Worklife Balance
The Agency and Capabilities Gap
1st Edition
Published on 24. October 2013
320 pages
978-0-19-150312-2 (ISBN)
Description
Across welfare societies we have seen the emergence of policies and norms for work-life balance alongside rising expectations among working parents to be able to participate in employment and caregiving, and to have more time for family life and leisure. Yet despite this value placed upon work-life balance, working parents face increasing work demands, as well as rising numbers of insecure and precarious jobs, both of which produce a deepening sense of economic uncertainty in everyday life, which has been intensified in the current period of financial crises. The agency and capabilities gap addresses these tensions in work-life balance within families, workplace organizations, and policy frameworks. Inspired by Amartya Sen's capabilities approach, this volume considers not just what individuals do, but also their scope of alternatives to make other choices. It includes rich contextualized studies across Western and Eastern European countries and Japan, with a focus on gendered agency inequalities for work-life balance.
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Person
Barbara Hobson holds a professor's chair in Sociology, with a specialization in comparative gender studies at Stockholm University. She has published many books and articles on gender and welfare states concerning themes of gender and citizenship, men and social politics, and social movements and gender diversity in welfare states. Her recent publications have focused on sociological applications of the capabilities approach, including articles on fertility and fathers and work-life balance. She has been Strand Coordinator for the EC FP6 Network of Excellence 'Reconciling Work and Welfare in Europe' (RECWOWE, 2007-11). She is founder and co-editor of the journal Social Politics published by Oxford University Press.
Content
- Introduction: capabilities and agency for worklife balance: a multidimensional framework
- Part I. The Individual/Household and the Agency and Capabilities Gap: Policy Frameworks, Norms, and Work Organizational Cultures
- 2: Susanne Fahlén: The agency gap: policies, norms, and working time capabilities across welfare States
- 3: Barbara Hobson, Susanne Fahlén, and Judit Takács: A sense of entitlement? Agency and capabilities in Sweden and Hungary
- 4: Mieko Takahashi, Saori Kamano, Tomoko Matsuda, Setsuko Onode, and Kyoko Yoshizumi: Worklife balance in Japan: new policies, old practices
- 5: Sonja Drobnic and Margarita León: Agency freedom for worklife balance in Germany and Spain
- Part II: The Firm Level and the Agency and Capabilities Gap: Policies, Managers, and Work Organization
- 6: Laura den Dulk, Sandra Groeneveld and Bram Peper: Workplace worklife balance support from a capabilities perspective
- 7: Colette Fagan and Pierre Walthery: Working time capabilities at the workplace: individual adjustment options between full-time and part-time working in European Firms
- 8: Bram Peper, Laura den Dulk, Nevenka Cernigoj Sadar, Suzan Lewis, Janet Smithson, and Anneke van Doorne-Huiskes: Capabilities for worklife balance: managerial attitudes and employee practices in the Dutch, British, and Slovenian banking sector
- 9: Aleksandra Kanjuo Mrcela and Nevenka Cernigoj Sadar: Capabilities for worklife balance in the context of increasing work intensity and precariousness in the service sector and the IT industry in a transitional economy
- 10: Barbara Hobson: Conclusion
