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.

Estatuto: 
Proponent entity
Financed: 
No
Keywords: 

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.

Objectivos: 
<p>There are two main objectives: 1- to understand a policy shift and compare the definition of a work-life balance policy, the project aims to investigate the policy framing level, taking in account the European national and firm's levels of initiative; 2 - to understand the impact of different policies and measures to conciliate work and family on worker's households with caring responsibilities, the project aims to investigate a reasonable number of cases in 7 different European countries: how in different local contexts can workers conciliate the pressure linked to the flexibility of their employment (in a public or private enterprise) with their caring responsibilities, either because they have young children, or because one or more elderly parents are becoming dependent. These particular and more and more frequent workers are defined as "workers under pressure" at two different stages of the working life cycle (young workers at the beginning of their career and ageing workers). Therefore two types of workers under pressure will be studied: bi-active couples and lone parents with care responsibilities; and by two different generations: bi-active couples and lone parents with young children, senior workers with dependent elderly parents.</p>
State of the art: 
The definition of a European social model of development is facing four main challenges: a low level of fertility; ageing of the population and the increase of the number of dependent elderly people; persistent inequalities between gender, in particular in the sharing of domestic and caring tasks; and a high level of unemployment which drives to the development of flexibility on the labour market, in particular of flexible and unpredictable time of work. The regulation of these challenges may have contradictory effects though, in particular in terms of quality of life or citizen?s well-being. The promotion of employment by various forms of flexibility may hinder the decision of a couple to have a child and/or prevent an adult to take care of her/his dependent parent. The competitiveness of the enterprises often means more flexibility, more adaptability of the workforce, more complex and even unpredictable times of work, which are often severely detrimental for family well-being and for the equal opportunity of men and women on the labour market. This potential contradiction between the public sphere of employment and the private sphere of the family needs to be investigated in depth, and requires better knowledge of the relationships between employment policies and welfare state restructuring, which still are considered as two specific domains of public interventions.

woups

Coordenador ICS 
Start Date: 
01/12/2006
End Date: 
01/12/2009
Duração: 
36 meses
Closed