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Assuming that policy design can impact gender equity in caretaking, this paper examines how expectant mothers and fathers understand and respond to specific parental leave policy elements when shaping their parenting practices. Taking Germany as a case study, this research draws on semi-structured interviews conducted between October 2019 and March 2020 with 18 couples, who were expecting their first child at the time of the interview. Germany's parental leave policy has shifted substantially since 2007, most notably with the establishment of non-transferable parental leave months for fathers. Exploring the link between policy design at the macro-level and parental involvement at the micro-level, this paper focuses on how mothers and fathers make sense of their leave entitlements when dividing leave, which (policy) aspects they consider as helping or hindering an equal leave division and how mothers and fathers anticipate using parental leave benefits. Results indicate that the current parental leave policy design enables greater equity in caretaking by normalizing some leave-taking by fathers. However, by providing an option for fathers' leaves to be split and to be taken concurrently with mothers the policy limits fathers' solo parenting responsibility and consequently prevents a transformation of gendered parenting practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the US, recent calls for greater work-family justice have not only forced organizations to re-conceptualize work, but to re-define the role of organizations themselves. This shift has been striking during times of socio-political change as demonstrated most recently by organizational responses to the reversal of Roe v. Wade, with many companies pledging funding for birthing people seeking abortions. While this type of support is valuable, the singular focus on abortion rights within the reproductive justice context minimizes the scope of its intersectional legacy. The purpose of this paper is to advocate for the organizational application of a comprehensive framework for reproductive justice (CFRJ) guided by intersectional Black Feminist epistemology. We will show that many US organizations have already engaged in reproductive justice by weaving together a mosaic of three socio-political moments (the pathway to marriage equality, restrictive immigration policies and COVID-19), that garnered organizational support and advocacy. These moments reflect the comprehensive nature of reproductive justice as conceived by the Black Feminists who originated the term. These 'turning points' demonstrate the organization's capacity for leadership during times of crisis. The paper concludes with recommendations that explore potential pathways for moving forward in supporting work-family and reproductive justice within organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although distinctions between full-time and part-time work are vital for understanding inequalities at work and home, consensus and critical reflection are lacking in how employment status should be defined. Full-time and part-time work are often represented as a binary split between those working under or over a specific number of hours. However, this paper, using exploratory mixed methods, evidences problems with assumptions based on working-hour thresholds and highlights the importance of workplace culture and household contexts. Using the UK Labour Force Survey we reveal ambiguities in the reporting of employment status for 12% of workers when comparing definitions based on number of working days, working hours and self-assessment. Ambiguities are particularly prevalent among working mothers with almost a third, who would be regarded as working full-time using hour-based measures, classified as ambiguous according to the measures used here. In-depth interviews with parents who self-classify as part-time workers, despite working over 35 hours a week, reveal mechanisms behind ambiguity within this group linked to organisational norms, previous working hours and divisions of household labour. The paper therefore argues workplace and household contexts are crucial to understanding employment status and recommends this should be taken into account in new multidimensional measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a theoretical framework of women's empowerment developed from an intervention in South India. The framework is unique in that, in addition to common empowerment indicators, it emphasizes the relational aspect of empowerment including the role of men, family, and gendered power structures—and the flexibility of these to change. This is especially pertinent to India, which has struggled to meet global targets for indicators of improved gender equality. The mixed-methods study found evidence that women who felt they had more support from their husbands and family also had more success in the project, and that family support was an overall indicator for empowerment. This paper's contribution is in reframing women's empowerment to better represent the often overlooked structural factors that could intrinsically resist or counter the establishment of new states of social equality and stability, specifically the integral role of men and the wider family in the women's empowerment process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the everyday lives of young women living in Aotearoa New Zealand. Engaging a feminist intersectional and youth studies approach and drawing upon interviews and focus groups with 45 young women (16–25 years) from diverse socio-economic and cultural backgrounds, we reveal how culture, ethnicity, socio-economic and living conditions impacted the gendered and emotional labor expected of young women (i.e. caring for younger siblings, vulnerable family members, various chores, part-time work), and how the practices of care for others impacted young women’s capacity for their own educational, social and career development. Ultimately, this paper highlights the remarkable agency of young women during the pandemic, their compassion and empathy for others, their learnings and reflections, and how this period of radical social disruption impacted their future imaginings for themselves. In so doing, our analysis raises important questions for youth-focused pandemic educational, social and employment policies, calling for more intersectional approaches that consider how COVID-19 is continuing to significantly and unevenly shape the identity development and life trajectories of young women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the mediating role of work-family conflict (WFC) in the relationship between job insecurity and mental health. Based on the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model and the Conservation of Resources (COR) Theory, a conceptual model is developed and tested. An online survey was created, including a sociodemographic questionnaire and measures of job insecurity, WFC, and mental health. Participants were 189 community social workers actively working with disadvantaged groups in social intervention projects. The results show that job insecurity increases depression / strain among community workers and significantly impacts on time-based and strain-based work-family conflict. Strain-based and behavior-based work-family conflict negatively influence social functioning and increase depression / strain. The mediation results show that strain-based WFC was the only WFC dimension that significantly mediated the relationship between job insecurity and mental health. The study findings and its contribution to current research in the JD-R model and COR theory are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the effects of individual and household characteristics on time allocation decisions for both women and men, and how these effects have evolved in Urban Guatemala using data from the National Survey of Living Conditions (2000 and 2014). We built a multivariate Tobit to model the decision of individuals to allocate time, distinguishing between three different types of time uses: housework, childcare and paid work. The results suggest that time allocation is strongly determined by gender. For both periods, on average, women devote more time to housework and childcare than men, while men spent more hours in paid work than their counterparts. However, men that report themselves as spouses tend to allocate significantly more hours to housework and childcare in 2014. Moreover, women's time allocation is more responsive to individuals and household characteristics than men in both periods. Finally, we find that educational attainment plays a central role in shaping how individuals allocate their time between market and non-market activities, especially for women. For instance, while housework time is negatively associated with education level, time devoted to childcare increases with instruction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2019, a Belgian women's organisation experimented with a 30-hour work week for all of their full-time employees. This work time reduction was an excellent opportunity to study these female employees' wishes, expectations and experienced reality concerning their extra non-work time. Their wishes and expectations – as well as how these relate to their perceived reality – was studied through longitudinal questionnaires, in-depth interviews and focus groups. The women wished for more time for themselves and their intimate relationships. However, their wishes reflected an ideal situation. Their expectations reflected their wishes but were slightly more realistic. The perceived reality did not fulfil all of their wishes. The 'me-time' that they wished for prior to the experiment did not always emerge to be the 'me-time' that they had. Some women appropriated a less conventional form of 'me-time', such as housework, which helped them to ease their mind and relax. Others felt unable to fulfil their wishes through (social) context factors such as the embeddedness of time structures, time schedules and the rhythms of family and friends. This paper reflects on the gendered norms and values and inequalities in time use that can help to explain the discrepancies between preferences and experienced reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a novel theoretical model for the community-based enterprise, which could assist in achieving UN sustainable development goals within craft communities in developing nations. This model focuses on building enterprise skills in vulnerable communities, sustaining traditional crafts and strengthening community capacity for self-determination. This article distills qualitative data from case studies, participatory action research workshops and field observations within traditional handloom craft communities in Sri Lanka. It explores the prevailing status of community-based entrepreneurship practices and argues that under current practices, entrepreneurial culture is not deeply embedded in community life, leading young people to move away from the traditional way of life and damaging the cohesion of traditional communities. This study establishes the need to sustain levels of social capital, support family networks, and encourage innovation to develop enterprise in craft communities. We recommend various strategies for overcoming structural and socio-cultural barriers to enterprise and to establish community-based sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The closure of schools and preschools due to the Covid-19 pandemic constrained millions of workers with children to modify their care arrangements. In Italy and France, governments adopted different measures to support parents in handling the additional care workload, including promoting access to telework. However, we argue that equating access to telework to a childcare policy, especially during the pandemic, had significant consequences in terms of gender and class inequalities. Based on multi-sited fieldwork in Italy and France, the article analyses the impact that telework as a social policy had on gender and class inequalities, stressing common trends and pointing out that caring for children while teleworking reinforces economic and gender inequalities. Moreover, the paper identifies strategies implemented by parents to cope with the challenge of child-caring while teleworking, highlighting that promoting such a policy can have unequal consequences depending on parents’ social and economic capital. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies have shown that societal norms around gender roles can shape gender-based outcomes of working from home. This paper extends these findings to see how individuals' gender role attitudes can moderate the relationship between working from home and work–family conflict, but again with varying outcomes for men and women. We use data from around 3150 employees who participated in wave 10 (2017–2018) of the German Family Panel Survey (pairfam). Results suggest that compared to employees with fixed work locations, those who work from home report higher levels of family-to-work conflict, but not higher work-to-family conflict. Positive associations between working from home and both types of work – family conflict are found only for women, not for men. Specifically, the positive association between working from home and family-to-work conflict is mainly present among women with traditional gender role attitudes, while the positive association between working from home and work-to-family conflict is mainly present among women with egalitarian gender role attitudes. No such variation, however, was found for men. This study highlights the importance of taking gender and gender role attitudes into account when examining the consequences of working from home. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reflexively considers the muted narratives of a desire for pregnancy and parenthood in teenaged women's accounts of their journey to motherhood after deciding on abortion with their first, unexpected, pregnancy. By contrast their accounts were replete with good citizenship narratives that attested to pregnancy avoidance. Through the use of the Listening Guide, a feminist, layered, reflexive approach to data analysis, these accounts are considered in the wider social and cultural 'narratives' in the interview data, and the interviewee/interviewer relationship. It is suggested that the young women draw on dominant cultural tropes of the good teenager and mother, shaped by the desire to present themselves to the interviewer as acceptable citizens. It is debated whether the young women choose relative silence regarding their growing desire for pregnancy to avoid judgment in a society that problematises young motherhood, or are silenced by the same dominant discourse. Discussion considers what such a muted narrative might represent in a political and socio-cultural context. With narrow definitions of what is acceptable in the teenage years, and for motherhood, the young women's desire to present as acceptable may eclipse valuable contextual considerations that are important to practitioners and policy makers in providing effective support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Community, Work & Family is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Family supportive supervisor behaviours (FSSB) has received growing attention as an effective set of behaviours to facilitate the integration of work and family responsibilities. However, the FSSB construct remains limited in its sensitivity to context and our understanding of FSSB remains embedded in experiences from high-income global North countries and in white collar and private organisational settings. This paper presents a context-sensitive interpretation of FSSB for breastfeeding at work among public school teachers in South Africa–a middle-income global South country. Thematic analysis of in-depth interview data from teachers who are mothers, and principals as supervisors, underscored intersecting layers of contextual complexities that advance understanding of FSSB for supporting breastfeeding at work. Patriarchal culture and pervasive gender-based violence in South Africa compromises mothers' access to FSSB, while historical socio-spatial inequalities endemic in the public education sector limits the viability of all dimensions of FSSB to improve breastfeeding at work. The study findings have implications for the application of FSSB in diverse geographical, socio-cultural, and economic contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There exists comprehensive literature on women's empowerment; however, studies on the measurement of empowerment in the agricultural context are scarce, particularly in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) Pakistan. In this paper, we used the Women's Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI), which includes five domains, i.e. resources, production, income, leadership, and time, to measure women's empowerment in the agriculture sector. A survey of 600 rural women and 18 focus group discussions (FGDs) were conducted by using multi-stage sampling. The results show that about 72% of the women are disempowered, and attribute to low socio-economic conditions, i.e. they have limited access to resources and little leadership skills as rural women in AJK are not free to speak in public. The results further reveal that women are also disempowered in some other indicators, such as autonomy in production, income, and leisure time. So, based on the current findings, it is proposed that government should strengthen these areas through effective policies to improve the status of women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most of the research evaluating the import of paternal migration for children's outcomes has taken 'left-behind children' as a single group. Taking a life course perspective, this paper distinguishes fathers' short-term and long-term migrations, as well as return migration, as they affect children's productive activities. Using the Mexican Family Life Survey (2002–2009), we followed school-aged children from two-parent households in 2002 and observed their activities as they transitioned into adulthood from 2005 through 2009. We found that fathers' short-term migration is negatively associated with children's labor force participation, especially for 12 – to 18-year-old boys, suggesting that paternal migration may interrupt adolescent boys' labor market transition in the short-term. Fathers' long-term migration and return migration does not significantly alter children's activities. However, the negative role of fathers' long-term absence and benefits brought by the paternal migration trip are important mechanisms for educational persistence and the labor force entrance of 12 – to 18-year-old girls, highlighting the conditions under which certain mechanisms may work. This suggests that migration is a family process, with the outcomes lying in the interplay of the stages of migration, children's life stages, and how gender is treated within cultural and familial contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following the passage of the Minneapolis Sick and Safe Leave city ordinance, a community-based participatory research (CBPR) project was launched to examine the perceived accessibility and usage of paid sick leave by African American employed caregivers as a work-based family support tool. This paper presents qualitative findings from the Paid Sick Leave and African American Families study, in which four focus groups (n = 32) were conducted. Participants were employed African American caregivers from the Minneapolis metropolitan area. Participants discussed how the intersections of their work and family environments and how their families created family-level meaning making around employment, income, and family caregiving. Themes that arose from the focus groups were: (1) an importance of defining family for themselves expressed through kin affinity and family ascribed membership, (2) an expressed desire for their family to be together, (3) family prioritization over work conditions they felt was inconsiderate of their personal or family sense of worth and (4) family legacy expressed as the culmination of families' prioritization, togetherness, and defined membership and is the intergenerational transmission of the family's, identity. Implications for future research and policy are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The number of leave-taking fathers in South Korea has quintupled in the last five years, but those taking leave are still a minority of the total eligible fathers. These minority fathers, however, take some of the longest leave in the world. Driven by such notable trends, this paper inquires how norms about childcare and working hours shape Korean fathers' decision to take leave as well as work-family balance after leave. I find that fathers are often pushed to take leave as a last resort in light of poor work-family balance and absence of more desirable alternatives to care for a young child. While these conditions continue to constrain parents after the end of the fathers' leave, fathers respond in divergent ways: making continued effort to balance employment and family life, reverting to work-centric lifestyles with grandparental support, or going through career changes to address continued childcare needs. My findings highlight that incentives targeting fathers to take leave need to go hand in hand with more fundamental reforms to working hours and reliable ECEC to sustainably support gender equality and work-family balance of dual-earner parents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Community, Work & Family is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

To better understand the gap between women's childbearing aspirations and actual levels of childbearing, this paper investigates the importance of employment, relationship and motherhood transitions for predicting women's desired number of children. Women born in 1973–78 participating in the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health were asked, at three-time points over six years, how many children they would like to have by the age of 35 years. Women who delayed childbearing, did not marry or enter a cohabiting relationship aspired to fewer children, whilst those who married aspired to more children. Notably, the two-way interactions demonstrated that for women without children, and for women who had had their first child between waves, shifting from secure work to being out of the labour force was associated with desiring fewer children. This finding supports the argument that policies which promote women's attachment to the workforce enable women to more effectively pursue their aspirations for both motherhood and careers. The findings make a new contribution to the field by indicating that life transitions are more important predictors of desired number of children than background and demographic factors that have long been associated with, and used as explanations for, women's childbearing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Community, Work & Family is the property of Routledge and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

According to the conservation of resources theory and social exchange theory, this paper explores how job incumbents’ work-to-family conflict and enrichment influence their spouses’ satisfaction with their work-family balance, which in turn impacts their spouses’ intentions to provide social support for the job incumbents’ work issues. We employed a mixed-method design. Study 1 involved a field study of a paired sample of 171 job incumbents and their spouses. Study 2 involved a scenario-based experiment (N = 274). The results showed that the relationship between job incumbents’ WFC and their spouses’ intentions to provide social support was mediated by the spouses’ satisfaction with the focal job incumbents’ WFB. We also found that job incumbents’ WFC interacts with WFE to influence their spouses’ intentions to provide social support via their spouses’ satisfaction with their WFB. This study offers new insights into the relationship between work-family experiences and social support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although employees increasingly need support to reconcile work and family, many lack a thorough knowledge of work-life practices such as flexible work arrangements, leaves, and dependent care programs, or they hesitate to use them. Building on social network and social contagion research, this paper argues that employees assess work-life practices not in isolation but through relational processes of social priming, social influence, and social comparison. I delineate six dimensions along which employees assess work-life practices–visibility, relevance, employer's motivations, instrumentality, fairness, and relative generosity–and analyze social contagion processes in networks of strong and weak ties, expressive and instrumental ties, within and outside the organization. I then examine how the national context may intervene in these processes by making the information that flows across ties more or less gender normative and by setting employees’ expectations for employer work-life support. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research has been conducted on job insecurity and participation in the workplace. However, to date, empirical research on the relationship between job insecurity and citizen participation is extremely scarce. To fill the void, the aim of this study is to examine the nexus between job insecurity and citizen participation in Chile and South Korea where embraced the New Public Management principle. Grievance and resource theory of participation offer contrasting predictions for the influence of job insecurity on citizen participation. Analyzing the wave 7 of the World Values Survey, this paper verifies the two lines of enquiry in examining the influence of job insecurity on citizen participation. The results of an ordered logit regression model demonstrate that the impact of job insecurity on citizen participation varied depending on the types of job insecurity and citizen participation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates three potential mechanisms of educational differentials in formal childcare uptake in Belgium, a country characterised by high availability, but also pronounced gradients in childcare uptake. We investigate whether and to what extent educational differentials can be accounted for by (i) differences in employment opportunities of mothers with different educational backgrounds, (ii) variation in local childcare availability which may entail different access, or (iii) differential availability of grandparents as an alternative source of affordable and flexible care. We use data from the 2011 Belgian census, which provides us with information on the socio-demographic characteristics of the entire population legally residing in Belgium. The census was linked to tax register data which gives insight into the uptake of formal childcare as childcare expenses are tax-deductible, as well as municipality-level data on childcare availability. Using logistic regression analysis, we investigate the uptake of formal childcare among two-parent families with one child younger than 2.5 years old. Results indicate that educational gradients are mainly due to differences in employment opportunities rather than differential availability of formal childcare at the local level or informal childcare availability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic disruptions related to the COVID-19 pandemic left many households without the income necessary to meet basic needs. We describe an innovative, community-based partnership between a financial services company, philanthropic funders, and employers to provide financial assistance to hotel workers in New Orleans who lost jobs and income due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Results from a survey of 1,056 hotel workers show that workers experienced lower food insecurity and difficulty paying bills in the month after receiving assistance, while transaction data from the VISA gift cards used to disburse assistance showed that workers mostly used assistance on necessities. We discuss implications for employers who want to offer emergency assistance fund programs and for public policy changes to better support low-wage workers, especially those with children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background and Objectives: Building on opportunity cost theory and an understanding of how gender impacts household labor decisions, this study examines how family net worth may be impacted by three variables (having a work-limiting health condition, caregiving inside the home, caregiving outside of the home) while controlling for demographic and employment-related variables for married and unmarried male and female caregivers. Research Design and Methods: This study uses a nationally representative sample of 5,173 older adults ages 51-60 from the 2016 round of 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79). Results: Findings from the weighted sample suggest having a limiting health condition is significantly and negatively related to total family net worth: people with a work limiting health condition experience a $55,000-$180,000 decline in total family net worth. Further, caregiving inside the home had a significant negative relationship with total family net worth for two subgroups: married males and unmarried females. Providing care to someone outside the home was significantly and positively related to total family net worth only for unmarried males. Discussion and Implications: Findings from this study reinforce the need for policies and programs to help employees manage their own health conditions and caregiving responsibilities for family members with financial preparedness for retirement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While work-care reconciliation strategies can benefit family carers, employers, wider society and the economy, juggling family caregiving responsibilities with paid employment can lead to role strain. Family carers frequently find themselves engaged in role decisions and role negotiations and being faced with decisions to alter their work commitments in order to fulfil their caregiving responsibilities. The purpose of this study was to explore family carers' experiences of modifying work arrangements to accommodate caregiving responsibilities for an ill or dependant family member. Ten face-to-face, semi-structured interviews were conducted with family carers in Ireland, which were audio-recorded, transcribed verbatim and analysed using thematic content analysis. The findings highlighted the value placed on work by family carers, but despite this, the caring role always took precedence over the employee role. Family carers adopted a combination of strategies, and where possible, carved out a carer-friendly career for themselves. The findings also revealed the key triggers for work alterations and the sacrifices made by family carers. It is important that family carers are supported by employers to successfully balance work with caregiving responsibilities and that an array of work options are available to them, so that they can make better-informed choices regarding work-care reconciliation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pregnancy loss is a distressing life event for many people. While the need for workplace leave following pregnancy loss is increasingly recognized, limited research exists to inform policy change and appropriate organizational supports for LGBTQ+ people experiencing pregnancy loss. Adopting an inductive approach, we interviewed 12 LGBTQ+ people aiming to explore their workplace leave and support experiences following pregnancy losses as gestational or non-gestational parents in the previous 6 months to 10 years. Reflexive thematic analysis generated three themes (1) Disclosure in the workplace: support, shame, and self-protection, (2) Navigating discriminatory workplace policies, leave, and entitlements and (3) Coping at work: Getting the balance right for each person. Heteronormative policies and entitlements can compound the distress of LGBTQ+ people experiencing pregnancy loss, including increasing difficulties in accessing leave, misgendering leave entitlements, failing to accommodate for high attachment to unborn babies in early gestation, and the impact of distance for parents who have engaged in surrogacy. Employers can assist by using inclusive language in leave policies and forms, providing people of all genders and sexualities access to parental and bereavement leave irrespective of family formation method and gestational age and allowing flexibility in hours, workload, and tasks after a pregnancy loss. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the widespread ownership and usage of mobile devices combined with the subsequent challenges usage poses on relationships, this research examines how people negotiate time spent on mobile devices (smartphones and/or tablets) accomplishing professional tasks. Participants in this study were the users of the mobile device within a full-time managerial level position. Diverse organizational representation included, but not limited to health care, engineering, public relations, finance, education, and distribution management industries. Using qualitative methods and semi-structured interviews, data analysis unveiled what negotiation means when using mobile devices in any capacity for professional reasons within the domestic (familial) sphere. Management-level organizational members share how parameters (sometimes called boundaries or borders) are both in and out of their control when using mobile devices to communicate professionally. Within their control was the users' ability to engage or disengage, while also challenged with situations out of their control due to organizational directives. This research re-conceptualizes the concepts of Clark's (2000) Work/Family Border Theory. While this data was gathered prior to Covid19, understanding this balance has current and future relevancy from an academic and applied perspective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study focuses on the role of parenthood ideologies on the micro and meso level as individual determinants to take up parental leave among fathers in Belgium. Belgian parental leave policies are characterized by a 'laisser faire' mentality regarding the division of parental leave uptake. Based on in-depth interviews with 20 heterosexual couples our study highlights the impact of norms and values on the individual micro-level and social expectations on a contextual meso-level. We present six ideal-typical categories of fathers' position towards the uptake of parental leave that is defined by synergies or conflicts between parenthood ideologies on different levels and are ultimately likely to determine the individual decision to take up parental leave. The six positions are empowered parental leave takers, ideological crusaders, ideological renegades, ideological breadwinners, ideological explorers and empowered breadwinners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Communicating work issues at home and home issues at work, also known as across-the-border (ATB) communication, is a part of everyday work and family interaction. This study focuses on the concept of ATB communication, using Work/Family Border Theory, according to which the boundaries between work and private life are seen as negotiated and shaped through social interactions and practices. We argue that through ATB communication, and especially by focusing on what is shared and how, employees can manage boundaries and achieve work-life balance. Altogether, 32 informants, comprising journalists (N = 16) and their relational others (N = 16), were interviewed to investigate the role of ATB communication in employees' work-life boundary management. The findings show that ATB communication entails discussions about responsibilities in different life domains and a search for support in demanding or complex work or private life situations. One feature of boundary management involves refraining from ATB communication in order to achieve a balance between work and life. The study extends existing knowledge of boundary management as a communicative process and offers important practical implications by highlighting the role of interpersonal relationships in boundary management practices and the quality of ATB communication in these relationships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We analyse how women's participation in the labour market is influenced by their partner's resources in Mexico. Theory predicts opposing partner effects: specialization and bargaining theory predicts a negative association between partners' resources and women's work status, whereas social capital and gender equality approaches suggest a positive effect. In order to test these hypotheses, we structure our study around three main research questions. Is women's employment positively related to their partners' earnings? Does men's education influence women's work status within couples? Did the role of partner characteristics change over time? To answer these questions, we use data from the National Survey of Occupation and Employment of Mexico collected in 2005 and 2017. Our results show that women are more likely to be employed if they have a low-earning partner , whereas men's education is positively associated with women's employment. These associations become stronger over time, suggesting an increasing importance of partner characteristics for women's employment status. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the present study, the authors aimed to investigate the experiences of families bereaved by the death of their loved ones at workplaces in Kashmir. 17 families were selected through purposive sampling. Data were collected by using an unstructured interview guide. Thematic analysis of the data revealed that the families had to face severe social, mental, physical, and financial problems, including difficulties in claiming and receiving compensation, immediate and long-term financial difficulties due to the death of the breadwinner, mental and physical health problems, unmet support needs, family disruption, and social, educational and behavioural impact on children. Recommendations for policy development and interventions are suggested to prevent workplace accidents and fatalities at workplaces, reduce the disturbance and sufferings experienced by surviving families and alleviate the multi-dimensional consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Work-family border theory casts individuals as protagonists who are enactive rather than reactive in shaping borders between work and personal life domains. To what extent is this the case in strongly patriarchal contexts that constrain women's personal agency? This qualitative study conducted with 32 female lawyers, magistrates and justices in Nigeria shows how participants engage in new border management tactics in response to context-specific institutional and social factors. Faced with public harassment and physical assault in a country where violence against women is normalised, female legal professionals restructure family borders to extend no further than their homes and retain police attachés as border-keepers. When their families are reconfigured via nonconsensual polygamous marriages, women's work borders are strengthened by co-wives performing domestic labour and family borders are strengthened by co-wives' assistance with job tasks, thereby reducing participants' work-family conflict. Rather than strategically enacting work-life borders within known situational constraints, Nigerian female legal professionals react to involuntary events that limit their agency to negotiate desired work and personal lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Domestic work constitutes a large sector, with more than a million women working as domestic workers. In South Africa, it is a norm that whites employ black women as domestic servants, but with the demise of apartheid, there has been an increase in the employment of domestic workers in black families. However, hiring family members as domestic workers in black families is an under-researched area. Drawing from the authors dissertation, this article examines family domestic work – whereby family members hire their relatives as domestic workers – in rural Limpopo. The study mobilises a qualitative approach to comprehend the experiences of hiring kin as domestic workers. Findings illustrate that family domestic work is an act of reciprocal care amongst family members. Relatives hire their kin to help with domestic duties and enabling family members to provide for their families. The relationship between 'sister-maids' and 'sister-madams' is intertwined, which leads to the difficulty of balancing formal employment and family relations. Thus, family domestic work symbolises a capitalised reciprocal caring within black families in post-apartheid South Africa, as helping involves paying each other. The article does not generalise on family domestic work, but contributes to the body of knowledge about domestic work within black families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A qualitative investigation of the relationship between the experience of bodily pain and work-life balance was conducted in a sample of manual/non-managerial workers in the Australian construction industry. Participants were purposefully selected for the study on the basis that they reported experiencing ongoing bodily pain. Thematic analysis of the interview data revealed that participants perceive their pain to have substantial impacts on their ability to participate successfully in family life and in social and leisure activities, indicating that the experience of bodily pain has a negative impact on the work-life balance of these manual/non-managerial construction workers. Participants regularly seek remedial treatment outside of work and adapt their activities in order to cope with their pain. Results suggest that for workers in physically demanding jobs, work-life conflict may extend beyond a time-, strain- and behaviour-based model and include a physical capacity component. The research also proposes a new form of time-based work-life conflict which occurs through an indirect pathway through which pain negatively impacts time available for non-work activities. These findings suggest that organisational work-life balance initiatives should also consider the physicality of work, which can contribute, through musculoskeletal pain, to work-life conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we considered women's experiences of undertaking Higher Education (HE) study (Foundation Degree in Early Years (EY)) drawing on research based in the North of England, UK. The study, informed by a social constructionist approach, explored 10 women's experiences of work–life balance (WLB) and well-being alongside HE study through semi-structured interviews. A focus group explored women's personal perceptions of WLB and well-being. The findings were analysed thematically and we argue that the formation of a third sphere of commitment (HE study) disrupted WLB and created some disequilibrium, which impacted upon the women's well-being. The women underwent a transformative process as initial academic inexperience and lack of belonging in University was replaced by confidence and student identity. This transformation was made possible through personal adaptations, diverse strategies and motivation that indicated individual and collective resilience. One noticeable strategy involved the overlapping of commitment spheres, including HE study taking place at home. While being challenging to manage, this contributed to an important cultural shift as study became normal for households, creating the 'learning family'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many low-income women face precarious or low-quality employment, and studies show that low-quality maternal employment is linked with poorer outcomes for children. This study examines whether maternal multiple job holding, an understudied facet of employment quality, is associated with children's behavior in early childhood. Multiple job holding may affect parental time, well-being or income, all of which may influence child behavior. Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N=2013), a longitudinal birth cohort study of low-income families, this study employs three methodological techniques – simple change, residualized change, and fixed effects models – to address selection bias and identify lower and upper bounds on the true association. Findings are suggestive of an association between maternal multiple job holding and child behavior problems, but the association is not robust across all methodological approaches. Although mothers with multiple jobs work longer hours on average than mothers with one job, analyses suggest that long work hours do not drive the observed associations between multiple job holding and child behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the lack of a federal paid parental leave policy in the United States, access to leave for most US workers is dependent on whether their employer offers paid leave. Our research explores employer-based access to parental leave among Fortune 500 companies. We develop a classification of leave policies based on how policies differ for mothers and fathers: gender equal (equal periods of leave to mothers and fathers), gender modified (equal leave of 6 or more weeks with an additional 6–8 weeks for mothers), gender unequal (mothers offered 2 or more times longer leave than fathers), and gender-neutral gendering (policies that offer primary and secondary caregiver leave). We find that 72% of companies offer some paid parental leave, and the majority of Fortune 500 companies have paid parental leave policies that offer substantially more leave to mothers than to fathers. We also find that technology companies, larger companies, and companies headquartered in a state with paid family leave are more likely to offer paid parental leave. This research provides insight into the degree to which employer policies may contribute to gender inequality and has implications for employer-mediated inequalities in access to parental leave. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the subjective well-being (SWB) and related resources of expatriate partners during international assignments. The data were collected in 20 in-depth interviews with the partners of high-status Finnish expatriates and analyzed by employing thematic analysis. The results show that relocation causes significant changes in expatriate partners' condition resources that lead to changes in SWB either directly or through affecting their energy and personal resources. The findings highlight partners' ability to replace lost resources and the importance of self-directed activity while doing so. Additionally, resource gain spirals seem to have a more powerful effect on partners' SWB than resource loss cycles. This study contributes to the literature on expatriate partners by approaching their SWB and related changes in resources also from a positive perspective. Conservation of Resources theory is utilized as a framework for this study and we contribute to research on it by suggesting that condition resources might have a more important role than other resources in changing life situations. As a practical implication, we suggest that expatriate partners should be aware of that relocation will significantly affect their condition recourses. Organizations employing expatriates should give due consideration to partner concerns from the pre-departure phase until repatriation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2017, South Korea's total fertility rate was 1.26 live births per woman, the sixth-lowest in the world. Employment is significantly negatively associated with second births in Korea. To increase fertility rates and help working women better balance work and family lives, a series of government family-supportive workplace policies and employer-provided occupational benefits have been implemented and expanded. The present study examined the effects of family-supportive workplace policies and benefits on boosting working women's fertility intentions in Korea by the current number of children (i.e. parity). Using the 2007–2012 Korean Longitudinal Survey of Women and Families (N = 3,405 working women), the study examined seven family policies and benefits. Results revealed that childcare leave was significantly associated with increasing working women's first birth intentions. Also, women's second birth intentions increased significantly when they had more family-supportive provisions at their workplaces. Despite these results, a majority of women perceived the family provisions to be unavailable at their workplaces. The present study underscores that women's fertility decisions differ significantly by parity and informs policymakers in their efforts to develop family provisions that address these differences and make family provisions more readily available. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although many academics in the United States assume that work-life balance, especially for women, is better at teaching-intensive colleges than at research-intensive universities, there is no systematic data to support this belief. We analyzed survey data from 909 faculty at a research-intensive public university, a masters-level public college, and two private colleges to test this assumption. Consistent with their reputation, faculty at the three teaching-intensive colleges reported family/personal life-friendlier departments. Yet we found no difference in work-life integration between faculty at the research university and those at the colleges. After we introduced having a family/personal life-friendly department as a mediator, the faculty at the research university reported more work-life integration than those at the colleges. The assumption that teaching-intensive colleges offer better work-life balance constitutes one layer in the leaky pipeline that reduces the number of women academics working at research universities, thereby reproducing the gender hierarchy in US higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explored the characteristics and prevalence of female breadwinning among primary school teachers. A cross-sectional survey design was used to obtain data from 2428 out of 22,666 female primary school teachers in Enugu State, Nigeria. A questionnaire previously used in Nigeria to study female breadwinners was adapted and used for data collection. The female breadwinning measure aspect of the questionnaire had Cronbach's alpha coefficient of 0.927. Data were input into IBM-SPSS version 23 and analyzed using descriptive statistics and Chi-square test of relationships. Significant relationships were established at p values ≤ 0.05. The study revealed 73.6% prevalence of female breadwinning out of which 37.1% were co-breadwinners, 36.5% were primary/sole breadwinners. Female breadwinners among primary school teachers were characterized by older age, being a single mother, higher educational qualification, and salary, teaching in urban public schools, larger family size as well as having dependent children, elderly and chronically ill persons. Policy implications and research directions were discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spillover theory refers to positive and/or negative influence of work environment on the family sphere or vice versa. This article shows presence of both types of spillover in the Spanish Armed Forces. The information analysed has been extracted from a survey on military's couples, with a questionnaire that included a block of open-ended questions. These questions asked about the positive and/or negative repercussions of military profession in families. From discourse analysis, series of data have been analysed taking into account the five main factors that influence work-family relationship: work and/or economic; family; psychological/attitude; social; and institutional. It has been able to see that positive spillover occurs primarily in the work/economic factor, while negative spillover is located mainly in the family factor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study uses the British Household Panel Survey to assess how working conditions affect union dissolution, distinguishing between cohabiting and married couples. While previous studies focus on labour income and measures related to working time, we address three new working conditions of the 24/7 economy, namely temporary employment, promotion opportunities, and job responsibility. We find important differences between married and cohabiting couples. In general, married partners have stronger relationship commitments, but they also tend to be more specialized, have greater job security, higher income, and lack of job responsibility, all of which appear to protect the marriage union. In contrast, those in cohabiting unions are more susceptible to demanding working conditions when these are experienced by both partners. Part-time employment and irregular work schedules put cohabitation at risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is currently believed that functioning in family and professional roles can bring negative and positive experiences, indicating the development of competences useful in both areas. How these areas interact may indicate a particular type of balance achieved by the individual. Work-family balance is relatively well recognized in parents of non-disabled children, but to a lesser extent, in parents of disabled children. The article presents the results of the author's own research aimed at determining types of work-family interactions based on the results of conflict and enrichment in parents of disabled children and analyzing the influence of sociodemographic variables, characteristics of the child, parental satisfaction, and job satisfaction. 188 Polish mothers and fathers of children with selected types of disabilities participated in the study. Measures used: Work-Family Enrichment Scale by Carlson et al., The Work-Family Conflict Scale by Matthews et al., The Scale of Parenting Experiences (own construction), and The Work Satisfaction Scale by Zalewska. Four types were found: unbalanced parents experiencing strong conflict and poor enrichment; parents separating family and professional life (low conflict and enrichment); the blurred type with high conflict and enrichment; and balanced parents experiencing low conflict and high enrichment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article develops a critical inquiry into women's processes of renouncement in their pursuit of work- and family-oriented goals. It brings together insights from two different schools of thought: the capability approach and critical sociology. This qualitative analysis is focused on how processes of resource conversion fail to mobilise women's resources and instead block their capabilities. The subjects of analysis are 24 paradigmatic life stories of highly educated Italian women in precarious work, who, having previously invested in the development of a professional career, then began to 'back away' from their initial goals following the arrival of children. This article makes three contributions: it sheds light on three multi-layered processes that prove to be unsuccessful in converting resources into the desired work-family outcomes in neoliberal economies, thus making a novel contribution to the capabilities framework; second, it shows that these processes are constructed over three different temporalities, suggesting that conversion processes abide by specific time modalities, thus moving towards a dynamic approach to capabilities; finally, it shines light on subtle but powerful mechanisms underlying the (unsuccessful) conversion processes through which the system of structural gender inequality is reproduced, thus opening up the analysis to the politics of power in action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent decades, many countries modified their maternity and parental leave programmes, changing elements such as length, wage replacement levels, and eligibility criteria. We employ sequence analysis of women and men's employment trajectories in the two years before and after a birth to explore changes occurring alongside reforms that advanced different policies: a short, compulsory, and well-compensated maternity leave in Switzerland in 2005, and a long, voluntary, but less well-compensated parental leave in Canada in 2001. Our results show that employment patterns changed little after the reform in Switzerland. Most Swiss women remained in or switched to part-time employment in the period preceding childbirth. After the reform in Canada, mothers in the province of British Columbia—the context of our study—spent more time out of employment after the birth of a child. However, they were also more likely to return to work full time. In both contexts, the employment trajectories of men did not change. Together the results highlight that parents are not passive recipients of policy change; rather, reform may reinforce old patterns or generate change depending on the extent of change and the context where it takes place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The complex relationship between professional success and civic engagement among educated immigrant professionals is little understood. This qualitative study examines the social processes linking professional attainment and civic involvement among immigrant professionals, with the purpose to deepen understanding of the mechanisms through which civic participation is tied to occupational pathways and advancement. We report on findings from interviews with 62 U.S. immigrants, all professionals and employed in various occupations to understand the dynamic processes through which civic involvement and professional achievement are mutually constitutive. Immigrant professionals are engaged civically; community engagement among this population is overwhelmingly tied to professional and vocational interests and skills. They participate in both formal and informal community-based organizations and groups, and many are transnational in scope. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]