Project information

Our contribution focuses on the long-term social consequences of temporal flexibility on later work (length and stability of work career, timing and type of retirement, and income level) and later family life (postponement of family formation, length of partnership, divorce risk, and number and timing of children) among employees and their spouses and children, using a unique combination of representative surveys on working conditions and household-based time use, merged with long register-based follow-up data.
Our study will increase knowledge about the particular conditions under which temporal flexibility may have had either harmful or positive outcomes for the lengthening of work careers, while avoiding social differentiation between households.
The longest time span of follow-up data concerning the same participants is 35 years at the individual level and 13 years at the family level (comprising spouses and children), which is a very rare opportunity.

The main research questions in this project are:
1) What is the prevalence of temporal flexibility of work and what are its characteristics at individual and household levels and in Finland and in EU countries?
2) What are the long-term social consequences of temporal flexibility for employees and their families and for later work career, later family life and children’s later life?

Research material:
(1) Finnish Working Conditions Surveys (1977, 1984, 1990, 1997, 2003, 2008, and 2013) (FWCS).
(2) Time Use Survey (1979, 1987–1988, 1999–2000 and 2009–2010) (TUS).
(3) European Working Conditions Surveys (1990, 1995, 2000, 2005, 2010, next 2015) (EWCS).
(4) New primary data: qualitative interviews