Get home from work at 8 p.m., well after school, homework, and dinner. Sitting back down in front of your computer after 10 p.m. to respond to some final emails. Having breakfast with the phone in hand, your eye glued to your diary... Work overflows, invades the house and family time, interferes in couples' discussions, or parents with their children. Even more so among managers and executives - the majority of whom are men: 52% of male executives, and 59% of women, feel that they often or occasionally have an insurmountable workload, according to an October Apec study. 2023.
If men can suffer from a demanding job, their partners must compensate for their absence. Due to a lack of childcare, women spend on average 22 hours alone with their child from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. from Monday to Friday, compared to less than 5 hours for fathers, according to a study published by Drees on March 5 last. But, in the evening too, women's time is too largely dedicated to their family, to the detriment of their career or even their social life, warns Antoine de Gabrielli, co-founder of the consulting firm Companieros, which has been supporting companies for thirty years in their gender equality policy. He defends, in
Emancipating as a couple: the couple, work and equality
(1) the urgency to slow down the pace of men... to liberate women.
Madame Figaro. -
What does men's working hours have to do with women's careers?
Antoine de Gabrielli. -
It has a direct influence on the life of the couple, due to a system of communicating vessels between the time of each person dedicated to work and private life. As soon as one of the spouses works hours inconsistent with a traditional family life, the other must necessarily compensate and assume the majority of the responsibilities. And we're not talking about extravagant schedules: you just have to leave the office at 7:30 p.m. and arrive home at 8 p.m. so that a lot of things have already been taken care of by your partner or by a caregiver. home, if you have the means and the desire. If one overworks, the other necessarily underworks, unless they make very specific private life choices.
Also read: When do we work too much?
So it’s a question of men taking their foot off the gas?
Yes, necessarily, especially since they occupy the majority of management positions. There are a thousand methods, more or less authoritarian, to reduce working time. We could impose a weekly limit of 35 hours on everyone, including managers, which implies eliminating the day package or modifying the status of manager, a derogation from labor law, which allows working even at night or the weekend. We could also offer women as well as men a 4/5th for family reasons, paid as full time, or support the creation of nursery places, the number of which should at least double in France. We only have 458,000, compared to 1.5 million in the UK. Just like boarding schools, which only accommodate 3.5% of high school students, which is completely insufficient. Another option would be to increase the number of dual control stations, which exist and work. Senior executives and members of management committees often work 60 to 80 hours per week. Why not distribute these positions between two employees?
However, this would increase labor costs for businesses...
Please note: in the case of double ordering, time and salary are divided in two. The 35 hours for everyone would have a cost, yes, but amortized by the elimination of RTT. Finally, all this raises the question of the society we want: do we really want to see equality between women and men happen or not? If so, let's act to remove the concrete obstacles. If not, let's forget.
Also read: Samuel Clot, author of
Stay-at-Home Father
: “We still expect the woman to stay at home and the man to bring in the money”
But doesn’t this require a profound cultural shift?
I believe that we overestimate the impact of culture and underestimate the concrete, practical aspects. In France, 97% of parental leave is taken by women. And for good reason: in a majority of couples, the man earns more. Being absent means taking the risk of a significant loss of income. On the other hand, in companies that offer paternity leave without loss of salary, for example, almost 100% of fathers take it. Likewise, I bet that many men would move to 4/5th if he was paid full time. Studies show that 70% of men, compared to 30% of women, believe they do not have enough time to devote to their family. The male demand is there, and it is massive. What they don't want is to lose money in the process.
Also read “Here, when you have a child, you take care of it”: report in Sweden, where fathers take 144 days of paternity leave
What would they gain from these changes?
A more stable life as a couple, a deeper relationship with their children, quite simply. Overwork is one of the reasons for conflict and separation of couples. A study carried out ten years ago by Ifop for the Samedi-c-papa association, which I created, already showed this: the first concern of men in the face of professional overinvestment was the weakening of their relationship.
Things are moving, however. So where is France, in your opinion?
Undoubtedly, corners have been rounded. But, just as undoubtedly, the problem has not been solved because companies refuse to tackle working time. Reducing it means giving up a portion of profitability. This central question is not addressed at all. We favor cosmetic measures, such as workshops to help women gain self-confidence or negotiate better, female networks or mentors... We asked women to adapt but we never tried to include. Result ? Mothers shoulder 70% of family responsibilities, a remarkably stable share. For this figure to change, men must get more involved. We must take note of the fact that 71% of French people live as a couple and that they are therefore subject to this system of communicating vessels. However, the world of work was designed by men to maximize the working time of other men.
I am sure that a less stressful and less conflictual environment in terms of time would have an impact on the number of births
This question of working time sometimes seems to be the debate of the century...
Yes, but it is less a question of reducing it than of understanding that in the current state, we will never achieve equality, we will always see couples separating and a declining birth rate. I am sure that a less stressful and less conflicting environment in terms of time would have an impact on the number of births. The life of executive couples is too difficult, too stressful today. In too many companies, permanent emergency is considered normal, a way to “put the organization under tension”. It’s a toxic and anti-couple management style. Twenty years ago, the HR director of a large French IT group told me: “I want maximum stress, blood on the walls and divorces”. He wanted his teams to give their all to their work and for nothing else to exist. But in the name of what? Why could the company ask so much?
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Emancipating yourself as a couple: The couple, work and equality
, by Antoine de Gabrielli, éditions du Rocher, 200 pages, €17.90. Available on placedeslibraires.fr.