Barbara Pocock, Sara Charlesworth and Janine Chapman
This paper aims to explore recent changes in Australia's work‐family policies and programs and their implications for gender (in)equality.
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to explore recent changes in Australia's work‐family policies and programs and their implications for gender (in)equality.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors critically assess a suite of new work/family‐related policies, including the introduction of a government‐funded national paid parental leave scheme, a limited right to request flexible working conditions, and the extension of state and federal anti‐discrimination legal protections for workers with family responsibilities.
Findings
The analysis suggests a lack of coherence and integration between various work/family related policies and the need for a wider range of reforms, particularly in relation to domestic work and care. It is found that the gendered use of flexibility rights, like the new right to request, do not necessarily improve gender equality and may work to entrench it in the face of strong gendered workplace and societal norms and practices around work and care. As a consequence women workers and mothers – who have been constructed as the work/family problem to be “fixed” – are left even more rushed and pressed for time.
Originality/value
This empirically‐informed analysis shows the power of the broader gender political and normative context and the limits of modest and piecemeal policy reform in relation to work‐family issues – even where economic conditions remain relatively positive. The paper concludes that without robust, multi‐faceted and integrated policy reform around work and family, in which gender equality outcomes are a central objective, policy reforms will fail to achieve a more equal sharing of paid and caring work between men and women, and greater equality between women and men more generally.
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Women's Plight: Bad and Getting Worse, an article in Challenge by Barbara R. Bergman, March/April 1983 in which she argues that the Reagan's administration's budget‐cutting in…
Abstract
Women's Plight: Bad and Getting Worse, an article in Challenge by Barbara R. Bergman, March/April 1983 in which she argues that the Reagan's administration's budget‐cutting in humans services will worsen the economic lot of millions of Americans. It will hit hardest at women who are not under the economic protection of a relatively affluent employed male. Perhaps it is no accident that this policy is in accord with the “family policy” of the extreme right, with its belief in strengthening the subordination of women to men within the traditional family. But the fact is that there are millions of never‐married women, millions of single mothers, and millions of older women who are without a man. The present US administration's dismantling of federal programmes is going to make their already bad position more hopeless.
Doris Ruth Eikhof, Chris Warhurst and Axel Haunschild
The purpose of this article is to initiate critical reflection on the assumptions and evidence underpinning the work‐life balance debate.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this article is to initiate critical reflection on the assumptions and evidence underpinning the work‐life balance debate.
Design/methodology/approach
The article reviews a range of international literature focused on and related to the work‐life balance debate and issues.
Findings
In the work‐life balance debate, over‐work is perceived as the problem. Nevertheless, beyond working time and the provision of flexible working practices to enable child care, there is little in the debate abut the need to change work per se. The debate also narrowly perceives “life”, equating it with women's care work, hence the emphasis again of family‐friendly polices.
Research limitations/implications
The article suggests that reconceptualisation is required in analyses of both work‐life balance and the relationship between work and life.
Practical implications
The article implies that current work‐life balance policies are myopic in terms of addressing the needs and aspirations of employees.
Originality/value
The article offers a synthesis of evidence that is wider than that typical in current analyses of work and life.
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Abigail Gregory, Susan Milner and Jan Windebank
The purpose of this editorial is to provide an overview of the wider debates concerning the evolution of work‐life balance practice and policy since the onset of the “Great…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this editorial is to provide an overview of the wider debates concerning the evolution of work‐life balance practice and policy since the onset of the “Great Recession” of 2008 and to draw out some comparisons of the issues raised by the papers in the special issue by focusing particularly on the example of the UK.
Design/methodology/approach
The editorial analyses how the direction and pace of changes in work‐life balance practice and policy varies between different national contexts and welfare regimes and also asks whether, within the same national context, the changes taking place are always consistent.
Findings
The special issue draws together an international overview of work‐life balance measures which focuses particularly on measures for fathers, an EU‐wide analysis of the use of flexible employment and its relationship with work‐family conflict and a number of specific country case studies from Southern Europe where recession has been particularly severe (Spain and Italy) and the Southern hemisphere (Australia) where the recession has been less deep. It finds that economic crisis and austerity have resulted in a variety of labour market changes and policy responses in different national settings, some but not all of which map onto existing welfare regime typologies. The articles raise a wider set of questions about what type of policy best promotes employees' work‐life balance. The editorial argues in favour of legislative support for work‐life balance to help address structural inequalities.
Originality/value
This editorial and special issue is one of the first to review the small but growing literature on the effect of recession on individuals' experience of work‐life balance, organisations' approach to work‐life balance and reconciliation policy since 2008.
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This paper aims to examine the role and experiences of women working in the industrial relations (IR) academy and to explore the recent claim that the subject of industrial…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine the role and experiences of women working in the industrial relations (IR) academy and to explore the recent claim that the subject of industrial relations has “been very receptive to the contributions of feminist analysis”.
Design/methodology/approach
An examination is made of the liminal position of women IR scholars in the IR academy and their concern for feminist and gender analysis. Parallels are drawn with IR and trade unions, focusing mainly on Britain, which also occupy, simultaneously, insider and outsider spaces. This approach draws on the relevant literature and is then tested through a questionnaire survey of women scholars working in the field, the author included, together with interviews and interactive discussions about the findings.
Findings
Gender politics remain highly contested in the IR academy, with women and their work experiencing considerable marginalisation and exclusion. Nevertheless women IR scholars display a high level of commitment to the field, especially its emphasis on policy and practice. The conclusion is that so far, a “gender turn” has yet to occur in the field in the way that women's studies is claimed as being part of a new knowledge movement.
Research limitations
A limitation of the study is a relatively low response rate to the questionnaire, with a bias towards older, more senior women academics.
Originality/value
For probably the first time the role and experiences in the IR academy of women researchers/ academics are examined and published. The study reveals that the exclusion and sexism experienced there closely reflect the gender and diversity analyses in the IR field.
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August Österle, Carina Diesenreiter, Barbara Glinsner and Eva Reichel
The purpose of this paper is twofold: First, it analyzes demand and supply-side factors that influence patient flows to and from Austria. Second, building on the empirical…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is twofold: First, it analyzes demand and supply-side factors that influence patient flows to and from Austria. Second, building on the empirical research and existing conceptualizations, the study offers a general extended framework to guide future comparative analysis.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper draws on multiple data sources including a literature review, secondary data, website analysis and semi-structured interviews with patients and health providers. Content analysis was carried out to identify common motives for seeking care abroad and providers' orientation towards medical travel.
Findings
Outbound medical travel is largely determined by factors of access, affordability and vicinity, while inbound medical travel is predominately driven by a lack of adequate medical infrastructure in source countries and quality, both in terms of medical and service quality. Providers distinguish themselves according to the extent they take part in medical travel.
Research limitations/implications
The findings emerging from a single country case study approach cannot be generalized across settings and contexts, albeit contributing to a better understanding of current medical travel patterns in Europe.
Originality/value
Unlike most recent contributions, this study focuses both on inbound and outbound medical travel in Austria and investigates patient flows for distinctive treatments and drivers. While analysis of the supply-side of medical travel is often limited to tourism studies, this study provides a critical insight into developments in Europe from a health policy perspective, acknowledging that diverse medical travel patterns in Europe coexist.
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Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Tenn. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are…
Abstract
Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Tenn. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.