Worklife Balance: The Agency and Capabilities Gap by Barbara Hobson [Paperback]

* Item Description

This volume seeks to address the rising expectations of working parents in advanced Western welfare states for work-life balance and quality of life, and the tensions that ensue from these expectations within individual lives, households, work organizations, and policy frameworks.

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.

Barbara Hobson: 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 Fahlen: The agency gap: policies, norms, and working time capabilities across welfare States; 3 Barbara Hobson, Susanne Fahlen, and Judit Takacs: 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 Leon: 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 Černigoj 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 Mrċela and Nevenka Černigoj 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