Worklife Balance

The Agency and Capabilities Gap

Edited by Barbara Hobson

Addresses issues of work-life balance including health, quality of life, and the sustainability of some welfare states
Interdisciplinary with a multi-level design that covers individual/household, firm, work organisational culture, and policy levels
Makes the capabilities approach concrete and accessible
Studies based on original data including innovative comparative questionnaires and focus groups in firms
Includes case studies from Western Europe and Japan
Gender focus that considers agency inequalities in work-life balance for men as well as women

Worklife Balance

The Agency and Capabilities Gap

Edited by Barbara Hobson

Description

Across welfare societies we have seen the emergence of policies and norms for worklife 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 worklife balance.

Worklife Balance

The Agency and Capabilities Gap

Edited by Barbara Hobson

Introduction: capabilities and agency for worklife balance: a multidimensional framework, Barbara Hobson
Part I. The Individual/Household and the Agency and Capabilities Gap: Policy Frameworks, Norms, and Work Organizational Cultures
2. The agency gap: policies, norms, and working time capabilities across welfare States, Susanne Fahlen
3. A sense of entitlement? Agency and capabilities in Sweden and Hungary, Barbara Hobson, Susanne Fahlen, and Judit Takacs
4. Worklife balance in Japan: new policies, old practices, Mieko Takahashi, Saori Kamano, Tomoko Matsuda, Setsuko Onode, and Kyoko Yoshizumi
5. Agency freedom for worklife balance in Germany and Spain, Sonja Drobnic and Margarita Leon
Part II: The Firm Level and the Agency and Capabilities Gap: Policies, Managers, and Work Organization
6. Workplace worklife balance support from a capabilities perspective, Laura den Dulk, Sandra Groeneveld and Bram Peper
7. Working time capabilities at the workplace: individual adjustment options between full-time and part-time working in European Firms, Colette Fagan and Pierre Walthery
8. Capabilities for worklife balance: managerial attitudes and employee practices in the Dutch, British, and Slovenian banking sector, Bram Peper, Laura den Dulk, Nevenka Černigoj Sadar, Suzan Lewis, Janet Smithson, and Anneke van Doorne-Huiskes
9. 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, Aleksandra Kanjuo Mrċela and Nevenka &#268ernigoj Sadar
10. Conclusion, Barbara Hobson

Worklife Balance

The Agency and Capabilities Gap

Edited by Barbara Hobson

Author Information

Barbara Hobson, Professor of Sociology, Stockholm University

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.

Contributors:

Nevenka Cernigoj Sadar, University of Ljubljana
Laura den Dulk, Erasmus University Rotterdam
Sonja Drobnic, University of Hamburg
Anneke van Doorne-Huiskes, Erasmus University Rotterdam
Colette Fagan, University of Manchester
Susanne Fahlén, Stockholm University
Sandra Groeneveld, Erasmus University Rotterdam
Barbara Hobson, Stockholm University
Saori Kamano, Stanford University
Aleksandra Kanjuo Mrcela, University of Ljubljana
Margarita León, Universitat Autònoma Barcelona
Suzan Lewis, Middlesex University Business School
Tomoko Matsuda, Bukkyo University
Setsuko Onode, Kyoto Kacho University
Bram Peper, Erasmus University Rotterdam
Janet Smithson, University of Exeter
Mieko Takahashi, Osaka University
Judit Takács, Hungarian Academy of Sciences
Kyoko Yoshizumi, Otemon Gakuin University
Pierre Walthery, University of Manchester