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Managing The Family: Productivity, Scheduling and the Male Veto

Baldock, John C., Hadlow, Jan (2004) Managing The Family: Productivity, Scheduling and the Male Veto. Social Policy & Administration, 38 (6). pp. 706-720. ISSN 0144-5596. (doi:10.1111/j.1467-9515.2004.00414.x) (The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided) (KAR id:373)

The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided.
Official URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9515.2004.00414.x

Abstract

This paper argues that research, analysis and policy innovations focused on how households combine paid work with care responsibilities are driven to too great a degree by preconceptions of "the problem" that do not take sufficient account of how families themselves understand their work and care roles and the choices they are making. The evidence of 246 SOCCARE interviews across five European countries (Finland, France, Italy, Portugal and the UK) is that the variables that are conventionally accepted as having fundamental significance (family-friendly policies and generous care services, flexible working hours, women's work–life preferences, family type, national labour markets, cultural differences) are less important than is often suggested. More important are time pressures and the idiosyncratic factors that constrain the work and care timetables that families are able to construct. We characterize these as "scheduling problems". They occupied a large part of the accounts of their lives provided by our respondents and are a primary dimension within which their combinations of paid work and care responsibilities need to be understood. The difficulties our respondents faced in coordinating the work and care activities of their families bear a striking similarity to the problems described in the operations research literature on small businesses. Within the context of these scheduling problems a second important factor emerged: the preferences and behaviour of men who played a critical, though often passive, part in the construction of work and care timetables of the families. We characterize this effect as the "the male veto".

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1111/j.1467-9515.2004.00414.x
Uncontrolled keywords: Work–life balance • Dual-career households • Comparative social care
Subjects: H Social Sciences
H Social Sciences > HM Sociology
Divisions: Divisions > Division for the Study of Law, Society and Social Justice > School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research
Depositing User: Samantha Osborne
Date Deposited: 19 Dec 2007 18:12 UTC
Last Modified: 16 Nov 2021 09:39 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/373 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

University of Kent Author Information

Baldock, John C..

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