Inga Carboni
Although an increasing number of men are taking on caregiving responsibilities, women—as individuals with significant caregiving responsibilities outside of the workplace (i.e., caregiver employees)—are particularly at risk for both workplace isolation and for its associated negative career outcomes. Workplace isolation can take different forms, including a lack of social support, social interaction, learning opportunities, developmental opportunities, and even physical proximity (
Sahai et al., 2020). Individuals experiencing workplace isolation tend to have reduced job satisfaction (
Itani et al., 2019;
Riggle, 2007), organizational commitment (
Mulki et al., 2008;
Riggle, 2007), and job performance (
Itani et al., 2019;
Mulki et al., 2008), as well as heightened occupational stress (
Dussault et al., 1999) and turnover intention (
Mulki & Jaramillo, 2011), and these outcomes affect women more than men.
Compared to their male counterparts, women report spending less time socializing with friends and taking part in education and training opportunities as a result of their caregiving duties (
Lahaie et al., 2013), and isolated women experience greater occupational stress than men (
Dussault et al., 1999). Those who share their personal and family-related challenges may be considered distracted and unfit to contribute to organizational goals, forcing women to hide their caregiving identities at work (
Moore, 2020). Not surprisingly, caregiver employees often avoid seeking available support in order not to be stigmatized (
Bear & Glick, 2017), further isolating them from social and professional opportunities.
Workplace networks have the potential to reduce workplace isolation for caregiver employees. Networks of informal relationships emerge from social relationships (e.g., friends, colleagues, mentors) and can reduce workplace isolation in at least three ways. One, social interaction through informal networks reduces workplace isolation directly by providing social interaction and social support. Working mothers of young children, for example, often face uncertainty in determining their identities as mothers and professionals (
Ladge & Greenberg, 2015). Positive social support—from colleagues, managers, or other working mothers—can help reduce uncertainty and increase confidence in both maternal and professional identities. Two, conservation of resources theory (
Hobfoll, 1989) suggests that informal networks provide access to socioemotional resources—for example, caring, validation, affirmation—which can help caregivers shore up their emotional reserves, thereby creating a buffer that protects them from the stress caused by increased demands on their time, energy, and general resilience. Caregiver employees can then leverage their increased resilience to reduce stress and improve work productivity. Lastly, informal networks can also connect caregiver employees to instrumental resources such as practical advice, personal support (e.g., running an errand), and work support (e.g., offering to cover a shift) that can reduce some of the caregiving burden.
Despite the emotional and instrumental benefits of maintaining a robust informal workplace network, however, informal networks can also reinforce gender inequity. Unlike men, women often bifurcate their professional relationships into separate affective and instrumental networks (
Ibarra, 1992); they turn mainly to women for emotional support and to men for instrumental support. Men, in contrast, tend to build multidimensional (i.e., multiplex) relationships which tend to be stronger than unidimensional ones. Individuals involved in multiplex relations are more motivated and capable of providing a range of critical career- and work-related resources such as advice, strategic information, and emotional support (
Oh et al., 2004). Given their natural tendency to form relationships with other women, women have fewer men in their networks than do men (
Woehler et al., 2021). With the continued predominance of men in positions of influence, fewer men in a woman's network means reduced access to status and power. As a result, the more that women caregivers tap their own (very likely women-dominated) professional networks, the more likely they are to further deplete the resources of women who already have fewer resources to give and thus keep them from focusing on activities that could lead to their career development, and the less likely they are to get support from powerful (male) allies. Thus, the more that women caregiver employees seek support in their informal networks to avoid workplace isolation, the more they reinforce gender bias and inequity.
Partly to address gender bias in informal networks, well-meaning companies have instituted networks of formal relationships, which are a result of deliberate decisions and organizational design. One example of a formal network is the Employee Resource Group (ERG): an employee-led and organizationally supported professional network for socioemotional support, practical advice, a sense of belonging, and professional development for employees who share a common identity (e.g., women, young professionals, or those of a specific cultural identity). An estimated 90% of Fortune 500 companies offer one or more ERGs (
Huang, 2017).
Although far less studied than informal networks (
Villesèche & Josserand, 2017), ERGs may paradoxically reinforce caregiving as a gendered activity. Companies rarely offer an ERG for caregivers per se. Instead, issues related to childcare and elder care tend to be addressed in ERGs for women. The obvious implication is that caregiving is primarily a “woman's issue” and not an organizational or societal issue. ERGs may also isolate employees and their identity-associated concerns from senior management, many of whom do not identify with any ERGs (
Catalino et al., 2022). ERGs for women, for example, may support internal community but fail to build external engagement, allyship, leadership connection, or career advancement. The end result? Even when women caregiver employees join a formal network, their concerns may remain segmented from individuals who have the power to address gender inequities in organizational policy.
Some organizations have experimented with other types of formal networks. For example, Ford Motor Company created the Ford Re-Entry Program. The program targets individuals who have left the workforce for extended periods of time but want to rejoin. Participants get access to mentoring, professional development, and networking opportunities to jump-start their return to the workforce as part of a 6-month integration into the company. Within these cohorts, individuals reentering the workforce join others with similar concerns and challenges, forming a network of people who can rely on one another and, as they are in different functions within the organization, immediately form advantageous connections to different parts of the organization, along with new information and knowledge. The Re-Entry Program is open to all caregivers, but it was designed explicitly for women, who were much more likely than men to take career breaks due to family caregiving responsibilities. Not surprisingly, 90% of the participants in the Ford program are women. This is another example whereby focusing on caregiving as a gendered activity, company programs may reinforce and thereby perpetuate gendered networks and bias.
Informal and formal workplace networks do have the potential to provide caregiver employees with the emotional and instrumental support they need to avoid workplace isolation and its associated professional disadvantages. However, we as scholars must parse the ways in which networks affect caregiver employees’ outcomes. Doing so through a gender-based lens, challenging norms that treat caregiving as a “women's issue,” holds promise for informing policies that might dismantle existing gendered network disadvantage.