By Rachel Emma Silverman 

When Steve Good's two daughters were small, he and his wife, Kathleen, struggled to handle child-care duties alongside their intense jobs as managers at glass manufacturer Corning Inc. After the second time missing a day-care pickup, the couple decided someone had to take a step back to care for family.

So Mr. Good leaned out, reducing his schedule to 30 hours a week and taking a 25% pay cut. The decision put him in a rare group in the U.S. workforce: professional men who opt to work part time to assist with family duties.

Some 6.7 million men, or about 4.6% of all employed workers, voluntarily worked part time last year. Among the more than 27 million men in professional and managerial careers, 6.5% voluntarily work part time, according to government statistics--numbers that have risen little since 2007.

As women make strides in the workplace and men shoulder more caregiving duties at home, few fathers have workplace flexibility figured out. Tough office policies and the scarcity of good-paying part-time work make it difficult for men to reduce their hours, even if they want to, say management researchers. Additionally, working fathers say they feel rising levels of work-life conflict but many aren't comfortable questioning the demands of the modern office, or are penalized if they do so.

Working long hours remains a "masculinity contest," says Jennifer Berdahl, a professor of organizational behavior at the University of British Columbia who studies men and work. "There is huge workplace and social pressure on men not to take leave or not to work nontraditional hours, even if they want to."

Many men choosing to work part time say they find themselves explaining and renegotiating their schedules or fighting the impression that they're not committed to their careers, an experience that can be isolating and stigmatizing.

Mr. Good, 52, recalls friendly teasing from colleagues during the decade he worked part time, and even his father said he wouldn't have made the same choice. His career prospects and pay slowed as his wife's career flourished; she is now a division vice president of finance at Corning.

Mothers tend to value having a flexible job while men give more weight than women do to a high-paying role, according to the Pew Research Center. Some 47% of mothers described part-time as their ideal work situation; 15% of fathers said the same in a 2012 Pew study.

A lawyer in Silicon Valley, Marlo Sarmiento balked when his employer, Paragon Legal, assigned him to a project with client Symantec Corp. that ran Mondays through Thursdays at 80% pay. He worried about the loss of money and status, but says he loved having extra time to spend on hobbies and with his 5-year-old son.

"Once you get the extra day off, it's kind of hard to give it up," says Mr. Sarmiento, 49, adding that he plans to ask for another flexible assignment when his project wraps in December. "If everyone were able to have an extra day of weekend, I think people would just be happier."

Male professionals in part-time roles say they have few role models--and even fewer in senior leadership at their firms.

"The vast majority of men say they prioritize their families over work, but the workplace is itself caught in a vicious cycle. The men who do not prioritize their family, they are often in charge of the company," says Josh Levs, the author of "All In," a new book about improving father-friendly workplace policies.

Recent research led by Scott Coltrane, a sociologist at the University of Oregon, found that for men, reducing hours for family reasons was associated with a 15.5% reduction in earnings over a period of up to 27 years, according to the study--a suggestion that, like women who "mommy track," fathers too run the risk of being "daddy tracked."

John Schumann faced some of those risks firsthand. Soon after Dr. Schumann's daughter was born, his physician wife had to return to full-time work. Dr. Schumann, an internist, asked his bosses at the University of Chicago to put him on an 80% schedule, something some of his female colleagues had done already. His employer granted his request. However, working reduced hours also slowed his tenure clock and meant a reduction in benefits, he says.

He went back full time less than a year later.

"I felt somewhat marginalized, socially and psychologically and I felt like I wasn't taken seriously," says Dr. Schumann, now 46 and the interim president of the University of Oklahoma-Tulsa. In the decade since he went part time, he can recall only one other male colleague who has done so.

Pat Evans, Mr. Good's manager from 2009 to 2013, supported his reduced schedule, although he had to remember to set meetings before midafternoon when Mr. Good left to be with his children. "You had to be conscientious of Steve's day cutting off at three, instead of going to five," says Mr. Evans, director of manufacturing and engineering for the emerging innovations group at Corning.

Now an operations manager in Corning's Automotive Gorilla Glass division, Mr. Good allows that he missed out on some promotions, "but I think I managed a pretty good balance."

Male part-time workers are becoming more common in law, medicine and professional services, although part-time work in those fields sometimes amounts to full-time hours elsewhere. Men accounted for 35% of law partners working part time in 2012, up from 28% in 2006, according to the National Association for Law Placement.

Christian Tinder, now a partner at professional-services firm Ernst & Young LLP in Seattle, shifted to an 80% schedule shortly after his son was born, logging 35 hours a week and staying at home on Fridays.

His boss at the time, Kristin Valente, placed him on important assignments so that his part-time status wouldn't hinder his path to partner, which he attained the same year he returned to full-time work.

Mr. Tinder still leaves the office early to coach his children's basketball teams, even if it means leaving meetings early. Other colleagues have pointed to his example when considering similar work arrangements, although few of them are men.

"It's good to give people the examples of what you are doing, so they have that as a role model," he says.

Write to Rachel Emma Silverman at rachel.silverman@wsj.com

 

Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 01, 2015 05:44 ET (09:44 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2015 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Corning (NYSE:GLW)
Historical Stock Chart
From Feb 2024 to Mar 2024 Click Here for more Corning Charts.
Corning (NYSE:GLW)
Historical Stock Chart
From Mar 2023 to Mar 2024 Click Here for more Corning Charts.