The Work-Family Interface: An Introduction(Contemporary Family Perspectives (CFP))

The author is a proud sponsor of the 2020 SAGE Keith Roberts Teaching Innovations Award—enabling graduate students and early career faculty to attend the annual ASA pre-conference teaching and learning workshop. This brief and accessible title integrates contemporary scholarly research with compelling vignettes to make it appealing to both instructors and undergraduate audiences. While focused on the United States in respect to its target audience and emphasis, it contains considerable international data that compares and contrasts social policies adopted in Europe and elsewhere. In so doing, it shows both the strengths and the limitations of the approaches used in the U.S. This title is the only single source that summarizes the origins of work–family concerns, the diversities of needs and experiences, the impact of tensions on the family front, the consequences of tensions for employers, and different types of policies that can make meaningful differences not only in the lives of employees, but also potentially in job quality and national productivity.

Table of Contents:
The Origins of Contemporary Work-Family Dilemmas When Work Separated from Family: The Household Economy Transitions to the Industrial Economy When Family and Work Were Defined as Separate Spheres: The Husband/Breadwinner-Wife/Homemaker Economy Where We Are Now: Most Every Adult Should Work Outside the Home Summary Useful Concepts Issues to Ponder Mini Project The Diversity of Work, Family, and Work-Family Arrangements Diverse Values and Preferences Diverse Employment Diverse Families Summary Useful Concepts Issues to Ponder Mini Project Individual and Family Frontiers: Personal Responses to Strained Schedules Dominant Culture Metaphors of Connecting Work and Family Work-Family Conflict, Spillover, and Segmentation How Individuals and Families Respond to Work-Family Conflict Summary Useful Concepts Issues to Ponder Mini Project Employer Frontiers: Organizational Intransigence and Promising Practices The Dual Agenda: Establishing Positive Outcomes for Families and Employers Availability and Use of Employer Provided Family-Responsive Policies and Practices The Process of Organizational Change: Moving From Awareness to Action Rethinking the Scheduling of Work Flexible Work in Multinational Organizations Summary Useful Concepts Issues to Ponder Mini Project Global Perspectives on the Work-Family Interface: International Comparative Analysis and Transnational Relationships International Comparative Analysis of Work and Family Relationships Intersections of Culture and Policy: National Approaches to Support Care Work Three Societal Level Approaches to Reconciling Work-Family Strains Family Well-Being in International Comparative Perspective Transnational Concerns Summary Useful Concepts Issues to Ponder Mini Project The Work-Family Interface as a National Priority What Governments Can Do Making the Case and Understanding Resistance Conclusion Useful Concepts Issues to Ponder Mini Project Further Exploration Bibliography About the Author

About the Author :
Stephen Sweet is Associate Professor and Chair of Sociology at Ithaca College and formerly the associate director of the Cornell Careers Institute, a Sloan Center for the Study of Working Families. He has written a number of articles on the challenges confronting working families, focusing on the issues of concern to dual career couples across the life course. His studies have appeared in a variety of publications, including the New Directions in Life Course Research, Journal of Vocational Behavior, Journal of Marriage and the Family, Innovative Higher Education, The International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters, Journal of College Student Development, and Community, Work, and Family. Stephen’s other book with SAGE is The Work-Family Interface. He has also published The Handbook of Work and Family with co-authors Marcie Pitt-Catsouphes and Ellen Ernst Kossek;  Managing Careers in the New Risk Economy, with co-investigator Phyllis Moen; College and Society: An Introduction to the Sociological Imagination, and Data Analysis with SPSS: A First Course in Applied Statistics. Stephen has been the recipient of a Sloan Officers Grant to study the effects of corporate downsizing on dual earner couples.