Unlike many of the edited volumes published at the end of European Commission-funded projects, Work, Families and Organisations in Transition avoids simply reproducing a series of parallel national reports. Six of the 12 chapters analyse national case studies conducted in public and private sector organisations, three in the social services in Bulgaria, Sweden and the UK, and three in financial institutions in the Netherlands, Slovenia and the UK. Two chapters make cross-sector comparisons for Norway and Portugal, while the penultimate chapter compares flexible working arrangements across organisations, and the final chapter is devoted to cross-national comparisons.
The Transitions project on which the book is based was carried out between 2003 and 2005. It examined how, in the early twentieth century, young European adults negotiated parenthood and work–family boundaries in the context of labour market and workplace change, different national welfare state regimes and family and employer support arrangements.
The volume is distinguished from other work–family reconciliation books by its in-depth analysis of the interplay between the different layers of context in which the lives of parents are embedded, and which shape their choices and decisions. Three contextual layers were investigated: the macro level of societal trends, national institutions, public policies and discourses; the organisational level at the workplace; the personal level in households, wider families, workplaces and communities. Using a combination of methods (secondary analysis of national surveys and public policy, literature reviews, matched interviews with managers and individual parents, and employee focus groups), this multilayered approach allowed the researchers to carry out a grounded and contextualised analysis of their abundant data.
Interrelated themes running throughout the volume include: the experience of adopting flexible working arrangements in situations where ‘greedy’ organisations intensify working practices; the enabling or constraining role played by line managers; the impact of team working on individual strategies; the persistence of gendered organisational cultures prioritising work over family; and the implementation gap between policy and practice within organisations.
The contributors record how policies and practices to support work–life balance, whether initiated by governments or organisations, were applied at a time when both private and public sector employing organisations were undergoing far-reaching change (mergers, acquisitions, alliances, restructuring, de/recentralisation) against a background of global competition and the drive for cost-efficiency. In both sectors, the result was intensification of work, often accompanied by increased job insecurity, and the entrenchment of gender divisions, all of which undermine regulatory and voluntary family-friendly initiatives.
The chapters analyse the varied experiences of parents as they negotiate work–family boundaries and manage their everyday lives. They show how perceptions of entitlement are shaped by available policies, which are not always known about by employees, the interaction of national context, workplace culture, management discretion and support, gender norms, type of workplace and occupation, and generation (old-style versus new-style managers).
Many of the findings confirm trends identified in projects using different methodological approaches and country mixes, but the case studies also provide some less widely reported insights. Women across the partner countries are more likely to work in the public sector than men, notably in the care workforce, typically characterised by low pay. Even in management positions in the public sector, women continue to be more likely than men to step off the career ladder when they have children. In Sweden, mothers in social work tend to move away from direct client contact and high-pressured positions, leaving less experienced colleagues to work on the front line, where the work–home boundary is more difficult to manage.
As found in many EU-wide studies of family-related leave and childcare arrangements, provision varies considerably across countries: between ten and 60 days for leave to care for a sick child, for example, with Bulgaria offering parental leave to grandparents. A consistent finding across countries and sectors is the gap between policy and practice, due most often to ineffective implementation and explained by the tendency within organisations to introduce family-friendly (flexibility) policies as a human resource management tool rather than a strategic imperative designed to bring about systemic change in organisational structures, cultures and working practices.
The chapters highlight important disparities in take up of leave. Even in the public sector, many parents opt to use their holiday entitlement rather than taking the full quota of statutory leave for fear of calling into question their commitment to the organisation and their clients. A frequently cited reason for not reducing working hours was that no replacements are provided: either the service to clients is curtailed or the additional workload falls on colleagues. Successful implementation of flexible working arrangements, therefore, depends on solidarity between colleagues rather than company or national-level policies. Moreover, flexibility policies can be double-edged: rather than facilitating work–life balance, they may result in atypical or longer working hours and the blurring of work–home boundaries. Global economic pressures are making provision of childcare more complicated as atypical and casualised working arrangements force parents to rely on informal networks.
Another finding questioning received wisdom is that the gap is diminishing between public and private sectors as family-friendly workplaces. Women moving from the private into the public sector may discover that the traditionally greater job security and flexibility of the public sector are being eroded, while private organisations in some countries are becoming more accepting of flexible working practices.
A different mix of comparators would have produced different results, but by locating their case studies in the wider historical and societal context, the editors draw out more general findings about the impact of global change: working practices that are incompatible with family life are not socially sustainable, nor do they ensure economic sustainability. They argue that global recession has intensified the process of change they observed in their fieldwork. Whether or not readers share the optimistic conclusion that the current situation provides an opportunity for rethinking the value attributed to family life and employment, they will find in the book a noteworthy example of best practice in project design and execution, and also in post-project exploitation of data, continuity of teamwork and effective dissemination strategies.
