4.  The Employment Relationship and Family Life

2003 pp 56 £6.50; also available online with password (click here)

Editor: Peter Ackers

Contributors: Peter Ackers, Mònica Badia i Ibáñez, Roberta Guerrina, Kait Kabun, Devi Sacchetto, Elizabeth Such

The papers analyse the relationship between employment and family life. They show how, through their power to regulate employment policy and working conditions, EU and national institutions impact on the everyday lives of families. Government intervention to reconcile paid work and family life is an example of how indirect employment levers affect the quality of family life and legitimate further state intervention. Devi Sacchetto comments on new forms of labour contract in Italy associated with flexibility and employability that are bringing about a more ‘economic’ attitude to relationships within families. Monica Badia i Ibáñez describes the more heterogeneous model of the family emerging in Spanish society and the self-help strategies parents adopt to combine work and household life. Kait Kabun explores women’s changing role in paid and unpaid work as Estonia makes the transition from Soviet-style socialism to Western capitalism, and prepares to join the EU. He discusses the reasons for the relative shortage of public intervention as well as unwillingness among employers to deal with the reconciliation issue more actively. Two of the papers focus on British employment policies under New Labour. Peter Ackers argues that the Blair government has substantially changed the legal and institutional framework of British employment relations, while also helping to shape employer and trade union initiatives in the direction of social partnership and family-friendly policies. Elizabeth Such is more sceptical of New Labour’s record. Illustrating her case by reference to dual-earner couples and the difficulties they experience in reconciling work and family responsibilities, she points out that, although Labour has brought childcare and parental leave back onto the policy agenda, the lingering conception of the family as a private affair has kept its provisions to a minimum. Roberta Guerrina’s concluding paper provides an overview of EU family-friendly policies and assesses the assumptions the Commission makes about family structures, gender roles and the employment relationship. She asks whether, in the context of the expanded role of the social partners and the changing balance between hard and soft law, a new employment model is emerging in Europe or whether the relationship is converging towards an established model.