Fathers' Work and Children's Distinctive Lifestyle: Children of Israeli High-Tech Men
Abstract
This study sheds light on the lifestyle of children of R&D male engineers as distinctive in their socio-spatial milieu, and as subordinate to adults. In Israel, a world high tech center, family life is a key constituent of the national culture. As many R&D engineers are family men, their families also bear the burden of their highly committing jobs which results in their being away from home a great deal. Based on in-depth interviews with twenty-five children aged 7-13 in high-tech families, this study reveals the distinctiveness of their lifestyle, by comparing it with that of their friends, and of their 'othering; by singling out expressions of marginality and dependence. These are presented on three spatial scales, home, cyberspace and locale. Attention is also paid to the children's spatial mobility. The use of computers in their homes is most prominent, usually supervised by the parents. Computers are used intensively to maintain daily contacts with their fathers and to support the children's local network; they don't seem to disrupt the children's outdoor activities which are similar to those of their friends. However, the children often feel that because of their fathers' work they are compelled to visit places such as a distant sports club and recreation sites selected by the fathers' employers. As a result of this and of their fathers frequent business trips these children possess greater geographical knowledge than most of their friends. In all, the interviews show that these children compensate for their absent fathers by developing an interest in their fathers' world of work.References
Aitken, S. C. (1998) Family Fantasies and Community Space. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Aitken, S. C. (2000) Fathering and faltering: "Sorry, but you don't have the necessary accoutrements". Environment and Planning A, 32:581-98.
Baron, J. N., Hannan, M. T., Hsu, G., and Kocak, 0.(2000) Gender and the organization building process in young high-tech firms. In Mauro F. G., Collins, R., England, P. and Meyer, M. (eds.) The New Economic Sociology: Developments in an Emerging Field. New York: Russell Sage, pp.245-273.
Bingham, N., Gill, V. and Holloway S. L. (1999) Where do you want to go tomorrow? Connecting children and the Internet. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 17:655-72.
Blumen, O. (1994) Gender differences in the journey-to-work. Urban Geography, 15:223-45.
Blumen, O. (2003) Workplace-family reciprocity in Israeli high-tech: The management perspective. Paper presented at Gendered Cities: Identities, Activities, Networks. Seminar of the Commission on Gender and Geography of the International Geographical Union. Rome, May, 2003.
Bunge, W (1973) The point of reproduction: A second front. Antipode, 9:60-67.
Cooper, M. (2000) Being the 'go-to guy': Fatherhood, masculinity, and the organization of work in Silicon Valley. Qualitative Sociology, 23:379-405.
Davis, S. T. (1995) Rewarding R&D workers. In Shapira, P. (ed.) The R&D Workers: Managing Innovation in Britain, Germany, Japan, and the United State. Westport, Ct: Quorom Books, pp. 93-106.
De Graaf, N. D. (1991) Distinction by consumption in Czechoslovakia, Hungary and the Netherlands. European Sociological Review, 53: 103-112.
Durham, M. G. (2001) Adolescents, the Internet, and the politics of gender: A feminist case analysis. Race, Gender and Class, 8:20-41.
Dyck, I. (1990) Space, time and renegotiating motherhood: An exploration of the domestic workplace. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 8:459-83.
Fogiel-Bijoaui, S. (1999) Families in Israel: Between familism and postmodernism. In Izraeli, D. N., Friedman, A. Dahan-Kalev, H. Fogiel-Bijaoui, S. Herzog, H. Hasan, M. and Naveh, H. (eds.) Sex, Gender, Politics: Women in Israel. Tel Aviv: HaKibbutz HaMeuchad, pp.107-166. (Hebrew)
Goldthorpe, J. H., Payne, C. and Llewellyn, C. (1978) Trends in Class Mobility. Sociology, 12:441-468.
Hanson, S. and Pratt G. (1995) Gender, Work, and Space. London: Routledge.
Harpaz, I. (1990) The Meaning of Work in Israel. New York: Praeger.
Henderson, R. L. (1994) Compensation Management: Rewarding Peiformance. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Holloway, S. L. (1998) Local childcare cultures: Moral geographies of mothering and the social organization of pre-school education. Gender, Place and Culture, 5:29-53.
Holloway, S. L. and Valentine, G. (2000) Children's geographies and the new social studies of childhood. In Holloway S. L. and Valentine, G. (eds.) Children's Geographies. London: Routledge, pp.1-26.
Holloway, S. L. and Valentine, G. (200 1) Children at home in the wired world: Reshaping and rethinking home in urban geography. Urban Geography, 22:562-83.
Imrie, R. (2000) Disability and discourses of mobility and movement. Environment and Planning A, 32: 1641-56.
Johns C. and Causer, G. (1995) Men don't have families: Equality and motherhood in technical employment. Gender, Work and Organization, 2:51-62.
Kellerman, A. (2002) Conditions for the development of high-tech industry: The case of Israel. Tijdschri/t voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, 93:270-86.
Kipnis, B. A. (2002) The impact of globalization on the boom and crisis of Israel's high-tech industry. Research Bulletin # 72, in GaWC site: www.lboro.ac.uk/gawclrb57.html.
Kipnis, B. A. (2004) Lifestyle: An Editorial Introduction. Geography Research Forum, Vol. 24:1-20.
Kunda, G. (1992) Engineering Culture: Control and Commitment in a High-Tech Corporation. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
Kunda, G. (1996) Scene from a Marriage: WOrk and Family in Corporate Drama. Tel Aviv: Golda Meir Institute for Social and Labor Research (Working Paper No. 89). (Hebrew)
Lavee, Y. and Katz, R. (2002) Division of labor, perceived fairness, and marital quality: The effect of gender ideology. Journal 0/ Marriage and the Family, 64: 27-39.
Massey, D. (1995) Masculinity, dualism and high-technology. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 20:487-499.
Massey, D. (1998) Blurring the binaries? High-tech in Cambridge. In Ainley, R. (ed.) New Frontiers of Space, Bodies and Gender. London: Routledge, pp.157-175.
Massey, D. Quintas, P. and Wield, D. (1992) High-Tech Fantasies: Science Parks in Society, Science and Space. London: Routledge.
McCafferey, R.M. (1988) The pioneer plans: A firm foundation for flex. Topics in Total Compensation, 2:225-33.
McCafferey, R.M. (1992) Employee Benefits Programs: A Total Compensation Perspective. Boston: Kent Publishing.
McDowell, L. (2001) 'It's that Linda again': Ethical, practical and political issues involved in longitudinal research with young men. Ethics, Place and Environment, 4:87-100.
McKendrick, J. H., Bradford, M. G. and Fielder, A. V. (2000) Time for a party! Making sense of commercialization ofleisure space for children. In Holloway, S. L. and Valentine, G. (eds.) Children's Geographies. London: Routledge, pp.100-16.
McKendrick, J. H., Fielder, A. V. and Bradford, M. G. (1999) Privatization of collective play space in the UK. The Built Environment, 25:44-57.
McKie, L., Gregory S. and Bowlbly, S. (2002) Shadow times: The temporal and spatial framework and experiences of caring and working. Sociology, 36:897-924.
Milkovich, G.T. and Newman, J. M. (1993) Compensation. Homewood IL: R.D. Irwin Peres, Y. and Katz, R. (1991) The family in Israel: Change and continuity. In Shamgar-Handelman, L. and Bar-Yosef, R. (eds.) Families in Israel. Jerusalem: Academon, pp.9-32. (Hebrew)
Perlow, L. A 1998. Boundary control: The social ordering of work and family time in a high-tech corporation. Administrative Science Quarterly, 43:328-57.
Potter, R. H. and Potter, L. A (2001) The Internet, cyberporn, and sexual exploitation of children: Media moral panic and urban myths for middle-class parents? Sexuality and Culture, 5:31-48.
Sibley, D. (1995) Families and domestic routines: Constructing the boundaries of childhood. In Pile, S. and 1hrift, N. (eds.) Mapping the Subject. London: Routledge, pp.123-3 7.
Sibley, D. and Lowe, G. (1992) Domestic space: Modes of control and problem behavior. Geogrfiska Annaler B, 3: 189-98.
Singh, V. and Vinnicombe, S. (2000) Gendered meanings of commitment from high-technology engineering managers in the United Kingdom and Sweden. Gender Work and Organization, 7:1-19.
Sklair, L. (2001) the Transnational Capitalist Class. Oxford: Blackwell.
Sobel, M. E. (1983) Lifestyle differentiation and stratification in contemporary US society. Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, 2: 115-44.
Steffy, B.D., and Jones, J.W (1988) The impact of family and career planning variables on the organizational career, and community commitment of professional women. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 32: 196-212.
Suess, D., Suoninen, A, Garitaonadia, C, Juaritsi, P. and Kiokkalainen, R. (1998) Media use and the relationships of children and teenagers: A study of Finnish, Spanish, and Swiss cases. European Journal of Communication. 13:521-38.
Ultee, W C and Ganzeboom, H. B. (1991) European integration and social inequality in cultural participation. Paper presented at the European Research Confirence. Gausdal, Norway (November 24-27).
Valentine, G. (1996) Angels and devils: Moral landscapes of childhood. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 14:581-99.
Valentine, G. (1997) A safe place to grow up? Parenting, perception of children's safety and the rural idyll. Journal of Rural Studies, 13:137-48.
Valentine, G. (1999) Being seen and being heard? The ethical complexities of working with children and young people at home and at school. Ethics, Place and Environment, 2:141-55.
Valentine, G. and McKendrick, J. (1997) Children's outdoor play: Exploring parental concerns about children's safety and the changing nature of childhood. Geoforum, 28:219-35.
Van Rompaey, v., Roe, K. and Struys K. (2002) Children's influence on Internet access at home: Adoption and use in the family context. InformationCommunication and Society, 5: 189-206.
- The contributor(s) (authors) warrant that the entire work is original and unpublished; it is submitted only to this Journal and all text, data, figures/tables or other illustrations included in this work are completely original and unpublished, and these have not been previously published or submitted elsewhere in any form or media whatsoever.
- The contributor(s) warrant that the work contains no unlawful or libelous statements and opinions and liable materials of any kind whatsoever, does not infringe on any copyrights, intellectual property rights, personal rights or rights of any kind of others, nor contains any plagiarized, fraudulent, improperly attributed materials, instructions, procedures, information or ideas that might cause any harm, damage, injury, losses or costs of any kind to person or property.
- The contributor(s) retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
- The contributor(s) are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
- The contributor(s) are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
- Geography Research Forum may disseminate the content of the publications and publications’ Meta data in text, image, or other print and electronic formats to providers of research databases (e.g. EBSCO, GeoBase, JSTOR) to facilitate publications' exposure.
