About the Book
Parenthood can be one of the most fulfilling, altering, and challenging life events. This book is set within the background of the reality of many parents’ return-to-work experience, the task of re-engaging with work and maintaining a job or a career, and the difficulties that parenthood poses for balancing the demands of a new family with the demands of work. It helps us understand this reality, give voice to new parents, and offer relief in the knowledge that we know a lot about these challenges and, most importantly, how we can start to address them.
The book brings together a number of internationally recognized experts from research, practice, and policy to explore the issues and offer evidence-based solutions around return-to-work after having children. It takes a balanced approach to theory and practice to cover topics such as equality, stereotypes, work-family conflict, training and development, and workplace culture, among others, whilst integrating research and policy, and illustrating learnings with case studies from parents and examples from countries that lead the way.
It will appeal to parents, researchers, and employers in any sector or economy across the world. Ultimately, it will help develop ways for new parents to re-engage with work successfully while maintaining their work-family well-being.
Table of Contents:
List of Contributors
Foreword
Ann Francke, Chartered Management Institute, London
Foreword
Laura Addati, International Labour Organization, Geneva
Chapter 1. Introduction—Understanding the return-to-work experience for parents: what is and what could be
Maria Karanika-Murray & Cary Cooper
Chapter 2. New Parents Navigating the Workplace: Pregnancy, Stereotype Threat, and Work-Family Conflict
Lindsey M. Lavaysse, Erica L. Bettac, & Tahira M. Probst
Chapter 3. Building the support network of new parents at work and outside
Helen Pluut & Sara De Hauw
Chapter 4. Practical strategies for work-family resources management in the return-to-work experiences of new parents
Angela Martin, Sarah Dawkins, Vanessa Miles, Sarah Cotton & Justine Alter
Chapter 5. Return to work for fathers: A group with specific needs?
Marc Grau-Grau
Chapter 6. Fathers and leave for parenting: how can we increase uptake?
Adrienne Burgess & Jeremy Davies
Chapter 7. Work-family integration and gender equality: How Nordic countries lead the way
Gayle Kaufman
Chapter 8. Career Progression: Left out of the Game?
Nina M. Junker, Alina S. Hernandez Bark & Jamie L. Gloor
Chapter 9. Career development after parenthood: choices, challenges and opportunities
Julia Yates
Chapter 10. Training and development for employees returning to work after parental leave
Joanna Yarker, Hans-Joachim Wolfram & Nina Mareen Junker
Chapter 11. Childcare options in France: Beyond the hypothetic free choices
Danielle Boyer & Claude Martin
Chapter 12. What can employers do? Creating an inclusive workplace that fosters work-family wellbeing
Hans van Dijk & Loes Meeussen
Chapter 13. Going beyond policies to ease parents back into work and rebalance roles: The importance of individualized-deals
Inés Martínez-Corts & J. Pablo Moreno-Beltrán
Chapter 14. What we have leanred and what we can do to support parents' return-to-work
Cary Cooper & Maria Karanika-Murray
Index
About the Author :
Maria Karanika-Murray is an Associate Professor in Occupational Health Psychology at the Department of Psychology, Nottingham Trent University. In her work she brings together different methodologies, disciplines, and stakeholders with the aim to understand the context and develop ways to support work-related health and well-being.at the Department of Psychology, Nottingham Trent University. Her work brings together different methodologies, disciplines, and stakeholders, with the aim to understand the context and develop ways to support work-related health and well-being.
Sir Cary Cooper, CBE, is the 50th Anniversary Professor of Organizational Psychology and Health at ALLIANCE Manchester Business School of the University of Manchester, President of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (HR professional body), Immediate Past President of the British Academy of Management, and President of the Institute of Welfare.
Review :
"What a fascinating book! As both a researcher and campaigner in this area, I welcome the way that the authors have pulled together a terrific mix of contributors from research, practice and policy, to tackle the issues faced by both mothers and fathers in returning to work after childbirth. We have so much to learn from the countries represented here." - Sue Vinnicombe, CBE, Professor of Women and Leadership, Cranfield University, UK
"Men and women participate more equally in the labor market than ever before in many parts of the world. This is probably one of the biggest societal changes to come about in the 20th century. Surprisingly, however, the realities and practicalities of such emancipated labor participation are not well studied, nor are they well understood. One of those realities and practicalities concerns having and raising children. Specifically, parents returning to work are an overlooked group. Fortunately, this book charts the territory and gives important pointers as to where to look, what to understand better, and what we can do. This edited collection of 12 chapters by a range of important scholars provides a wide overview of the issues involved. There is attention for stereotype threats, strategies that parents use, the special case of fathers, the career issues involved, and practices that organizations can offer, just to name a few of the topics addressed. The editors, Maria Karanika-Murray and Cary Cooper, expertly organized the materials and provided an inspiring introduction of the issue. They also added a final chapter that is rich in lessons learned and personal reflections. The bottom line appears to be that the issue requires a lot of maturity from parents, organizations, and governments alike: we all can and need to do our part. On a personal level, when reading this book, it is intriguing to see academics trying to get to grips with the challenge of parenting themselves within the current timeframe and context. I wish this book had been around when I first became a parent." - Marc van Veldhoven, Professor of Work, Health & Well-being, Tilburg University, The Netherlands
