Workers under pressure and Social Care
Workers under pressure and Social Care
This project proposes to focus on the tensions between labour market and employment restructuring, on one side, and the caring needs and responsibilities of households, on the other side. The project has two dimensions of analysis. First, an analysis in each country of the policy level (equal opportunity, work/family conciliation, work/life balance policies) to understand what are the policy ideas and mechanisms, the policy package regarding work/life balance and equal opportunity; ideas about and changing practices of governance of this issue; the presence/absence of legitimating discourses, the policy shift that are readable at the European level and at national level. Second, the impact of employment flexibility and in particular flexibility of working times on worker's work/life balance. A qualitative inquiry will be applied in each country on 30 households with a methodology of matched cases according to some criteria: type of household (bi-active couples and lone parents), socioeconomic condition, types of time schedule, level of pressure or incapability of work-family balance. The project will involve the participation of 7 European countries: UK, France, Italy, Portugal, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands.
work/life balance, caring policies
This project proposes to focus on the tensions between labour market and employment restructuring, on one side, and the caring needs and responsibilities of households, on the other side. The project has two dimensions of analysis. First, an analysis in each country of the policy level (equal opportunity, work/family conciliation, work/life balance policies) to understand what are the policy ideas and mechanisms, the policy package regarding work/life balance and equal opportunity; ideas about and changing practices of governance of this issue; the presence/absence of legitimating discourses, the policy shift that are readable at the European level and at national level. Second, the impact of employment flexibility and in particular flexibility of working times on worker's work/life balance. A qualitative inquiry will be applied in each country on 30 households with a methodology of matched cases according to some criteria: type of household (bi-active couples and lone parents), socioeconomic condition, types of time schedule, level of pressure or incapability of work-family balance. The project will involve the participation of 7 European countries: UK, France, Italy, Portugal, Sweden, Germany, the Netherlands.