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Over the last fifty years women’s employment has increased markedly throughout developed countries. Women of younger generations are much more likely than their mothers and grandmothers to enter the labour market and stay in it after they marry and have children. Are these changes due only to changes in women’s investments and preferences, or also to the opportunities and constraints within which women form their choices? Have women with higher and lower educational and occupational profiles combined family responsibilities with paid work differently? And have their divisions changed?
With an innovative approach, this book compares Italy and Great Britain, investigating transformations in women’s transitions in and out of paid work across four subsequent birth cohorts, from the time they leave full-time education up to their 40s. It provides a comprehensive discussion of demographic, economic and sociological theories and contains large amounts of information on changes over time in the two countries, both in women’s work histories and in the economic, institutional and cultural context in which they are embedded. By comparing across both space and time, the book makes it possible to see how different institutional and normative configurations shape women’s life courses, contributing to help or hinder the work-family reconciliation and to reduce or reinforce inequalities.
“Women in and out of paid work” will be valuable reading for students, academics, professionals, policy makers and anyone interested in women’s studies, work-family reconciliation, gender and class inequalities, social policy and sociology.
Spanning the United Kingdom, United States and Australia, this comparative study brings maternal workers’ politicized voices to the centre of contemporary debates on childcare, work and gender.
The book illustrates how maternal workers continue to organize against low pay, exploitative working conditions and state retrenchment and provides a unique theorization of feminist divisions and solidarities.
Bringing together social reproduction with maternal studies, this is a resonating call to build a cross-sectoral, intersectional movement around childcare. Maud Perrier shows why social reproduction needs to be at the centre of a critical theory of work, care and mothering for post-pandemic times.
Does flexible working really provide a better work-life balance?
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, flexible working has become the norm for many workers. This volume offers an original examination of flexible working using data from 30 European countries and drawing on studies conducted in Australia, the US and India. Rather than providing a better work-life balance, the book reveals how flexible working can lead to exploitation, which manifests differently for women and men, such as more care responsibilities or increased working hours.
Taking a critical stance, this book investigates the potential risks and benefits of flexible working and provides crucial policy recommendations for overcoming the negative consequences.
flexible working arrangements for family responsibilities. Stigma can be defined as attributes that discredit an individual as a ‘less desirable kind … reduced in our minds from a whole and usual person to a tainted, discounted one’ ( Goffman, 1990 : 12). Stigma can arise from an abomination of the body – for example, disability, blemishes of the individual character – for example, arising from mental disorder, imprisonment, addiction or unemployment, or tribal or group identity stigma – that is, stigma towards a group of members within the same lineages/family such as
, 2018 ). This was a policy through which the then Labour-majority government aimed to address women’s employment agenda without incurring significant costs for the government. The scope of the law includes a range of arrangements as noted in Box 2.1 . Initially, the right was only available for parents of children under the age of six and children with a disability up to the age of 18. In 2007, this was extended to carers of adults, and parents with children below the age of 17, and finally extended to cover all workers as of June 2014. The right, however, is
work. Detailed regression tables are available in Table A3.2. Similar to what is found in the company-level analysis, we do see a mix of evidence in terms of family-friendly and performance-oriented goal outcomes. First, there is some evidence that flexitime is provided to those in greater need of work-family policies – namely, those with preschool children, with care responsibilities, or have a disability are more likely to have access to it. Furthermore, those who have supportive managers are more likely to say they have access to flexitime. However, we can see
commute in itself can also improve well-being due to the reduced risk of catching germs and viruses, and experiencing other potential health hazards. This can explain why flexible working can reduce sickness, absenteeism and improve well-being outcomes for workers on the one hand, and on the other, enable those with a disability or other care demands to take better part in the labour market ( Jones, 2008 ; Chung and van der Horst, 2018). In addition, providing workers more control over their work involves a level of trust and freedom. This sense of autonomy may also
able to carry out the work. This may lead to negative consequences for workers’ well-being and health especially in the longer term. On the other hand, this also raises an interesting issue around whether and how the rise in flexible working can potentially increase the labour market participation of workers with disabilities and long-standing health issues ( Jones and Wass, 2013 ; Warmate et al, 2021 ). In other words, the ability to work from home and having control over one’s schedule may be able to enhance the labour market participation capacity of many
of 1918 (codifies the rights of federal employees to join labor unions and bargain collectively) 3. Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (deals with the minimum wage and mandatory overtime for employees who work more than 40 hours a week) 4. Americans ivith Disabilities Act of 1990 (prohibits workplace discrimination against disabled people) 5. Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1910 (sets safety regulations for workplaces) 6. Age Discrimination and Employment Act of 1961 (prohibits workplace discrimination against people ages 40 and over) 7. Worker
familiari) or tax based (detrazioni) paid to workers for their spouse and children; - unemployment transfers, divided in 'special lay-off pay fund' (Cassa In- tegrazione Guadagni) called CIG, and mobility allowance, which may be requested by firms with more than 10 employees on behalf of their workers instead of laying workers off, and the ordinary individual un- employment benefit which is very low; - pensions, with the exception of the 'basic non contributory pensions', are strictly work-based. They are paid either to people who cannot work (disability pensions
