Balancing work and family care: european experiences

A cura di: Isabella Crespi, Giovanna Rossi

Balancing work and family care: european experiences

The goal of reconciliation measures is not only to support the work-family balance in terms of material aids, but also to find new strategies to improve the quality of the well-being of individuals and families relationships. This special issue is concerned with work-family challenges or, more exactly, it aims at developing new insights into the work-family issues in different European countries.

Pages: 162

ISBN: 9788856863239

Edizione:1a edizione 2013

Publisher code: 1534.4.34

Can print: No

Can Copy: No

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Format: PDF con DRM for Digital Editions

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In a rapidly changing world a multitude of new challenges are emerging and affecting families, companies and the welfare state. In particular, families are facing increasing difficulties in managing their educational, work and care tasks, in the attempt to balance their internal and external requests.
The goal of reconciliation measures is therefore not only to support the work-family balance in terms of material aids, but also to find new strategies to improve the quality of the well-being of individuals and families relationships.
This special issue is concerned with work-family challenges or, more exactly, it aims at developing new insights into the work-family issues in different European countries. It addresses the "hot issue" of managing care and work in everyday family life within the societal context of policies, cultural patterns, and welfare regimes. In this perspective, different phases of family life and different aspects of social and cultural behaviours are explored. Specific attention is given to effects of past decisions about intimate relations and family instability in a life-cycle perspective, to caring exchanges between generations, to the impact of social policies and their cultural background, to the mismatch between expected and received care in family networks and between ideals and effective family practices. In such a framework, this special issue underlines the limitations of the classical approaches to work-life balance based on family-work spill over. Both work and family imply identity-oriented behaviours which require much more than easy choices and preferences.
Addressing family and work reconciliation issues in situations of underemployment and/or precariousness is an increasing challenge faced by many countries in contemporary Europe.



Isabella Crespi, Giovanna Rossi Foreword
Essays
Karin Wall, Sanda Samitca, Negotiating work and family: caring for a dependant elderly parent in Portugal
Eric D. Widmer, Manuela Schicka, Michèle Ernst Stähli, Jean-Marie LeGoff and René Levy, "If I had known our couple turned that way, I would not have stopped working", A biographical account of labour force
participation and conjugal love
Giovanna Rossi, The family-work balance: how to turn it into a virtuous relationship for families and society?
Vida Cesnuityte, Changing family model, social capital and caring: how to reconcile? The case of Lithuania
Pedro Romero-Balsas, Fathers taking paternity leave in Spain: which characteristics foster and which hampers the use of paternity leave?
Piotr Teisseyre, Reconciliation of work and family care in the context of the underemployment phenomenon in Poland
Book reviews
Stefan Berger, Chris Lorenz (eds.), The Contested Nation. Ethnicity, Class, Religion and Gender in National Histories, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2011 (Giulia Capacci)
Tina Miller, Making Sense of Fatherhood: Gender, Caring and Work, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2011 (Sarah Baker)
Gerardo Meil, Individualization and Family Solidarity, Social Studies Coll. N. 32., Welfare Projects "la Caixa" Foundation, 2012 (Stefania Meda).

Contributors: Stefan Berger, Vida Cesnuityte, Jean-Marie LeGoff, René Levy, Chris Lorenz, Gerardo Meil, Tina Miller, Pedro Romero-Balsas, Sanda Samitca, Manuela Schicka, Michèle Ernst Stahli, Piotr Teisseyre, Karin Wall, Eric D. Widmer

Serie: Sociologia, cambiamento e politica sociale

Subjects: Policies and Social Services

Level: Scholarly Research

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