Work–life balance/imbalance: the dominance of the middle class and the neglect of the working class

Warren, Tracey

doi:10.1111/1468-4446.12160

Cited by 75 publications

(82 citation statements)

References 47 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Others found the fragmentation of working schedules disruptive and incurring costs in transportation and dependent care. Our findings are in line with the argument that economic precarity such as job insecurity and poor work-life balance is a major challenge experienced by the working class (Warren, 2015). Pay rates cannot thus be considered in isolation from working time and working conditions.…”

supporting

confidence: 89%

The living wage as an income range for decent work and life

Yao

Parker

Arrowsmith

et al. 2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/authors for more information. About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.comEmerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than 290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional customer resources and services.Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation. School of Psychology, Massey University, Auckland, New Zealand Abstract Purpose -A "living" wage (LW) is conventionally defined as enabling meaningful participation in society above subsistence through, for example, recreation, supporting a family, and savings. There is increasing debate over LWs due to growing inequality, rising living costs and welfare reform but this remains largely framed by the econometric cost-benefit parameters that apply to minimum wage regulation. The capabilities approach advocated by Sen (1999) offers a different perspective that is inclusive of choice, contingencies and the inter-connections between quality of (paid) work and private life. The paper aims to discuss these issues. Design/methodology/approach -The paper adopts this framework and utilises a qualitative exploration of the narratives of 606 New Zealand employees to understand perceived wage effectiveness. The results suggest that a focus on a specific LW rate might be conceptually limiting, in comparison to a LW range. Findings -First, the findings indicate that there is a pivot range in which people move from self-assessed "survival" to "decent" income. Second, a LW may have more than a simply monetary effect in better meeting employees' living costs; it can also improve well-being through subjective perceptions of valued freedoms to do with job satisfaction, equity and security. Originality/value -The results thus draw attention to a wider notion of a LW in terms of personal and family well-being, utilising a capabilities approach, with implications for organisational practice, policy and theory concerning sustainable livelihood and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

show abstract

supporting

confidence: 89%

The living wage as an income range for decent work and life

Yao

Parker

Arrowsmith

et al. 2017

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Furthermore, some observers have suggested that extant work‐life balance research has not in practice been concerned with all parents, or even all mothers, but rather has viewed work‐life balance as a problem primarily for middle‐class, dual‐earner parents (Gattrell et al, , p. 300) and that as such, much of what we know only reflects the experiences of middle class, professional parents. Warren (), drawing on Ehrenreich's work, argues that the professional middle class both “star in” and “write the scripts” for academic debates of work‐life balance, limiting our understanding of the experiences of others. The few studies concerned with work‐life balance among the working class (e.g., Smithson & Stokoe, ), however, also depict it as a concern primarily for working mothers, neglecting other aspects of life.…”

Section: “Life”—capturing Contemporary Life Worldsmentioning

confidence: 99%

All of work? All of life? Reconceptualising work‐life balance for the 21st century

Kelliher

Richardson

Boiarintseva

2018

Human Res Mgmt Journal

254

201

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This paper argues that the study of work‐life balance to date has, in the main, adopted a restricted conception of both “work” and “life”, which does not take account of recent developments in life worlds, working arrangements and employment relationships. “Life” has hitherto been viewed as largely comprising caring activities for dependent children, whereas “work” has been premised largely on a traditional model of work, characterised by full‐time, permanent employment with one employer and a conventional understanding of what work involves. This means that extant research and theory only provides a partial view of the work‐life needs and experiences of the workforce. In the paper, we propose extending conceptions of both work and life to incorporate different life worlds and social groups and different working arrangements and employment relationships.

show abstract

“…However, they do not investigate these differences within countries. The general focus on inequalities in opportunities has rendered largely invisible from the work‐family debates the types of opportunity imbalances that are likely to impact parents differently, for example, financial costs being the key concern for low‐income parents viz‐à‐viz opportunity costs for top income earners (but Hobson et al ; Hobson ; Warren ). Previous studies of this interlink largely focus on instruments other than parental leave, assuming equal effects across socio‐economic groups.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Work and Care Opportunities under Different Parental Leave Systems: Gender and Class Inequalities in Northern Europe

Javornik

Kurowská

2017

Soc Policy Adm

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This article analyses public parental leave in eight northern European countries, and assesses its opportunity potential to facilitate equal parental involvement and employment, focusing on gender and income opportunity gaps. It draws on Sen's capability and Weber's ideal‐types approach to analyze policies across countries. It offers the ideal parental leave architecture, one which minimizes the policy‐generated gender and class inequality in parents’ opportunities to share parenting and keep their jobs, thus providing real opportunities for different groups of individuals to achieve valued functionings as parents. Five policy indicators are created using benchmarking and graphical analysis. Two sources of opportunity inequality are considered: the leave system as the opportunity and constraint structure, and the socio‐economic contexts as the conversion factors. The article produces a comprehensive overview of national leave policies, visually presenting leave policy across countries. Considering policy capability ramifications beyond gender challenges a family policy‐cluster idea and the Nordic‐Baltic divide. It demonstrates that leave systems in northern Europe are far from homogenous; they diverge in the degree to which they create real opportunities for parents and children as well as in key policy dimensions through which these opportunities are created.

show abstract

Work–life balance/imbalance: the dominance of the middle class and the neglect of the working class

Cited by 75 publications

References 47 publications

The living wage as an income range for decent work and life

The living wage as an income range for decent work and life

All of work? All of life? Reconceptualising work‐life balance for the 21st century

Work and Care Opportunities under Different Parental Leave Systems: Gender and Class Inequalities in Northern Europe

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About