Looking inside the firm: Policy, employers and the future of work–family balance

This blog post is based on an article published in the Journal of International and Comparative Social Policy by Rosa Daiger von Gleichen, Marina Hagen, and Daniela Grunow.

Work is changing rapidly. Digitalisation, new forms of performance monitoring, hybrid working arrangements and, increasingly, artificial intelligence are reshaping how, where and when work is done. These developments are often associated with greater freedoms. Yet for many workers, they also bring intensified workloads, further blurred boundaries between work and home, and renewed pressures to be constantly available.

This raises a familiar, yet once again pressing question: why are some workplaces more supportive of work–family balance than others?

Beyond markets and policy: what happens inside organisations

In public debates, answers tend to focus on either markets or policy. On the one hand, employers are seen as responding to economic pressures, offering flexibility or childcare support to attract and retain workers. On the other, governments are expected to shape outcomes through legislation and public provision. But this dichotomy misses an important part of the picture. What happens inside organisations, and who has influence there, also matters.

In our study comparing Germany and the United States, we examine how employer-provided family policies are shaped not only by public policy contexts but also by organisational characteristics, particularly female leadership and organised labour. We distinguish between two broad ways of understanding employer behaviour. One emphasises economic considerations: firms provide policies when it is in their economic interest to do so. The other highlights normative pressures: employers respond to expectations about what constitutes appropriate or legitimate workplace practice.

Our findings suggest that both perspectives are useful, but that their relevance depends on policy and organisational context, as well as the type of policy in question.

Childcare and flexible working: two different stories

Consider childcare. We find that employer-provided childcare is more common in Germany than in the United States. This is notable because Germany already has more extensive public childcare provision. Rather than displacing employer involvement, generous public policy appears to coincide with greater employer provision. This pattern is consistent with the idea that public policy can act as a norm-builder, shaping expectations about what employers should provide and legitimising employees’ claims to support.

Flexible working, however, shows a different pattern. In both countries, there is no statutory right to flexible work. This suggests no public norm-building context. Here, employer provision is slightly more prevalent in the United States, which aligns with accounts emphasising economic rationales. In the absence of policy, flexible working appears more closely tied to employers’ economic considerations than to broader normative expectations.

Looking within organisations adds another layer. Female leadership and organised labour are often seen as potential drivers of more family-friendly practices, but their influence is neither uniform nor straightforward.

In the United States, workplaces with women in top management are more likely to provide childcare. This suggests that where firms need to attract and retain skilled employees, female leaders may be particularly helpful. In Germany, the relationship is less clear-cut. This does not necessarily mean that female leaders are less supportive of such policies, but rather that in a different institutional environment, with fewer female leaders generally and more generous public policy, their role seems limited.

Organised labour also matters in Germany, but in distinct ways. In Germany, workplace-level institutions such as works councils are associated with a higher likelihood of employer-provided childcare and flexible working. By contrast, collective agreements negotiated at a more distant, sectoral level show weaker or even negative associations. This points to a potential tension between the two pillars of employee representation, which appear to work in different directions when it comes to work–family balance. In a context of ongoing workplace change, this raises a more immediate question. If different parts of organised labour are pulling in different directions, can they align in time to support work–family balance in the face of new pressures at work, such as workload increases associated with the rapid rise of AI?

Taken together, these findings point to a more nuanced picture of how work–family policies emerge. Public policy does not replace employer action; nor are economic logics a sufficient explanation. Public family policy can shape the normative environment in which employers operate. At the same time, organisational actors, such as female managers and organised labour, play a role in mediating these pressures within firms. Different policies, and different institutional contexts, bring different mechanisms to the fore.

Work–family balance in an age of AI

What do these insights mean in a period of rapid workplace change? Technological developments, including AI, are often discussed in terms of their potential to increase flexibility. But they may also intensify existing dynamics. New tools can enable closer monitoring of performance, accelerate work processes and extend expectations of availability beyond traditional working hours. At the same time, hybrid and remote working arrangements can shift responsibility for managing work–family boundaries disproportionately onto women.

Our findings suggest that public policy remains important, not only as a provider of services but also as a source of normative guidance about what constitutes appropriate support for workers with care responsibilities. They also highlight the relevance of organisational actors. Female leadership and forms of worker representation can be associated with more supportive policies, but their influence depends on the institutional setting and on how closely they are connected to everyday workplace practices.

Beyond existing patterns, the importance of looking more closely inside the firm becomes even more pressing as workplaces transform. Understanding how public policy, employers and different groups of employees interact within organisations provides a useful lens for interpreting ongoing workplace changes, even if these developments are not directly examined in our analysis. Crucially, who has influence within firms, and how this interacts with broader institutional contexts, is therefore key to assessing how new ways of working may affect work–family balance.

Reference

Daiger von Gleichen, Rosa, Marina Hagen, and Daniela Grunow. 2026. “Employer Childcare and Flexible Working in Germany and the United States: How Relevant Are Female Leaders and Organised Labour?” Journal of International and Comparative Social Policy: 1–17. doi: 10.1017/ics.2026.10093.

About the Authors

Rosa Daiger von Gleichen is Lecturer in the Transdisciplinary Course Program (TRACS), University of Tübingen, Germany.

Marina Hagen is Research Assistant in the Department of Sociology, Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany.

Daniela Grunow is Professor of Sociology, Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany.