions about the selling price and its impact on the company’s valuation.

One hedge fund manager is very persistent and wants to speak with you ASAP, so you indulge him.

You explain your view that the deal is a good one because the drug was unlikely to pass Phase 3 trials anyway, and even if it did, the selling price exceeds its intrinsic value.

7 PM – 8 PM: You finally get back to that Initiating Coverage Report from this morning and start dividing up tasks for the Junior Associate and Intern.

As you’re heading home, your Analyst calls to thank you for your work in the urgent report update and to ask if you can attend the firm’s Bio/Pharma industry conference in a few weeks.

This is a ~12-hour day with a moderate amount of stress.

An unexpected acquisition or divestiture can create an emergency, but it’s usually less severe than a last-minute pitch book in IB.

And most of the day was spent working on a long-term project, answering questions, and reviewing your team’s work.

Since equity research is less hierarchical than IB, office politics within the group is sometimes less of a factor.

How to Break into Equity Research as an Associate

We cover the full process in the equity research recruiting article , but the good news is that you don’t necessarily need to have a 3.9 GPA at Harvard and three previous finance internships to get in.

Equity research recruiting is unstructured and based on the group’s current needs, which means you can network your way in if you’re persistent enough.

Also, ER teams are open to recruiting candidates from more varied backgrounds, including experts in industries where deep technical knowledge is required (biotech, pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, space/satellites, etc.).

The bad news is that you’ll have to do much of the legwork yourself because many groups lack structured processes.

No matter your background, you’ll need 2-3 very solid stock pitches for your industry to have a good shot at winning interviews and being taken seriously.

And you’ll need to know the usual technical topics about accounting, valuation/DCF analysis, and a bit about merger models and LBO models (transactions still come up – see the “Day in the Life” account above!).

MBA programs are not super-helpful for winning equity research roles because many banks do not recruit “classes” of Associates on-campus as they do for investment banking.

The CFA can be helpful in some cases, but it still matters less than university reputation, grades, work experience, networking, technical preparation, and stock pitches.

The ER Associate Job: Right for You?

To break into equity research, you don’t need to spend a fortune on a top MBA, start recruiting in your first year of university, or do all the other crazy things required for investment banking .

So, the real question is, “Should you put in a solid-but-not-overwhelming effort to aim for this role?”

My answer goes back to the “Why Would You Want to Be an ER Associate?” section above.

If you’re a non-traditional candidate , you started recruiting late, or you had some other problem, and you’re interested in the public markets and the potential exit opportunities from equity research, it could make a lot of sense.

But if you have your heart set on private equity or corporate development or something else that is difficult to break into from ER, it does not make much sense.

I don’t think equity research as a long-term career is a great option anymore because of industry and regulatory changes and declining headcounts and budgets.

But if you’re looking for an alternative to the traditional IB or S&T route that is more accepting of candidates “off the beaten path,” then the Equity Research Associate role might be right for you.

It may not be the career you deserve, but it might be the career you need.

You might be interested in Biotech Equity Research: The Best Escape Plan from Medicine or Academia?

About the Author

Brian DeChesare is the Founder of Mergers & Inquisitions and Breaking Into Wall Street . In his spare time, he enjoys lifting weights, running, traveling, obsessively watching TV shows, and defeating Sauron.

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4 thoughts on “ The Equity Research Associate: Remnant of a Dying Industry, or the Hero That Gotham Deserves? ”

Can I break in at 62 years old? Bloomberg exp only. No grad school exp yet.

Highly unlikely, sorry. ER recruiting is a bit random / unstructured, but they’re not going to recruit someone with 30+ years of work experience in other industries. I won’t say “never” or “impossible” because there may be some exceptions out there, but I haven’t personally seen anyone enter the industry at that age.

I am currently a client facing Portfolio Associate in Private Wealth Management team at a bulge bracket bank managing $1bio AUM for UHNW clients and have received an offer for an Equity Research Associate – Large Cap Banks position.

I have previous experience in corp finance dept of a bulge bracket bank hence the ER offer.

I am confused if I should take it up. Unsure of the pros and cons – if you could help me out. I want to understand which one would be a better choice – i am currently 31 yrs old.

Well, what is your long-term goal? Hard to answer this question without more information.

If you want to invest in individual companies and other publicly traded securities (e.g., eventually move to a hedge fund), the ER offer is better. Yes, ER is a declining industry, but hedge funds and asset management firms still recruit out of the ER pool.

The hours will be worse than PWM and the stress levels will be higher, but the pay ceiling is likely higher, and it is definitely higher if you move to a HF.

If you have no interest in investing in individual securities and are happy with your current compensation and lifestyle and the pay ceiling in PWM, then you should stay where you are.

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Equity research overview.

If you're interested in breaking into finance, check out our Private Equity Course  and Investment Banking Course , which help thousands of candidates land top jobs every year.

Equity research is a great career path that combines deep industry analysis, financial modeling, and writing research reports. Equity research is a field that allows you to deeply learn about a specific industry and forces you to become a subject expert on a group of companies. Equity research is a popular field because professionals tend to work fewer hours than their investment banking / private equity counterparts and enjoy more stable career trajectories.

Equity research is a sell-side role that combines a unique blend of skills that includes writing, deep analysis, and client management. And in equity research, you spend your entire day looking at public stocks and the public markets, which is arguably better training for the hedge fund job than investment banking. As such, equity research is often a great precursor to hedge fund roles and investor relations roles.

What’s very interesting about equity research is that it is often the best entry point for people coming from non-finance industries. To be an excellent equity research analyst, you need to have unparalleled knowledge about an industry, which often makes people coming from that industry more suited for the job. It turns out that it’s easier to teach a doctor about financial modeling than it is to teach a banker about medicine. As such, if you’re in a highly technical field like medicine, engineering, or aerospace, equity research is probably the easiest way for you to lateral into a finance role.

If you're interested in breaking into equity research, check out our course , which will teach you all of the modeling, valuation, and recruiting strategy you need to get the job.

What is Equity Research?

Equity research is the sell-side function in which you develop investment recommendations, industry research, and company analysis for clients. You are responsible for covering a stock, in which you will report on quarterly earnings, financial filings, and all major news events. You are essentially like a news reporter on a particular stock – you study everything to do with the stock and give recommendations based on your research. You will also have direct access to the public company’s management, a luxury that many investors do not have.

Responsibilities typically include:

Building financial models to forecast out the performance of the stock.

Developing a comprehensive report on a new company (an “Initiating Coverage” report).

Writing update reports when a company reports earnings or has a financial event.

Liaising between corporate executives at public companies and investors.

Assisting investment banks with industry-specific knowledge during initial public offerings (“IPO”).

Educate investor base on new tradable securities that the company is going to issue.

Equity research teams typically either operate within an investment bank or as their own independent agency.

Each of the bulge bracket firms (GS, JPM, MS, etc.) has an equity research team and many of the elite boutiques also have equity research functions. Not every equity research team will cover every single industry and company. The larger bulge brackets typically do not directly cover small-cap companies, which are often the purview of small equity research shops. This structure mirrors that of investment banking, where industry coverage is dependent on personnel and client demands.

There are also “pure-play” equity research firms ( Bernstein Research , Frost & Sullivan ) that independently provide high-quality research.

In terms of work/life balance, the equity research job has a high amount of seasonality. When public companies report earnings, the amount of work required by the equity research team is much higher. Companies report earnings four times a year during Earnings Season , whereby equity research analysts have to publish earnings reports, do investor calls, and update their models.

You might work 40-60 hours for most of the year , but during the period that your covered companies are reporting earnings, you could work up to 60-80 hours per week.

Why Equity Research?

Equity research can be a great career path for the right kind of personality. Some of the biggest draws include:

Pros of Equity Research

Become an industry expert in a specialization

In equity research, you get to go extremely deep into an industry vertical and learn about a couple of companies extremely well. You arguably get to learn more deeply about companies in equity research more than any other part of finance due to your access to company management and level of focus.

Understand the investment narrative of both sides of a trade

One of the most interesting parts of the equity research job is that you get to interface deeply with the company and with investors. As a result, you’ll get to learn about what management believes in, what the investor sentiment is, as well as the biggest concerns that investors have. Equity research analysts can assign buy or sell recommendations, meaning that you will be exposed to different parts of the investment narrative.

Develop a broad skill set that helps retain career optionality

Equity research is a career field where you get to do modeling, company analysis, as well as client management. It’s a rare job where you get to work on interpersonal skills and also learn all of the tools associated with financial analysis. As such, many people start in equity research and can move to hedge funds, private equity , corporate roles, business development, or business school.

Learn about public markets

The most distinct advantage that starting in equity research has over investment banking or consulting is that you have much more direct involvement with the stock market. As such, equity research is arguably the best training you can get t to work at a hedge fund.

Cons of Equity Research

Highly variable hours

Hours on average are better than investment banking or private equity, but hours can still be 60-80 hours during earnings season and when doing an Initiating Coverage report. The average work week is likely still in the 40-60 hour range , but the variability can be unpleasant for some.

News-driven work schedule

Like a news reporter, your workflow is highly dictated by what the companies and markets are doing. If your company is going through a lot of corporate events or a period of turbulence, you may need to spend more time writing updates and liaising with investors. Your life can be unpredictable in equity research as you have to be highly reactive to news.

Teams are very small, which may lead to you still doing grunt work as you progress

Equity research teams tend to be fairly small. Even at a large equity research firm, an industry team may only be 2-4 people. As such, even as you progress in the ranks, you will still likely have to do more of the execution grunt work such as formatting, building models, and working with editors.

Compensation is more stable but tends to be lower than investment banking

Equity research tends to have very low variability at the junior level, but salaries in general are lower than some other fields. It’s still entirely possible to make ~$300k with 5 years of experience, but it is relatively lower than fields like private equity and investment banking.

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Supplying investors with precise financial analysis and recommendations.

Osman started his career as an investment banking analyst at Thomas Weisel Partners where he spent just over two years before moving into a growth equity investing role at  Scale Venture Partners , focused on technology. He's currently a VP at KCK Group, the private equity arm of a middle eastern family office. Osman has a generalist industry focus on lower middle market growth equity and buyout transactions.

Osman holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the University of Southern California and a Master of Business Administration with concentrations in Finance, Entrepreneurship, and Economics from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Prior to becoming our CEO & Founder at Wall Street Oasis, Patrick spent three years as a Private Equity  Associate for Tailwind Capital  in New York and two years as an Investment Banking Analyst at Rothschild.

Patrick has an  MBA  in Entrepreneurial Management from The Wharton School and a BA in Economics from Williams College.

• Organization Of Equity Research Divisions
• Equity Research Report
• Equity Research Vs. Investment Banking
• Day In The Life Of An Equity Research Analyst
• Who Funds Equity Research?

Equity research (ER) professionals are in charge of analyzing, recommending, and reporting on investment opportunities that their clients, investment banks, or institutions may be interested in pursuing. 

Its main goal is to supply investors with precise financial analysis and recommendations on whether they should buy, hold, or sell a specific security. 

Analysis of a company’s financials using ratio analyses and forecasting its financials in Excel is a key part of the research process. 

It is often used as a method of assisting a bank’s investment banking and sales & trading clients by offering up-to-date, reliable information and analysis. 

Equity researchers analyze stocks in order to assist portfolio managers in making knowledgeable investment decisions. They utilize problem-solving skills, data analysis, and other tools to determine and forecast a particular security’s prospects. 

In order to assess a security’s behavioral outlook, equity researchers must quantitatively evaluate a stock’s statistical data relative to recent activity in the market. 

Other tasks of equity researchers include:

• Creating investment models and screening tools that recognize trading strategies that assist in the management of  portfolio risk .     
• Finding patterns with price changes in the current market and utilizing this data to develop algorithms that find stock investment opportunities that would be profitable. 
• Comprehending peculiar differences among international markets, so that they can analyze and compare domestic and foreign stocks. 

Organization of equity research divisions

If you are looking to pursue a career in ER, it is essential that you understand that it has a relatively flat organizational structure. On the other hand, investment banking is quite hierarchical. ER typically only has two main positions: Associate and Analyst. 

Equity is different from most other areas of corporate finance because the Analyst position is more senior than the Associate position. The Analyst usually has chief responsibility for covering a group of companies, and a few associates work for them. 

Typically, analysts are divided into various industry sectors to cover similar companies within a given industry. Most of the time, ER analysts need to have a lot of specialized knowledge about the sector they work in. As a result, most analysts stay in one industry.

Some sectors of ER include healthcare, internet, technology, mining, telecommunications, consumer discretionary, and consumer staples. 

Usually, one team of an analyst and associates will cover anywhere from 5 to 15 companies. Some factors that determine the number of companies a team will cover include its seniority, company sizes, and the industry. 

Producing reports is the main job of equity researchers. These reports may be “flash reports,” which are quick updates, or “initiating coverage” reports that are more in-depth. ER associates and analysts must be constantly publishing these reports. 

Additionally, equity researchers must be able to build financial models .

A typical ER firm also has a Head of Research that is in charge of managing the analyst team by leading, coaching, and guiding them to make sure that all goals are reached. 

The role of the Head of Research is to supervise the research reports and publications by editing and checking the accuracy of analysis and recommendations made to brokers. 

As a manager, the Head of Research is also responsible for hiring, paying, and training staff. 

Equity research report

It is a document that is arranged by an ER analyst. It provides investors with insight into specific securities. In the report, analysts offer recommendations for buying or selling the security, along with its valuation and risks.

Components of an equity research report include:

1. Industry research 

This section of the report details the trends and competition in a specific industry. Components of the industry to consider include the current social, political, economic, and technological environment. 

2. Overview of management and commentary 

It is essential that the report considers the nature and quality of the target’s management team. Equity researchers have direct access to management, so they have the ability to contribute value to the report. 

While individual investors do not have this ability, equity researchers are able to directly contact management and ask them questions about the business. They then can pass on that information to investors. 

3. Historical financial findings 

One of the fundamental tasks of ER is to assess financial results and compare them to the provided guidance or to the expectations of the analyst. 

A stock’s performance is primarily derived from reality vs expectations. Analysts must be able to determine if historical results were below or above the market expectations. 

4. Forecasting 

Equity researchers must also be skilled in financial modeling and in producing both top-down and bottom-up forecasting. 

The top-down forecasting method first looks at aspects of the industry like its size, growth, and pricing. Then, the researcher must assess a company’s market share , and then eventually work down to revenue. 

The bottom-up method begins with the fundamental producers of revenue (e.g. units sold and the number of customers) and then works up to forecast revenue. 

5. Valuation 

Equity research analysts may be tasked with building financial models, such as 3-statement models and DCF models. These models are built from assumptions from the forecast and add more assumptions (e.g. valuation multiples or discount rates). 

6. Recommendations 

In this section of the report, the analyst will present a target price that advises the investors about the stock’s price in a year’s time. They also recommend whether or not the investor should buy, hold, or sell. 

The analyst will compare the fair price of the security with the current market price . If the fair price is below the current market price, the security is considered overvalued and the recommendation is to sell. 

The opposite is true if the fair price is above the current market price: the security is considered undervalued and the recommendation is to buy. 

Equity research vs. investment banking

Investment banking has often been viewed as the top banking role for the best talent. However, many talented workers have been shifting toward pursuing management consulting , technology, or entrepreneurship because of the arduous hours required of investment bankers. 

Equity research is another great role for prospects who want to work in the financial services industry. While it is sometimes considered less attractive with lower compensation in comparison to investment banking, reality differs from this commonly-held perception.

Here are some of the key differences between equity research and investment banking:

1. Work-life balance 

12-hour days are typical for equity researchers. However, their volume of work is usually highest while initiating coverage and during earnings season. 

Investment bankers have brutal hours, they commonly have 90- to 100-hour workweeks for analysts during the busiest times. 

Recently, there has been increasing backlash to the insane number of hours that investment banking analysts have to work. The common objection is that analysts experience burnout as a result of their lack of work-life balance. 

On the other hand, this complaint is rarely heard from equity researchers. 

2. Visibility 

ER associates and analysts often receive recognition for their work. Their names are usually on the research reports they compile for a firm’s sales force, client, and media outlets. 

Media outlets often seek out senior equity research analysts because they are recognized as experts on the companies in the sector that they cover. 

Conversely, investment bankers at the junior level do not have high levels of visibility. However, their visibility can increase as they move up in seniority and if they are put on high-profile deals. 

3. Advancement 

Investment banking has a clear-cut path for career advancement. Analysts usually stay in their role for two to three years and then become associates for three or more years. After that, they can become a vice president or managing director . 

ER has a less clearly-defined career path. The typical progression is from associate to analyst to senior analyst to the vice president or director of research. 

Upward mobility is more common for investment bankers because they are deal makers and service the firm’s largest clients. 

4. Education and designations 

A bachelor’s degree is necessary for both equity research analysts and investment banking associates. 

Typically, these degrees are in fields like economics or finance, but could also include anything from chemistry to computer science. 

However, further education and training are usually required to get a job in these fields. Equity researchers will often pursue the Chartered Financial Analyst ( CFA ) designation, which is almost considered mandatory for any equity researcher. 

Aspiring investment banking associates will typically pursue a Master of Business Administration ( MBA ) degree instead of the CFA because their role is more business-oriented. 

Many investment bankers pursue their Series 7 or  Series 63   FINRA licenses to demonstrate comprehensive knowledge of financial markets , investments, and company organization. 

5. Required skill sets 

Both investment bankers and equity researchers must have excellent analytical, quantitative, and technical skills. 

However, this especially applies to equity research analysts because they must carry out complicated calculations, run projection models, and prepare financial statements with tight deadlines. 

Earlier in both careers, these professionals must practice financial modeling and in-depth analysis. However, later on, the skill sets of investment bankers and equity researchers diverge.

As they become more senior, investment bankers take on more managerial and client-facing responsibilities. On the other hand, research analysts must have sufficient verbal and written communication skills in order to carry out analysis and due diligence . 

6. External opportunities 

Both professions have great external opportunities because of the extensive knowledge and skills required for these roles. 

Research analysts usually exit to the buy-side while investment bankers may end up in private equity or venture capital . The buy-side includes institutional investors that purchase securities for money-management purposes. 

7. Compensation 

Both professions are very well-paid, however, investment banking is the more lucrative career path. Investment bankers receive generous salaries, as well as substantial sign-on bonuses. 

While investment bankers can receive commissions, research analysts are not able to be compensated from investment banking revenues. 

However, research analysts can receive bonuses that are based on the success of their recommendations, the firm’s profitability, and rankings. 

Day in the life of an equity research analyst

7:00 am – Arrive at the office

• Check emails from salespeople and traders.
• Analyze how all of the open global stock markets are doing.
• Assess all news that is related to your assigned industry sector.

7:30 am - 8:00 am – Morning meeting

• First, you will discuss recommendations with the sales & trading team.
• All analysts must present their research and opinions on important happenings in their sector. The head of Research will offer their opinions on the overall markets.

9:00 am – Market opens

• Check for important developments in your sector. 
• Determine whether there have been any drastic price movements in the stock market. 

10:00 am – General work

• Fulfill typical duties of a research analyst (i.e. updating financial models, completing client requests).
• Keep up to date with the news.

11:00 am – Discussions with clients

• Explain your work to buy-side clients.

3:30 pm – Market closes

• Analyze any movements in the market of the covered company at closure.
• Make sure the client is up-to-date with any relevant market information.

4:00 pm – Research publications

• Start a new research publication piece for the next few days.
• Typically, a research analyst will complete 1 to 2 research pieces per week.

7:30 - 9:00 pm – Leave the office

• Unless there is an earning season, the analyst may now go home. 
• In the case that it is earnings season, the analyst must prepare the result update report for the next morning. 

Who funds equity research?

Independent ER firms do not have a sales & trading division. As a result, they carry out financial analysis and charge a fee on a per report basis. At major ER firms, brokerage trades earn  fee income . 

Fee income refers to the revenue that is created by a business operation by charging its customers a fee. 

Brokerage firms (made up of investment banks and stock brokers) give investment ideas to their clients ( mutual funds , institutional investors, and retail investors) and in turn, brokerage firms receive equity trades from their clients. 

Buy-side firms include hedge funds, insurance companies, and pension funds (among other things). Sell-side firms are typically investment banks (e.g. Goldman Sachs , Credit Suisse , JPMorgan Chase , etc.) 

The role of the buy-side firm is to manage the portfolio of security and seek advice on investment decisions from sell-side analysts. This advice is given to the buy-side analysts for free.

If the buy-side firm decides to invest in the security, it may want to carry out the trade through the sell-side firm’s trading division. 

In turn, the trading division of the sell-side firm will receive a commission for the execution of the trade at the lowest price. 

As a result, the commission is the earnings of the research firms. 

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A Day in the Life of an Equity Research Analyst

Responsibilities of an Equity Research Analyst

Working as an equity research analyst requires multiple talents and skills and can make for a rewarding career. These professionals research public companies and come up with recommendations for investors about whether to buy, sell, or continue holding certain stock. Analysts are usually assigned a particular group of companies, in a specific industry, for which they are responsible.

Brokerage firms (known as the sell-side , since they provide the research to their customers interested in making investments) employ equity research analysts. Mutual funds, hedge funds , and others that manage their clients’ money and invest on their behalf, known as the buy-side , also employ equity research analysts, who make investment recommendations to their portfolio managers. But what do these analysts actually do on an everyday basis?

Key Takeaways

• Equity research analysts research public companies and come up with recommendations for investors about whether to buy, sell, or continue holding certain stock.
• Both brokerage firms on the sell-side as well as funds on the buy-side both employ equity research analysts.
• On a daily basis, an equity analyst keeps a pulse on the stock market and company-specific news that could affect returns, updates colleagues on these changes, and issues reports.

Catch up and Keep up With the News

Typically, equity research analysts start their day pretty early, before the nine-to-five grind begins, and keep abreast of what’s going on with the companies they cover. They do this by keeping up with wire services and other news sources, and also tracking global economic and market developments and trends. Throughout the day, analysts stay on top of any breaking news that impacts the stock markets and the companies they cover, getting input from both industry-specific and general news sources. On particularly volatile market days, this can make for quite a roller-coaster ride.

Update Colleagues

Another aspect of the equity research analyst's job is to inform and update colleagues on the sales side with recommendations and insight on various stocks (buy, sell, or hold ratings) so that brokers can better explain those choices to clients. This requires critical and creative thinking, strong communication skills, and the ability to quickly and accurately synthesize data from a number of different sources and present that information in an accessible way. Analysts need to anticipate and be prepared to answer questions their sales-side colleagues may have about certain stocks, and they might also need to update senior analysts about actions taken on various stocks.

Throughout the day, analysts may have to meet with colleagues, such as their supervisors, to touch base and exchange notes and ideas.

Issue Reports and Keep Track of Companies Covered

Analysts come up with forecasts and earnings estimates for the companies they cover. During earnings season , as companies release their quarterly figures, analysts come out with their take on how the company has performed and might also update and tweak their earnings models for particular companies. In addition to following general news and economic events, analysts track any specific developments that could affect the value of the stock of any company in their particular group.

For instance, if a company announces a new product that could impact its earnings, analysts assess this news and include their findings in the reports they produce. Analysts might need to update these reports on a daily basis.

Keep in Touch With Company Management

Frequently, equity research analysts meet with the management of the companies they cover so as to get the most timely information in order to update their earnings estimates and reports. They could get such updates in person or on conference calls. While management provides such input to equity research analysts, executives have to be careful not to share any information with analysts that might impact the company's stock price and that isn’t available to the public. That would give an unfair advantage to the analysts.

The  Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has issued rules relating to such fair disclosure practices, meaning analysts have to tread carefully with management. Some companies tend not to cooperate with analysts they feel haven’t treated them fairly in reports. Analysts need to provide investors with an accurate picture of a company’s potential, but they also don’t want to alienate a company's management and risk losing access to important information.

Analyst Opportunities

In the wake of misleading research issued during the dot-com boom, the SEC enforced regulatory action meant to curtail the practices of investment banks that used research reports more as an avenue to generate investment banking business than as a means to provide accurate and objective information for investors. This led investment banks to scale back on their equity research needs. However, while sell-side roles at large investment banks have declined, there are still opportunities for equity research analysts, particularly with smaller research firms and boutiques.

The Bottom Line

Analysts typically spend more time than average at their work but don’t need to put in the grueling hours associated with investment banking. In general, analysts keep up with news, update their colleagues, catch up with the companies they cover, issue and update company reports, and attend meetings in their day-to-day work. While the job of an equity research analyst has lost some allure in recent years, as firms have cut back on the number of analysts they employ, it remains a competitive field.

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Supporting employees in the work-life balancing act

Picture a couple. At work, they both hold demanding management-level roles. At home, they have several children. Now imagine how, after a long day of work, the couple divides the burdens of housework and childcare. Our research finds women in opposite-gender dual-career couples (DCCs) are four times more likely than men to take on tasks at home, regardless of who earns more. But for same-gender DCCs, the responsibilities tend to be split more equitably. As one partner in a same-gender couple put it, “Being in a same-sex relationship makes a big difference as to how we approach things.”

Understanding this is critical, as adjusting to having two people working from home has been one of the more persistent challenges of the pandemic. We also know from our extensive research that some 81 percent of women and 63 percent of men are in dual-career couples (DCCs), 1 “ Women in the Workplace 2021 ,” McKinsey, September 27, 2021. where both partners work for reasons ranging from personal and career fulfillment to pure economic necessity.

We found the challenge of achieving work-life balance is often exacerbated by gender stereotypes, which are often avoided by same-gender DCCs. Drawing on qualitative interviews and data collected for Women in the Workplace , a 2021 report published in partnership with LeanIn.Org, we found same-gender DCCs tend to manage household responsibilities using a range of strategies that allow for greater flexibility. These include:

• doing tasks each partner minds less
• focusing on natural skills and inclinations to determine responsibilities
• allocating tasks based on available time and flexibility
• responding dynamically to changes affecting work and home life

Our research also identified an unmet need for companies to develop strategies to help couples find and achieve work-life balance. A good start? Ensuring working models are flexible and support the needs of a diverse workforce, and that managers are role models in ensuring employees feel able to craft individualized solutions to work-life imbalances.

Understanding the work-life challenge

For DCCs, managing demanding careers alongside personal obligations is hardly a new struggle. But the COVID-19 pandemic has only added to the difficulties. Even prepandemic, working mothers in opposite-gender couples often worked a “double shift,” spending evenings on childcare and household labor following a full day of employment. And when schools and day care options shut down, that double shift became a “double double” shift as they took on the bulk of childcare and homeschooling. 2 New at McKinsey Blog , “ How are working women doing during COVID-19? Our Women in the Workplace study explores ,” McKinsey, September 30, 2020. Couples’ ongoing frustrations are exacerbated by a perception gap: while 70 percent of men in opposite-gender DCCs believe they share household duties equally with their partners, only 42 percent of women agree (Exhibit 1).

Our research found same-gender DCCs take a more equitable approach to work-life responsibilities. Only 28 percent of women in same-gender DCCs say they do most or all of the housework, compared with more than half of women in opposite-gender DCCs. Same-gender couples report relatively equal prioritization of each other’s career. But in opposite-gender DCCs, women are more than twice as likely as men to prioritize their partner’s career. And individuals in same-gender DCCs are significantly less likely than their peers in opposite-gender couples to consider downshifting their career after having children.

About the research

More than 65,000 employees from 88 companies participated in the 2021 Women in the Workplace Employee Experience Survey. Survey questions covered themes including job satisfaction, employee well-being, work flexibility, remote work, diversity and equity, manager actions, and allyship. The survey also collected demographic data such as age, sexual orientation, family status, and workplace role. Our sample consisted of 14,006 men and 18,734 women in opposite-gender dual-career couples (DCCs) and 536 men and 378 women in same-gender DCCs.

To examine what same-gender DCCs are doing differently from their opposite-gender peers, we started from the hypothesis that without clear gender norms to fall back on, same-gender couples define different mechanisms to divide household responsibilities—and further, that those mechanisms establish greater equity, flexibility, and partnership. We tested this by conducting detailed qualitative interviews with women and men in same-gender DCCs and comparing those findings with responses from opposite-gender DCCs. We spoke with partners separately to ensure honesty. Our interviewees included people with and without children. Our research is not intended to offer a scientific sample but rather to illustrate the range of approaches individuals and organizations can consider to better balance work and home life.

Individuals in our sample self-identified their gender identity, their relationship type, and their partner’s gender. Our conclusions are limited to same-gender and opposite-gender couples, although we recognize that relationships come in multiple forms. We also acknowledge our data set is not broad enough to make conclusions about transgender, nonbinary, and queer communities. We support these groups and recognize their unique challenges but, due to small sample sizes in our survey, we do not have sufficient data to empirically derive specific insights. (For more on the experience of transgender people in the workplace, see “ Being transgender at work .”)

Clearly, some opposite-gender DCCs manage work and home demands equitably, and some same-gender couples do not. Yet in general, our research reveals that same-gender DCCs are more likely to take a balanced approach to household responsibilities. (For more on our methodology, see sidebar, “About the research.”)

To prevent employee burnout and ensure workplace equity, helping couples find a sustainable work-life balance should be a corporate priority. Our research shows that individuals in DCCs who share home responsibilities equally are less likely to feel burned out (Exhibit 2). In addition, one in ten employees in DCCs feel that increased personal demands—such as caring for children or sick relatives—have contributed to their missing out on a raise, promotion, or other advancement. Over time, work-life imbalance may undermine professional confidence, reduce trust in employers, and exacerbate fears about being judged negatively for caregiving responsibilities.

As the pandemic has prompted workers to reassess their work-life tradeoffs, record numbers of workers have quit their jobs or are considering doing so. 3 Aaron De Smet, Bonnie Dowling, Marino Mugayar-Baldocchi, and Bill Schaninger, “ ‘Great Attrition’ or ‘Great Attraction’? The choice is yours ,” McKinsey Quarterly , September 8, 2021. Our research found that 29 percent of people in DCCs have considered taking a job at a different company with a different work culture. Prioritizing employees’ holistic well-being by supporting their efforts to find work-life balance is one way to make clear to them that workplace relationships aren’t merely transactional.

Our research suggests that many same-gender DCCs have upended the notion that career success and managing a household are incompatible. In fact, both partners can prioritize their careers while sharing the responsibilities at home equitably—and reducing gender-based disparities. Lessons from these partnerships will help employees find a sustainable work-life balance and help employers foster a happier and more productive staff.

Learning from same-gender couples

Gender norms manifest in ways both obvious and insidious, from laundry detergent commercials that typically feature women to assumptions people may make about gender based on someone’s job title. But what happens with same-gender couples? Without clear gender norms to fall back on, partners in same-gender DCCs shared that they feel freer to approach household responsibilities fairly and practically. “When we have moments of tension on housework, neither of us has an ‘edge’ because of gender norms,” one interviewee said.

Our interviews surfaced numerous examples of same-gender DCCs deploying strategies to optimize the sharing of household responsibilities. Their strategies came down to comparative advantage—that is, doing whatever makes the most sense:

• Do tasks you mind less than your partner. One same-gender couple we interviewed—we’ll call them Roger and Brian—allocates tasks based on what each partner likes the least. “I secretly think that Brian doesn’t like to clean,” Roger said. “So I end up doing that more. But I don’t want to have to deal with our taxes, so Brian takes care of that.” Another couple divides tasks based on what each person actually enjoys. One partner buys the groceries because he enjoys the supermarket. “He might even pick up conference calls while walking around the aisles,” his partner said.
• Divide responsibility by skill or practical considerations. One same-gender DCC we interviewed shared that one partner—we’ll call her Susan—takes care of anything requiring organizational skills. “If you ask anyone who knows Susan, they’ll agree she’s the most organized person in the world,” her partner said. “If I was with any other person, I might be doing the planning and finance. But with Susan, she runs the household.” For another couple, practicality dictates the division of labor: one partner has a chronic back injury, so the other takes the lead on any physically demanding activities.
• Allocate responsibilities based on available time and flexibility. One same-gender DCC shared that when one partner became particularly busy during the height of the pandemic, the other took on more household chores. “She was more available,” her partner said. “During that time, she did a bit more.” Another couple decided to take advantage of one partner’s more flexible, work-from-home schedule by having him do more of the cooking, cleaning, and laundry. But their division of labor remains fluid. “Tasks are still often shared because life gets in the way and every week is different in terms of demands,” one partner said. “Usually, whoever has the best excuse not to do something gets let off the hook.”
• Respond to work-life changes dynamically. Our research found many same-gender DCCs display agility in response to changing circumstances. For example, a two-lawyer couple shared that they trade childcare and cooking responsibilities daily, working around each other’s immovable professional obligations. “We need to calendar when we'll be offline for childcare,” one said. “And we also try to look at big things coming up to make sure, if someone will be out for the whole day, we can adjust.”

Other strategies emerged in our interviews, too. Without the hidden assumption that one partner is “supposed to be” responsible for a certain task, many same-gender DCCs are quicker to seek outside help. “Jane is stronger than me, so she typically snowplows the driveway in the winter,” her partner said. “But last year she was pregnant. I’m useless at [plowing snow], so we hired someone to do it.”

Same-gender DCCs also tend to communicate more frequently about household expectations, based on our research. One couple shared that while they don’t expect housework to be split evenly every day, they do feel chores should be shared equitably over time. “I’d expect things to net out each week unless there’s a logical reason for them not to—for example, if one of us is traveling for work,” one interviewee said. “Otherwise, we’d have a conversation.”

For many same-gender DCCs, an underlying respect for each other’s career—regardless of which partner makes more money—appears to guide their approach to household responsibilities. Fred, a marketing consultant, contributes to household chores even though he is the breadwinner and works longer hours than his partner, who does creative work from home. “There are times when I’m very busy,” Fred commented. “But the minute I have time, I’ll be cooking or wiping things down. I’d say we split things pretty evenly.”

Most couples do not divide housework equally. But for many same-gender DCCs, ongoing conversations make it possible to split housework equitably —in a way that feels sustainable and appropriate to both partners. One interviewee shared that she handles most of the cooking, cleaning, and finances because her wife, Lara, works two jobs, sometimes seven days a week, and cannot work from home. “We’ve had explicit conversations about how we divide things up,” she said. “Lara wants to contribute as much as she can, but it’s hard for her to do more because of her work schedule.”

This isn’t to suggest there isn’t tension. Many same-gender DCCs admitted to arguing about how equitably tasks are divided (“sometimes with a lot of animosity,” one interviewee added). But they often credited the absence of gender norms with allowing for more effective discussions of how tasks should be divided.

“Many times, when we have conversations about who should be doing a certain chore, I secretly wish I could be the ‘useless husband’ in the relationship,” one partner said. “The lack of gender norms means that neither of us has an edge like that. It also makes the conversation fairer.” Another couple said the lack of gender norms actually requires them to have conversations about household chores, which “in the end, makes the relationship better.”

Supporting better balance for all employees

To maintain a thriving workplace, employers could pay attention to employees’ desire for a sustainable work-life balance. Many workers—particularly women and those in dual-career couples—are exhausted by the demands of work and home. About 42 percent of women report feeling burned out (along with 35 percent of men). For women in DCCs with young children, that figure rises to 46 percent (and 39 percent of men). In addition, DCC mothers and fathers report feeling judged when requesting or taking advantage of flexible work arrangements (Exhibit 3).

How could companies respond? Through considering three primary actions:

• Adopt flexible working norms. Flexible working norms support all dual-career couples. They include providing the option to work from home or on a reduced schedule; empowering employees  to set their own schedules; ensuring no meetings occur during school drop-off and pick-up times; and hosting virtual connectivity events for hybrid workers. DCCs could also be recognized as an affinity group, providing a supportive space for discussing issues and sharing advice. Finally, as more employees return to offices, organizations could ensure those who continue working from home are provided with equitable opportunities.
• Offer good benefits and encourage their use. Offering and encouraging the use of health and other benefits (such as parental leave), regardless of employees’ relationship type, supports all DCCs in finding a sustainable work-life balance. Companies could also provide benefits to assist with the costs of surrogacy, adoption services, and expanded parental leave.
• Provide positive role models. Previous McKinsey research has shown that supportive managers are critical to ensuring team members feel comfortable discussing and taking time for household responsibilities. 4 “Fulfillment at work,” September 12, 2019. The manager’s position as a role model is especially important as society enters the hybrid “next normal,” where boundaries between work and home may continue to blur. However, leaders should take care to avoid assumptions about an employees’ home lives and instead give them space to define their own models. In particular, managers should not assume that hard-working, top-performing employees don’t also have responsibilities at home.

All couples who live together must strike a balance between professional and household responsibilities—an effort often complicated by gender norms. And DCCs often have an accentuated need for flexibility and support from their employers. The experiences of same-gender DCCs suggest strategies to help all couples find a sustainable balance, including frequent conversations about housework and flexible allocation of responsibilities based on preference, skill, and time. Companies can take note. Supporting dual-career employees is a business imperative—one that will become even more important as companies navigate what work looks like postpandemic.

Clifford Chen (he/him) and Maurice Obeid (he/him) are partners in McKinsey’s New York office, where Jill Zucker (she/her) is a senior partner. Jess Huang (she/her) is a partner in McKinsey’s Bay Area office.

The authors wish to thank their colleagues Nick Stauffer-Mason (he/him), Anne Marie Hawley (she/her), and Zhengren Zhu (he/him) for their contributions to this article. This article was developed, written, and reviewed by leaders of our All-In Diversity and Equal at McKinsey communities across our US offices.

Finally, McKinsey wishes to express deep appreciation to the DCCs who participated in our interviews and openly shared their experiences as same-gender couples for the benefit of others. McKinsey also thanks those who participated in the 2021 Women in the Workplace research and the 2021 Workplace Inclusion Across the Gender Spectrum Survey.

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The Surprising Benefits of Work/Life Support

• Alexandra Kalev
• Frank Dobbin

To succeed, almost every employee needs work/life support at some point. Women and people of color need it the most, research shows, because they face greater challenges and have fewer resources available to them. They are also the least likely to receive it, however, and as a result often are forced to change or leave jobs and lose out on opportunities for advancement.

Given that situation, the authors decided to examine what effects various corporate work/life programs had on the management workforce. Analyzing data from more than 800 U.S. companies over 30 years, they found that when companies offered flexible work schedules, family leave, and childcare support to all employees, the percentage of women and people of color in management rose significantly. In fact, those work/life benefits had a larger impact than the most popular racial-equity programs did.

Companies have long known that programs promoting work/life balance boost productivity, reduce turnover, and improve employees’ mental and physical health. And now it’s clear that they are also a powerful way to increase organizational diversity.

It’s a secret weapon for achieving organizational diversity.

Idea in Brief

The problem.

To succeed, at some point almost every worker needs work/life support, and the data suggests that women and people of color need it most. But they don’t receive it—or even learn about company benefits—nearly as often as they should.

The Context

For many companies, the ideal worker remains somebody unencumbered by family obligations, who can adhere to the kind of demanding daily schedules and career trajectories that were standard for white men in the 1950s and have intensified since.

The Way Forward

Companies need to spell out and uniformly offer policies in three areas: flexibility, time off, and childcare. Doing so, studies show, helps workers and managers alike by lowering stress, improving productivity, boosting retention, and increasing diversity.

Corporate programs that support work/life balance promote productivity, reduce turnover, and improve employees’ mental and physical health. That much is well-known. But our research has revealed another benefit: They can also boost your organization’s diversity. In fact, when it comes to increasing diversity among managers, they’re better than the most popular racial-equity programs.

• Alexandra Kalev is an associate professor and the chair of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Tel Aviv University. She is a coauthor of Getting to Diversity: What Works and What Doesn’t (Belknap Press, 2022).
• Frank Dobbin is the chair of the Department of Sociology at Harvard University and Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences. He is a coauthor of Getting to Diversity: What Works and What Doesn’t (Belknap Press, 2022).

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Flexible Working, Work–Life Balance, and Gender Equality: Introduction

• Open access
• Published: 26 November 2018
• Volume 151 , pages 365–381, ( 2020 )

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• Heejung Chung   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-6422-6119 1 &
• Tanja van der Lippe 2  

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This special brings together innovative and multidisciplinary research (sociology, economics, and social work) using data from across Europe and the US to examine the potential flexible working has on the gender division of labour and workers’ work–life balance. Despite numerous studies on the gendered outcomes of flexible working, it is limited in that the majority is based on qualitative studies based in the US. The papers of this special issue overcome some of the limitations by examining the importance of context, namely, family, organisational and country context, examining the intersection between gender and class, and finally examining the outcomes for different types of flexible working arrangements. The introduction to this special issue provides a review of the existing literature on the gendered outcomes of flexible working on work life balance and other work and family outcomes, before presenting the key findings of the articles of this special issue. The results of the studies show that gender matters in understanding the outcomes of flexible working, but also it matters differently in different contexts. The introduction further provides policy implications drawn from the conclusions of the studies and some thoughts for future studies to consider.

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1 Introduction

Flexible working, that is worker’s control over when and where they work, has increased substantially over the years across most industrialised countries. Furthermore there is increasing demand for more flexibility in the workplace especially from the younger generation. Recent reports note that the majority of millennials would like the opportunity to work from home and/or have flexitime (Finn and Donovan 2013 ; Deloitte 2018 ). It is highly likely that in the future, flexible working will become the norm rather than the exception in many jobs. The question this special issue aims to examine concerns the gender discrepancies in the outcomes of flexible working for the division of labour and workers’ work–life balance. Flexible working can be used as a positive capability spanning resource useful for workers, especially women, to adapt their work to family demands (Singley and Hynes 2005 ). Previous studies have shown that flexible working allows mothers to maintain their working hours after childbirth (Chung and Van der Horst 2018b ), and to remain in human-capital-intensive jobs in times of high family demand (Fuller and Hirsh 2018 ). This ability may increase women’s satisfaction with work–life balance by allowing women to maintain both. In this sense, flexible working can be a useful tool to further enhance gender equality in our societies. However, due to our society’s pre-existing views on gender roles and the gender normative views we have towards men and women’s roles and responsibilities, flexible working can potentially traditionalise gender roles in the labour market and the household (Lott and Chung 2016 ; Sullivan and Lewis 2001 ). Men use and are expected to use flexible working for performance enhancing purposes, increase their work intensity/working hours, and are rewarded more through income premiums (Lott and Chung 2016 ), which can increase their work–family conflict through the expansion of work. Women (are expected to) increase their responsibility within the family when working flexibly (Hilbrecht et al. 2008 ), which can also potentially increase their work–family conflict, but unlike men not rewarded due to the different expectations.

Although some studies already examine such gendered nature of flexible working, most are based on qualitative case studies predominately based on professional workers in the US (for example, Cech and Blair-Loy 2014 ). Thus we need more evidence based on large scale data, on a more representative sample from a wide range of countries and from different contexts. Country contexts matter in determining who gets access to flexible working arrangements (Chung 2017 , 2018a ) and in shaping the nature of flexible working (Lott 2015 ). National contexts can thus be expected to shape how flexible working relates to gender equality and workers’ work–life balance. Similarly, organisational contexts matter in shaping flexible working, yet is often ignored. We also need more empirical evidence encompassing larger groups of workers beyond professionals. By looking at large scale data we are able to examine how gender, class, and household structures intersect when we talk about varying outcomes of flexible working. Finally, we need to be more critical about the definitions of flexible working. Many studies conflate different types of flexible working as one, which may deter our understanding of exactly why flexible working may or may not be a useful tool in eliminating gender inequalities in the labour market.

This special issue aims to overcome these limits by bringing together innovative and multidisciplinary research (from sociology, economics, and social work) using data from across Europe and the US to address the issue of the potential flexible working has on the gender division of labour and workers’ work–life balance.

In the next section, we provide a brief overview of the existing literature to come to some of their limitations, especially in light of providing a comprehensive outlook on what flexible working can mean for gender equality. Next, we introduce the articles in the special issue and how they overcome many of the limitations mentioned previously. The introduction of this special issue finishes with a discussion, policy implications on what we can learn from these studies to ensure a better use of flexible working arrangements, and finally some notes on what is still left for us to uncover to enhance our understanding of flexible working on worker’s work-life balance and gender equality.

2 Summary of Existing Literature and Their Limitations

2.1 what is flexible working and the prevalence of flexible working in europe.

Flexible working can entail employee’s control over when or where they work (Kelly et al. 2011 ; Glass and Estes 1997 ). More specifically, flexitime is having control over the timing of one’s work. This can entail worker’s ability to change the timing of their work (that is, to alternate the starting and ending times), and/or to change the numbers of hours worked per day or week—which can then be banked to take days off in certain circumstances. Working time autonomy, which is used in two of the papers of this special issue, is when workers have larger freedom to control their work schedule and their working hours. The biggest difference between flexitime and working time autonomy is that some constraints still remain in flexitime, in terms of adhering to core hours (e.g., 10 to 4 pm), and/or the number of hours workers can work in a day or a week (e.g. 37 h per week), unlike working time autonomy where such restrictions in many cases do not exist. Flexiplace, i.e., tele- or homework, allows workers to work outside of their normal work premises, e.g., working from home. In addition to this, flexible working can also entail workers having control over the number of hours they work, mainly referring to the reduction of hours of work (temporarily) to meet family demands. This includes part-time working, term-time only working, job sharing and temporary reduction of hours. The majority of the papers in this special issue will focus on flexitime and flexiplace, although some compare the outcomes of flexitime and flexiplace for full- and part-time workers.

Figures  1 and 2 provide us with the data on the extent to which flexible working is being used in Europe in 2015 based on the most recent European Working Conditions Survey. Schedule control includes workers who can adapt their working hours within certain limits (flexitime) and those with working time autonomy—i.e., where your working hours are entirely determined by yourself. Those who work from home are defined here as those who have worked in their home several times a month in the past 12 months. As we can see, about a quarter of workers had access to flexible schedules across 30 European countries and about 12% did paid work from home several times a month in the past year. There are large variations in both, where the Northern European countries are those where both schedule control and working from home are prevalent, while this is not the case in Southern and Eastern European countries. We can also see some gender differences in access/use of flexible working. At the European average the gap between men and women is not as noticeable for both schedule control and home working, although on average, men have slightly more access to schedule control while women are more likely to have worked from home. A number of countries where workers generally have more access to schedule control, it was men who were especially more likely to have access—namely, Norway, Finland, Austria, and Switzerland. However, the gender gap favourable towards men were also observed in countries with low access in general, such as Portugal, Slovakia, and Lithuania. There were only few countries where women had better access to schedule control, the Netherlands, Malta, and Hungary being some of them. For home working, with the exception of countries such as Norway, Ireland and Czech Republic, women were more likely to have worked from home regularly, or there were no discernible gender gap.

Proportion of dependent employed with schedule control across 30 European countries in 2015 ( Source : EWCS 2015). Note : weighted averages/sorted by women’s %

Proportion of dependent employed who work from home at least several times a month in the past 12 months across 30 European countries in 2015 ( Source : EWCS 2015). Note : weighted averages/sorted by women’s %

2.2 Flexible Working and Work–Family Conflict and Gender

The relation between flexible working and work–family conflict is not as self-evident as one may expect. Of course there are several theoretical arguments to relate flexible working to less work–family conflict, and therewith higher well-being since conflict and well-being are clearly related (Back-Wiklund et al. 2011 ). Schedule control, that is workers’ control over when they work, provides workers with the flexibility but also control over the time boundaries between work and family spheres, enabling them to shift the time borders between work and family/care time, allowing for less conflict between the two (Clark 2000 ). Especially given the fact that normal fixed working hours (e.g., 9 a.m. till 5 p.m.) and family schedules/demands (e.g., school pick up times at 3 p.m.) are not necessarily compatible, control over the borders of work and home may help workers resolve some of the conflict arising from this incompatibility. Working from home allows workers to address family demands by providing a possibility to integrate the work and family domains, allowing parents to potentially combine childcare with paid work at the same time, e.g., taking care of a sick child whilst working from home. In addition, employees with long commutes are argued to have more time for childcare and/or work when they do not need to travel when they can work from home (Peters et al. 2004 ).

However, there is not a consistent empirical relation between flexible working and work–family conflict, and even less when gender is taken into account. Many studies show that working from home actually leads to more work–family conflict (Golden et al. 2006 ; Duxbury et al. 1994 ; Allen et al. 2013 ). Control over when to work in addition to working from home is also only partly related to less work–family conflict (Michel et al. 2011 ).

Still, there are studies that provide evidence that flexible working relieves work-to-family conflict (e.g., Allen et al. 2013 ; Kelly et al. 2014 ; Michel et al. 2011 ) especially during the transition into parenthood (Erickson et al. 2010 ). Ten Brummelhuis and Van der Lippe ( 2010 ) reported that employees’ family situation matters, and that working from home and flexible work schedules were only effective in relieving work–family conflict for singles and not for employees with a partner and/or children. Demerouti et al. ( 2014 ) argue in their overview study on the impact of new ways of working, including working from home and flexible schedules, that these mixed findings for work–family balance and conflict are not surprising. Due to the fact that the permeability of boundaries between work and nonwork domains increases when workers work flexibly, as physical boundaries between the two environments are eliminated. Instead of facilitating balance, flexible working can thus also lead to increased multitasking and boundary blurring (Schieman and Young 2010 ; Glavin and Schieman 2012 ).

The relationship between flexible working and work–family conflict have different outcomes for men and women, as women are often still more responsible for housework and childcare and spend more time on these chores (Van der Lippe et al. 2018 ; and also see the next section). The effect of work role ambiguity on work–family conflict is also different for men and women (Michel et al. 2011 ). Moreover, different arrangements may have different outcomes for men and women. Peters et al. ( 2009 ) showed that female workers gained better work life balance from more control over their work schedule leading to a better work–family balance. However, home-based teleworking|women did not experience a better work–life balance than employees not working from home. Nevertheless, there are only a few studies where, in a systematic and rigorous way, the differences between men and women are studied, and most results rely on qualitative studies (Emslie and Hunt 2009 ). Most studies are also constrained by the gender neutral assumption of work–life balance (see for an excellent overview, Lewis et al. 2007 ). The next section explores further why this is the case.

2.3 Flexible Working and the Expansion of Work and Domestic Spheres and Gender

One of the reasons why flexible working may not reduce work–family conflict of workers is because it is likely to lead to an expansion of work and/or increase the domestic burden upon workers.

Unlike what many studies that look at flexible working as a family-friendly arrangement would assume, flexible working have been shown to result in the expansion of the work sphere rather than the contraction of it, resulting in paid work encroaching on family life (Glass and Noonan 2016 ; Lott and Chung 2016 ; Kelliher and Anderson 2010 ; Schieman and Young 2010 ). Several theories can explain why such expansion occur (see for more detailed theories, Kelliher and Anderson 2010 ; Chung and Van der Horst 2018a ; Lott 2018 ) but this can be summarised into gift exchange—workers feeling a need to reciprocate for the gift of flexibility back to employers; enabled intensification—blurring of boundaries allowing workers to work harder/longer than they otherwise would have; or enforced intensification where employers may increase workload alongside providing workers more flexibility over their work.

Clark ( 2000 ) argues that the flexibility between the borders of the work and home domain will result in different outcomes, for example, expansion of one sphere and the contraction of others, depending on the strength of the border, the domain the individual identifies with most, and the priority each domain takes in one’s life. In other words, for those who prioritise paid work above home and other aspects of their life, the flexibility in the border is more likely to result in the expansion of paid work, while for those whose priorities lie in the home spheres, flexibility may result in the expansion of domestic activities, such as housework and care giving. One important point to raise here, is that it isn’t necessarily an individual’s choice to prioritise paid work or home spheres, and external demands and social norms shape one’s capacities to do so.

The ability to prioritise work and adhere to the ideal worker culture, that is a worker that has no other obligation outside of work and privileges work above everything else, is gendered (Acker 1990 ; Williams 1999 ; Blair-Loy 2009 ). Although there have been some developments, men still do and are expect to take on the breadwinning role especially after childbirth (Miani and Hoorens 2014 ; Knight and Brinton 2017 ; Scott and Clery 2013 ) and women are thus left to and are expected to take the bulk of caregiving for both children and ill relatives as well as housework (Hochschild and Machung 2003 ; Bianchi et al. 2012 ; Hook 2006 ; Dotti Sani and Treas 2016 ). Such gendered divisions of labour and social normative views about women and men, and more specifically mothers’ and fathers’ roles shape how flexible working is performed and viewed by society, including employers but also colleagues, friends, families etc., and consequently on the outcomes of flexible working.

It is true that previous studies that examined the gender discrepancies in the expansion of working hours, more specifically overtime hours, due to flexible working find that men are more likely to expand their working hours than women (Glass and Noonan 2016 ; Lott and Chung 2016 ).

On the other hand, flexible working is likely to be used by women for caregiving purposes (Singley and Hynes 2005 ) and those who do work flexibly are likely to expand their care/housework (Sullivan and Lewis 2001 ; Hilbrecht et al. 2013 ). Clawson and Gerstel ( 2014 ) argue that, flexible working allows workers—especially middle class workers, to ‘do gender’ (West and Zimmerman 1987 ) in that they are able to fulfil the social normative roles prescribed within societies. This then feeds into what people believe flexible working will result in for men and women. For example, qualitative studies have shown that when women take up flexible working arrangement, for example working from home, those around them expect women to carry out domestic work simultaneously whilst working (Sullivan and Lewis 2001 ; Hilbrecht et al. 2013 ; Shaw et al. 2003 ). This consequently shapes how people provide and reward/stigmatise flexible working of men and women. Lott and Chung ( 2016 ) using longitudinal data from Germany show how even when women work longer overtime when taking up flexible schedules, they are still less likely compared to men to gain any financial premiums. Furthermore, mothers seem to be exchanging the opportunity to work flexibly with longer overtime, i.e. not even gaining an ‘overtime premium’ for the additional hours worked. Similarly, several recent experimental studies based in the US have shown that women, especially mothers, are less likely to gain access to flexible working arrangements, even when not used for care purposes, and more likely to be stigmatised for its use compared to men (Brescoll et al. 2013 ; Munsch 2016 ). For fathers, on the other hand, there seems to be a “progressive badge of merit” (Gerstel and Clawson 2018 ) where they are generally looked favourably upon for using flexible working arrangements for care purposes. Again this is largely down to the expectations people hold regarding how men and women will use their flexibility. In other words, in countries where traditional gender norms are prevalent, even when fathers take up flexible working for care purposes, there is a general expectation that the fathers will still maintain their work devotion/protect their work spheres and prioritise it over family time/care roles. On the other hand, for mothers, people expect them to use their control over their work for care purposes, even when it is explicitly requested for other more performance enhancing purposes. This can explain why flexible working arrangements that provide workers more control over their work are less likely to be provided in female dominated workplaces (Chung 2018a , c ).

Such preconceived notions of where worker’s priority lies and how they will use the increased control over their work will naturally shape the consequences of flexible working for one’s career. Leslie et al. ( 2012 ) show how flexible working for performance enhancing purposes is likely to be rewarded, while that for family-friendly purposes will not. Williams et al. ( 2013 ) provide evidence on how flexible working for family purposes can actually lead to negative career consequences, again largely due to the fact that  flexible working for family purposes makes workers deviate away from the ideal worker image. In this sense, flexible working can potentially increase gender inequalities in the labour market, due to the preconceived notion people will make about women’s flexible working. However, this is not always the case. Several studies have shown that flexible working may allow women to work longer hours than they would have otherwise after childbirth (Chung and Van der Horst 2018b ) and stay in relatively stressful yet high paying occupations (Fuller and Hirsh 2018 ) and workplaces with flexible working arrangements are those where the gender wage gap is smaller (Van der Lippe et al. 2018 ). Thus the picture is rather complex in terms of what flexible working can mean for gender equality.

3 About the Special Issue: Addressing the Gaps in the Literature

Despite the large number of studies that deal with flexible working and the nuanced gendered ways in which it may mean different things for men and women, there are some limitations which the papers of this special issue will try to overcome.

One of the biggest limitations of previous studies on this topic is that they are mostly based on qualitative data—mostly interviews and observations. In addition, many of the studies also focus on professionals. Although there have been some studies using quantitative time use data (Craig and Powell 2011 , 2012 ; Wight et al. 2008 ) most have been using data from Anglo-Saxon countries, namely US, UK and Australia. Given that work cultures as well as gender norms are expected to heavily shape the way in which people perceive how workers will use flexibility in their work, and how workers perform flexibility, we need more evidence from a broader range of countries to be able to understand how flexible working can lead to different outcomes for men and women.

3.1 Role of Contexts

Investigating the role of contexts is the core of the contribution from Kurowska ( 2018 ). Here the main aim is to examine the gender differences in how working from home deters or enhances one’s work life balance comparing dual earner couples in Sweden and Poland, two very different countries in terms of their gender relations and family policy support. Sweden is well known to be a country with gender egalitarian norms, generous family policies including ear-marked paternity leaves that promote fathers’ involvement in childcare. Poland is known as a typical conservative/traditional care regime, where mothers (are expected to) take on the bulk of care roles of children. Another unique contribution of this paper is its use of the theoretical concept, ‘total burden of responsibilities’ to capture the engagement in both unpaid domestic work responsibilities in addition to one’s time spent on paid work, to provide the capability of an individual to balance work with leisure. She finds that men in both countries have higher capabilities to balance work with leisure than women, but the difference between genders is smaller in Sweden than in Poland. She further finds that working from home is related to lower capability to balance work with leisure for mothers in both countries, while this is not the case for fathers in Poland. The results of this study show how gender norms of the country, and the respective expectations towards mothers and fathers shape the extent to which flexible working can lead to increasing or decreasing the gender gap in domestic work.

The importance of context does not only lie at the country level. One main area most studies fail to incorporate is the extent to which organisational level contexts matter in shaping how flexible working relate to different work–family outcomes for men and women. Van der Lippe and Lippényi’s ( 2018 ) paper aims to tackle this issue in more depth. Their main contribution is to examine how organisational culture and context can play a role in the way working from home may reduce or exacerbate one’s work-to-family conflict for men and women. Here organisational contexts include supportive and family-friendly organisational culture as well as the normalisation of flexible working, as indicated by the number of colleagues working from home. These organisational contexts are expected to moderate the relation between working from home and work–family conflict. Using the unique dataset European Sustainable Workforce Survey, they are able to compare workers from across 883 teams, in 259 organisations, across nine countries (Bulgaria, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, UK). Results show that working from home leads to more work–family conflict, especially when workers perceive an ideal worker culture at their workplace and less so when there are more colleagues working from home. The influence of culture seems to be more important for women than men, for whom work culture matters less.

These studies shine an important light on how the importance of the context in which flexible working is used matters in determining not only its outcome but also the gender discrepancy in the outcomes.

3.2 Defining Flexible Working, Discrepancies Between Arrangements

Another limitation of previous research is the way flexible working is operationalised. Many studies do not distinguish between different types of flexible working, in the extent to which control is given, and for which purpose.

Lott ( 2018 ) aims to tackle this issue by distinguishing between the different types of flexible schedules to see how they relate to work-to-home spill-over for men and women. Using the German Socio-Economic Panel Study in 2011 and 2012, she distinguishes between three different types of working time arrangements. Namely, she distinguishes between flexitime—i.e., a certain degree of self-determination of daily working hours within a working time account, and working-time autonomy—no formally fixed working hours and where workers choose their own working hours, and for the lack of control, fixed schedules against employer-oriented flexible schedules—namely, working hours fixed by employer, which may vary from day to day. She finds that employees experience the most work-to-home spillover with working-time autonomy and employer-oriented schedules, and the least with flexitime and fixed schedules. However, she also finds gender differences. Working-time autonomy’s association with higher cognitive work-to-home spillover only holds for men, and mainly due to the increased overtime hours men work when having working-time autonomy. Another unique contribution of this paper is the inclusion of employer-oriented flexible schedule—i.e. how unpredictability and unreliable schedules influence work–life balance. Here she finds that such unpredictability and unreliability is especially problematic for women; only women seem to suffer from higher spillover with employer-oriented schedules. This relationship holds above and beyond job pressure and overtime hours. Lott argues that the main cause for this is due to women’s position as the main person responsible for the day to day management of the household, for which such unpredictability of working hours can be extremely problematic. For similar reasons women seem to suffer less with flexitime—in that they have more control over their schedules.

Chung and Van der Horst’s ( 2018a ) study also aims to distinguish between different types of flexible working arrangements—namely schedule control, flexitime, and teleworking. One of the main contribution of their study is to distinguish between workers’ control over their working hours, but for different purposes—namely those primarily used for family-friendly goals (flexitime), against those provided mostly for performance enhancing goals (here for convenience referred to as “schedule control”). They examine how these different types of workers’ control over their work are associated with an increase in unpaid overtime hours of workers for men and women in the UK using the Understanding Society data from 2010 to 2015 and fixed effects panel regression models. Results show that flexitime and teleworking do not increase unpaid overtime hours significantly. On the other hand, the more performance enhancing schedule control increases unpaid overtime hours, but with variations across different populations. Unsurprisingly, mothers, especially those working full-time, appear to be less able to increase their unpaid overtime as much as other groups of the population. This can be mostly explained through the fact that many mothers working full time would not have any more time to give to their companies, unlike many men, including fathers, and women without children. On the other hand, part-time working mothers increased their unpaid overtime hours significantly when using schedule control. This discrepancy in the ability to work longer hours can potentially increase gender inequality in the labour market due to overtime being seen as one of the most explicit forms of commitment towards the company. Yet in the case of part-time working mothers, it is unlikely that these increased hours will result in additional career premiums as evidenced in another contribution of the special issue (Chung 2018c ).

Chung (2018c) distinguishes between flexitime, working from home, and part-time work when examining workers’ experiences with flexibility stigma, that is the negative perception towards those who work flexibly, using the 4th wave of the Work–Life Balance Survey conducted in 2011 in the UK. She finds that men are more likely to agree with the statement that those who work flexibly generate more work for others, and say that they themselves have experienced negative outcomes due to co-workers working flexibly. On the other hand, women and especially mothers are likely to agree that those who work flexibly have lower chances for promotion and say they experienced negative career consequences due to themselves working flexibly. One reason behind mother’s experience with flexibility stigma is due to the fact that most mothers use some sort of working time reducing arrangement, e.g. part-time work. On the other hand, men and fathers are more likely to use flexitime and teleworking, which are less likely to lead to negative career outcomes. Chung further argues that it might be simplistic to completely attribute the differences found between men and women in the negative career outcomes experienced when working flexibly, only to the types of arrangements they use. In other words, the negative career outcomes experienced by part-time workers may partly have to do with the fact that it is widely used by mothers to balance work with family life (see also, Lewis and Humbert 2010 ). Thus, the stigma towards part-time workers’ commitment towards work and productivity may be better understood as a reflection of the stigma towards mothers’ commitment towards work and their productivity.

Kim ( 2018 ) examines how flexible working policies increase parental involvement with children and also distinguishes between different types of flexible working policies, namely access to flexitime/flexible schedules, ability to work at home, and working part-time. Using the longitudinal data from the US Early Childhood Longitudinal Survey-Birth Cohort (ECLS-B), he finds that working from home was associated with more frequent enrichment parent–child interactions, but only for mothers, echoing what was found in Poland by Kurowska ( 2018 ). Part-time working for mothers was also associated with more frequent enrichment parent–child interactions, and for father’s access to flexitime were associated with greater daily routine interactions. The result of increased routine care of fathers through flexitime is most likely due to tag-team parenting (Craig and Powell 2012 ) where parents use flexible schedules to increase the time both parents spend with children. By enabling men to take up a larger share of routine care of children flexitime of male partners can help women build their careers—which explains why men’s flexitime has been shown to increase women’s career perspectives (Langner 2018 ).

These studies provide us with evidence that we need to look at the intersection between gender and different types of flexible working to better understand how flexible working leads to different outcomes. Furthermore, they enable a better understanding of how different types of flexible working may result in different outcomes for gender equality. Working from home, working time autonomy/schedule control for performance purposes may not necessarily provide much benefit to even out the playing fields for men and women. On the other hand, flexitime—especially with a more defined/clear working hours boundaries, seems to be a better option if we are to ensure flexible working does not lead to further traditionalisation of gender roles.

3.3 Incorporation of Class

Another contribution the papers in this special issue is to examine the intersection between gender and class when examining the outcomes of flexible working. Many of the existing studies on flexible working focus on professionals (e.g., Cech and Blair-Loy 2014 ), which to some extent relate to the access these groups have towards flexible working arrangements and control over their work (Chung 2018a ). However, the intersection between gender and class has been shown to be of great importance in understanding how flexible working enables workers to do or undo gender (Clawson and Gerstel 2014 ; Deutsch 2007 ). The articles in this special issue also try to engage in the analysis of class, to see how there may be distinctions between classes in the way flexible working relate to gendered outcomes.

Kim ( 2018 ) in his analysis of how flexible working may lead to different levels of parent–child interactions, incorporates household structures and income as well as gender. The results indicate that the positive impacts of flexible working vary depending on income levels and for single/dual earner households. For example, the positive association between working from home and parent–child interactions was more pronounced among low-income mothers than mid- and high-income mothers. Part-time working only increased enrichment interactions with children for mothers in two-parent families, perhaps reflecting the limited capacity of single-mothers to expand their time on such activities. Part-time working increases parent–child interactions only for fathers from dual-earner households and not for those from single-earner households. This finding reflects the results found in previous studies regarding gender division of labour within households of female-breadwinner families (Bittman et al. 2003 ).

By examining the lack of schedule control, Lott ( 2018 ) also focussed on the less privileged, mostly non-professional, lower-class workers whose work schedule are more often determined by the employer and changed on a daily basis. She found that work–life spill-over is highest for these workers, especially women. Women of the lower working class have fewer financial resources in order to cope with unpredictable and unreliable work hours, for example to pay for public or private childcare. They alone carry the double burden of balancing paid and unpaid work.

Chung and Van der Horst ( 2018a ) examine the differences between different occupational groups in their analysis of how flexible working leads to increased unpaid overtime hours for men and women, parents and non-parents. They find that the increase in unpaid overtime hours when workers have control over their schedule was largely driven by the professionals in the model, especially for men. In closer inspection, there seems to be a division within professionals in terms of gender when we consider parenthood. Professional men with and without children seem to increase their unpaid overtime hours especially when they have a lot of schedule control, while professional women with children do not. On the other hand, professional women without children increase their overtime hours similar to that of men, yet again it is questionable whether they will benefit from the same career premium from it (Lott and Chung 2016 ).

4 Discussion, and Policy Implications and Future Challenges

The results of the papers in this special issue point to one conclusion; flexible working can be useful in enabling a better work–life balance and family functioning, yet we need to be aware of the potential gendered ways in which it is being/and is expected to be used. In other words gender matters when it comes to understanding the consequences of flexible working. Men and women use flexible working in different ways that leads to different outcomes for wellbeing, work–life balance and work intensification. A recurring finding is that women are more likely to (or expected to) carry out more domestic responsibilities whilst working flexibly, while men are more likely to (or are expected to) prioritise and expand their work spheres. Consequently, it is women who will fear and are more likely to face negative career outcomes due to flexible working as Chung (2018c) shows. However, we need to be careful about understanding such patterns as a matter of choice. As Lott ( 2018 ) has argued, family and domestic responsibilities may be understood more as a constraint under which women need to navigate and negotiate their work spheres.

Furthermore, we must also conclude that gender is a too general distinction to gain insight in the consequences of flexible working on work–life balance outcomes. A common thread found in all articles in this special issue is that gender must be studied in context; in the organisational, country, family, as well as class context. First of all, the culture of the organisation matters, such as the prevalence of flexible working in the organisation as well as supervisory support etc., yet perhaps more for women as Van der Lippe and Lippényi ( 2018 ) show. Second, country contexts matter in that flexible working allows workers to “do gender” in a more traditional gender cultures such as Poland, and where a more gender egalitarian culture exists, such as in Sweden, the gender discrepancies due to flexible working may not be as evident, as Kurowska ( 2018 ) shows. Third, the household structures appears to be important in the outcomes of flexible working. There are differences in single versus dual earners, as well as low- versus higher income families for both men and women as Kim ( 2018 ) shows us. The occupation of the worker also matters, where the gender discrepancies in the negative spill-over effects, namely working long unpaid overtime hours, of schedule control depend on the occupation you look at as Chung and Van der Horst ( 2018a ) show. Overall, the findings in this special issue seem to indicate that especially in contexts where traditional norms on gender roles are prevalent and where ideal worker culture exists, flexible working may promote a more traditionalised division of labour resulting in hindering rather than supporting gender equality. This is likely because in such contexts, flexible working can lead to women being able to (but also having to) expand their household burdens, while men expand their work loads. This may reinforce the (unconscious) biases employers and co-workers have towards flexible working of men and women, and more female oriented and male oriented flexible working arrangements, which can increase the wage gap between the genders as Chung’s (2018c) work indicates.

So what can be done to prevent such increase in traditionalisation through flexible working? At the macro level, there needs to be changes in our gender norms and ideal working culture. In other words, flexible working is not used in a vacuum and as long as our gender normative views about mothers and fathers roles do not change, the way people perceive flexible working will be used by men and women is unlikely to change and will feed into how they will in fact be used. Attention is required, for example via the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) at the European level, but also other national level bodies for promotion of gender equality in Europe and its member states through delivering expertise and knowledge, and enhancing policies to change normative views of gender roles. Policy changes, such as increase in well paid ear-marked paternity leaves, such as the ones found in Sweden, has been shown to increase father’s involvement in childcare and domestic work not only in the period during the leave but many years after (Nepomnyaschy and Waldfogel 2007 ). Thus it can be used as a useful tool to help reduce the gender division in childcare and household tasks, and consequently help shift the gender norms of the country. Consequently such policies can also be useful in ensuring that flexible working is not used as a tool to enforce traditional gender roles. Providing better protective mechanisms for workers to ensure that flexible working and blurring of boundaries do not lead to encroachment of family life would also be important policies to be implemented at the national level. Current labour laws, which is based on a more traditional 9 to 5 job done in the office, may not be sufficient to ensure such protections.

One key finding of our research was that when flexible working becomes more of a norm, rather than the exception, this may help workers use flexible working arrangements for work–life balance purposes. Changing the right to request flexible working legislations to ensure that flexible working is more of a right from day 1 on the job, that flexible working is more of a default rather than an exception would be useful in ensuring that it does not lead to stigma or work–life conflict.

At the mezzo and micro level, we need to make sure both workers and managers are aware of the risks of flexible working. For companies, providing good role models of senior managers, especially male senior managers, taking up flexible working for family-purposes and without work spilling over to other spheres of life will be important to show how best to utilise flexible working. The notion of ‘the healthy organisation’ might be helpful here. Healthy organisations take into account the wellbeing and work family balance of employees, as well as workplace effectiveness (Lewis et al. 2011 ). Building better collective practices of flexible working, where work is not done everywhere and all the time, is crucial. It implies that organisations implement flexible work options under the condition that it is rewarding (in a material and unmaterial way) for employees and such that it commensurate with it success (Lewis et al. 2011 ). Workers themselves should also be reflective of how some of their own expectations in how flexible working should and can be used is shaped by our prevailing gender norms and assumptions on whose job it is to care/do the breadwinning. To question some of the gendered assumption would be important.

One of the challenges is how to take the family situation better into account when implementing work flexibility in such a way that it enhances work–life balance. One of the ways could be to relieve work and household burden, often a double burden for women when they also have a paid job (Hochschild and Machung 2003 ). Arrangements for example regulating working hours and applying flexible time-management models suited to the needs of the employee and his or her family. Other options are a professional network of family support services, including public childcare, elderly care services, different forms of leaves, as well as arrangements to outsource housework (De Ruijter and Van der Lippe 2007 ). Of course a discussion is needed who is responsible for these arrangements and to what extent. Is it the individual employee, the country individuals live in, or the organisation of the employee? Most likely this will be a combination of all three, also partly dependent on the welfare regime of the country, and the sector the organisation of the employee belongs to. Public policies and interventions are for example deeply embedded in Scandinavian culture. They may fit less with the cultures, habits and structures of other European welfare states, but organisations might take the lead more in these welfare states.

There are some issues that this special issue has not been able to address. Firstly, we still know very little about how flexible working relate to informal care capacities. Majority existing studies, including the ones in this special issue, deal with flexible working for childcare purposes. More research is thus needed to see how flexible working is gendered (or not) in increasing workers’ care capacities in times when informal care demands arise, or how it allows workers to combine work with informal care demands. Secondly, longer career consequences of flexible working, especially relating to flexitime and tele/home working, would be useful to investigate, especially in order to understand how flexible working relate to gender wage gaps. Some of the studies here and  other previous studies have shown that flexible working can increase men's working hours/overtime hours and other commitment towards work which may increase their wage premiums, and consequently the gender wage gap between men and women. On the other hand, flexible working also helps women reduce work family conflict and allow them to work longer than they would've otherwise. In this sense, exactly how these two rather conflicting dynamics add up in the longer run would be important to examine. Thirdly, more analysis is needed to fully understand the importance of context in not only shaping the outcomes of flexible working, but also how it shapes the gendered nature of flexible working. Our studies have shown that gender norms and long hours cultures have been shown to be important contexts that shape such outcomes. Examining these and other contextual factors, such as the strength of the legal right to flexible working, its prevelance, and workers’ negotiation power, both at the national and organisational levels will help us find out more about under which context can we expect a better use of flexible working so that it enhances both workers' work life balance and gender equality. We hope that this special issue has provide some useful steps in the right direction to find these answers out, and that it helps pave the way for future scholars to follow. Flexible working is likely to become more common in the future as demands for flexible working increases among both new and older generations of workers for diverse reasons. It provides us with great opportunities to tackle some of societies’ most pressing challenges. However, as this special issue has shown, this will only be the case if it used in the right way. 

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Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful for the funding provided by the Economic & Social Research Council Future Research Leader funding (ES/K009699/1) and the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013) / ERC Grant Agreement n. 340045. The authors would also like to thank the contributors of this special issue who have provided high quality, excellent, and interesting contributions for the issue, and have provided useful feedback on this introduction. They are namely, Mariska van der Horst, Yvonne Lott, Anna Kurowska, Jaeseung Kim, and Zoltán Lippényi.

UK Economic and Social Research Council Future Research Leader funding—Work Autonomy, Flexibility, and Work-life Balance (ES/K009699/1) and the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007-2013)/ - Project: Sustainable Workforce. ERC Grant Agreement No. 340045.

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Chung, H., van der Lippe, T. Flexible Working, Work–Life Balance, and Gender Equality: Introduction. Soc Indic Res 151 , 365–381 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-018-2025-x

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Brigid Schulte

Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.

The United Nations reported in June that no country is on track to achieve gender equality by 2030. Research by McKinsey and LeanIn.org finds that, though companies say they are committed to gender equality, “progress isn’t just slow, it’s stalled”.

Earlier this month, at the International Association for Time Use Research conference, several studies found that women spend twice as much time as men doing housework and childcare, even though the majority are also in the workforce — a statistic that has not budged in a decade.

Some countries and many companies have sought to close these gendered gaps by offering supportive policies such as paid family leave, subsidised, high-quality child care, and giving workers more control over time, manner and place of work. These are a critical start. But policies will never be enough: workplace cultures have to change.

A recent study of management consultants found they had access to flexible schedules and a host of benefits that most low and middle-wage earners only dream of. Yet few people used the benefits. Family-forward policies are so little-used that in many organisations they are dubbed “ghost benefits”. One consultant even refused to use the firm’s flexible paid leave policy to visit her father on his deathbed.

Why? Because they had bought into the myth that the only way to succeed is to work all-out, all the time — family, health and quality of life be damned. It is a work style that few with caregiving responsibilities — mostly women — can match or maintain.

So what can organisations do? Firstly, have good policies and processes in place — perform pay equity audits, revamp metrics and cultures that reward long hours and presence and focus instead on deliverables, performance, diversity, equity, inclusion and work-life balance as business imperatives.

But to ensure these policies stick, here are three strategies to change workplace culture:

1. Be a role model and share your story . Leaders set the tone for the organisation, so stop sending late night and weekend emails, and expecting workers to be on call at all hours. Talk openly about your lives, families and hobbies outside work and take holiday. Use and encourage others to take advantage of family-forward policies such as paid family leave. Take care of your health to prevent burnout. Set up mentoring and sponsoring programmes. Pioneering role models and peers , behavioural science research shows, willing to make real change to support working families are critical in transforming cultures. Share what is working. And know that others are starting to watch.

2. Train managers and hold them accountable . Research has found that training supervisors how to support workers with family responsibilities and teaching teams to work flexibly has led to improvements in sleep, lowered blood pressure and cardiovascular risk, increased job satisfaction, reduced turnover intention and reduced work-family stress. And the benefits extend to children and families as well. Work-related stress accounts for $190bn in US healthcare costs every year.

3. Banish the “mommy track” and set family friendly policies as the default . When the law firm White & Case began offering 12 weeks of paid parental leave in 2018, employees had to opt out if they did not want to take the offer. “We were very explicit in our guidance to the partners and leadership, that this is people’s right to take, therefore, it’s theirs to manage,” Jennifer Philpot, chief people officer, says. “That helped change the mindset. Managers could no longer say that people couldn’t take leave. They couldn’t say, ‘Now is not a good time’.”

Managers were given training and guidelines. (Do treat men and women equally. Do not imply that use of parental leave will be a detriment to careers.) It took 18 months and meetings with 50 stakeholders for everyone to buy in. In 2018, 35 women and 34 men used the leave.

Some staff grumbled. But David Koschik, an influential executive committee member, spoke up at a meeting, saying: “In the legal industry, we cannot expect to make significant strides in the advancement of women until we give men the same opportunity to take responsibility as parents.” Ms Philpot says that his intervention swayed the doubters.

When everyone has more control over their schedules, or takes paid leave to care for themselves or others, when work-life balance becomes a performance metric for better work, productivity and better health, then women and those with family responsibilities will no longer be stigmatised and we’ll be on the road to creating truly equitable workplaces.

The writer is director of the Better Life Lab at New America, and author of ‘Overwhelmed’

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U.S. Viewers Overwhelmingly Want to See More TV Shows Depicting Realistic Work-Life Balance, Family Care and Gender Equity: Survey

By Todd Spangler

Todd Spangler

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When Hollywood accurately depicts work-family and gender-equity scenarios on screen, it’s good for business by driving up viewership and engagement, according to a new research study.

The vast majority of engaged streaming viewers in the U.S. want to see their lives — working, managing family life and providing care — represented on screen more often and with more nuance and aspiration, according to a survey commissioned by progressive think tank New America. The study found that this especially true among Gen Z and millennial audiences, parents of kids under 18, and people caring both for a child and an older loved one.

TV series featuring work-family content drive audience engagement more than other shows on social media, according to MarketCast’s analysis of conversations on X (formerly Twitter). Per the study, 63% of a sample of 32 TV series that included themes of work, family, parenting and caregiving generated above-average online engagement among viewers, who expressed intent to share and recommending shows to others.

Shows that survey respondents cited as doing a good job of accurately depicting work, family, and caregiving issues included Quinta Brunson’s “ Abbott Elementary ,” Shonda Rhimes’ “Grey’s Anatomy” (returning for Season 20 on March 14), ABC sitcom “The Conners” and Netflix drama “Virgin River.” Others included FX’s “Fleishman Is in Trouble,” created by Taffy Brodesser-Akner based on her 2019 novel; Netflix limited series drama “Maid,” created by Molly Smith Metzler; and Issa Rae’s HBO dramedy “Insecure.”

Vicki Shabo, New America’s senior fellow for gender equity, paid leave and care policy and strategy, is the founder of the organization’s Better Life Lab project. She believes the MarketCast data will help encourage media companies and creatives see the upside of including more (and more authentic) and aspirational representations of work, family and care challenges experienced by Americans.

The study included a survey of 1,720 U.S. streaming viewers ages 18-59 conducted by MarketCast in December 2023. Respondents said they watch at least five hours of TV and/or movies per week. The report is available at this link: newamerica.org/rescriptingaudiencestudy .

About 42% of viewers surveyed say they see issues around work, family, and care depicted in TV and film well, while only half say they see these stories often. Of those surveyed, 55% have personal or household experiences with managing work, family, and care and 43% expect to within the next five years.

Roughly six out of 10 viewers surveyed said they would like to see more portrayals of specific situations and aspirational content, including:

• Women succeeding at work while also being loving parents at home
• Men providing hands-on care to loved ones and children while also succeeding at work
• Characters speaking proudly about being caregivers rather than apologizing
• Characters and stories finding and using resources like paid leave, child care and elder or disability care
• Supportive bosses and coworkers in workplace settings
• Storylines or characters focused on policies to help support parents and caregivers, like paid leave, child, and elder or disability care

The margin of error in MarketCast’s survey is +/- 2.5 percentage points. The data was weighted to reflect the U.S. population of adults 18-59 to obtain representative demographic characteristics of the market.

Pictured above: “Abbott Elementary”

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