1. Objectifs

Intentions :
«We thus decided to study the social economy sector in Québec to see if this factor, the social economy mission and culture, has an influence on the organizational support and the perceptions related to work–family balance.» (p. 203)

Questions/Hypothèses :
«It was hypothesized that social economy organizations could pay more attention to the work–life balance issue, given their ’social’ mission, or ’democratic’ or participatory management mode, which is what we set out to study.» (p. 203)

2. Méthode

Échantillon/Matériau :
«In the police sector we processed 164 responses, 418 responses in the social work sector, and 144 in nursing [...] In the social economy sector, 423 persons completed the survey—28 men and 395 women. Of the total, 69 percent of respondents work in early childcare centers, 14 percent in cooperatives, and 17 percent in community organizations.» (p. 211-212)

Instruments :
- Questionnaire
- Guide d’entretien

Type de traitement des données :
Analyse statistique
Analyse de contenu

3. Résumé

«First, it is clearly easier to balance work and family in the social economy sector in comparison with the other sectors. While this could be attributed to the strong presence of women in the sector, this is not sufficient, since the social work and nursing sectors are also very feminine and it appears more difficult to balance work and family in these sectors than in the more masculine police sector. In particular in the nursing sector, it was shown that professional life spills over into private and family life much more than is the case in other sectors, among which is the social economy sector. In the second part of our paper, we showed that organizational support in the form of the superior’s support and the colleagues’ support are both more important in the social economy sector than in others. While the police sector came second, there were significant differences between all groups, with more support from the supervisor in the social economy sector, and quite little in social work, and even less in the nursing sector.» (p. 225-226)