Real Men Don't Need Work Life Balance

By Tanvi Gautam, Ph.D.

To all you women you think you don’t have a choice, it is really us men who don’t have a choice. I have to go out and make sure I earn a living and provide the security for my family. There is no flexibility!!

This outburst of sorts came from a middle-aged executive attending my talk on work-life integration and gender roles. His comment was followed by silence – the women exchanged puzzled looks and the men nodded in appreciation. For me, the pause represented a moment of hard truth. The truth of the disadvantage faced by males in the work-life fit discussion. Yes, I did just use the words “male” and “disadvantage” in the same sentence.  Let me clarify.

The unfortunate secret is that: when it comes to the work-life balance and career flexibility discussions, there is an “unwritten hierarchy” of rights in most firms. And men, I’m afraid, are just not on the priority list. Chances at career flexibility are much higher if you are a woman with kids. The assumption remains that “real” men (single or married) don’t need/want work-life integration. They work long, hard hours and miss meals with family, skip social events, so they can rise to the top of the corporate ladder, if need be at the expense of all else.The 21st century workforce continues to be managed often with an 18th century mindset. For instance, face time is still considered an indicator of work commitment; and breaks in careers (for whatever reason) are seen as a form of career suicide. Many managers continue to treat workers as a pair of hands, rather than a whole human being who faces demands from life outside work too  (thank you, Peter Drucker: father of modern management, for that idea!). Also, the lines between work and home are increasingly blurring, as the smartphone vibrates at any hour and demands an almost unhealthy level of responsiveness to work. Under the circumstances, men and women both face tremendous pressures in managing work and life outside it. However, when it comes to men, there is a dark secret that most organizations may not confess to.

Breakdown of the traditional male worker prototype

This uni-dimensional prototype of the working male mentioned above worked perfectly well in the pre-industrial society where men worked and women were at home. However, as more women enter the workforce and invest in higher education (see infographic) dual career couples are fast becoming the norm. Therefore, women demand a more active role from men in at home as they pursue their career aspirations.

Their gender and associated role definitions, prevents men from being a part of the work life integration agenda at the individual, organizational, and societal levels. This is male disadvantage. The fall out of this disadvantage is not just for the men themselves (in the form of burnout and in the extreme case death due to “overwork” i.e. Karoshi in Japan), but also for the lives of those around them. It is in the form of the physical and emotional absenteeism from the lives of the children, which in turn impacts the social and academic skills of the children. It is also in the form of lower fertility rates in countries like Singapore where having kids is being seen as a career cost by women who don’t have any support from their spouses or work environment