A Life in Balance?: Reopening the Family-Work Debate [Paperback] Krull, Catherine

Book Description A Life in Balance? challenges the idea that work and family are separate and competing spheres rather than aspects of a single existence. Product Description Magazine articles, talk shows, and commercials advise us that our happiness and well-being rest on striking a balance between work and family. It goes unsaid, however, that the advice is based on an outmoded and unrealistic ideal. This provocative volume challenges the notion – often offered in support of neo-liberal agendas – that paid work (employment) and unpaid work (caregiving and housework) are separate and competing spheres, rather than overlapping aspects of a single existence. Alternative approaches to integrating work and family must be taken into account if we hope to build truly equitable family and childcare policies. Review This book is directed to anyone interested in policies that affect women – policy analysts working for government, those connected to research institutes, sociologists interested in the development of theory in this area, and advanced undergraduate students in sociology of the family. -- Sheila Neysmith, author of Restructuring Caring Labour: Discourse, State Practice and Everyday LifeDespite a large body of scholarship on work-family relationships, none accomplishes what this volume does. It disrupts the work-family binary, demonstrating how this divide contributes to neo-liberal agendas. The chapters consist of fine-grained and nuanced empirical studies as well as broader think pieces that offer alternative conceptions for scholarship and for policy. -- Belinda Leach, co-author of Contingent Work, Disrupted Lives: Labour and Community in the New Rural Economy From the Back Cover Magazine articles, talk shows, and commercials advise us that our happiness and well-being rest on striking a balance between work and family. It goes unsaid, however, that the advice is based on an outmoded and unrealistic ideal. This provocative volume challenges the notion - often offered in support of neo-liberal agendas - that paid work (employment) and unpaid work (caregiving and housework) are separate and competing spheres, rather than overlapping aspects of a single existence. Alternative approaches to integrating work and family must be taken into account if we hope to build truly equitable family and childcare policies. About the Author Catherine Krull is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology and the Cultural Studies Program at Queen’s University, cross-appointed to Women’s Studies, and is an associate dean in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Justyna Sempruch is a researcher at the Center for Gender Studies at the University of Basel, Switzerland.Contributors: Patrizia Albanese, Donna Baines, Maureen Baker, Andrea Doucet, Ann Duffy, Margrit Eichler, Bonnie Freeman, Judy Fudge, Margaret Hillyard Little, Nancy Mandell, Susan A. McDaniel, Norene Pupo, Sue Wilson