- Research Article
1- 10.1177/0022185614538133
Work, family and community
- Jul 31, 2014
- Journal of Industrial Relations
- Michael Alexander + 2 more +2
The inclusion of a special stream on work, family and community in the 2009 World Congress of the IIRA marks a significant broadening of the scope of the subject and the interests of the contributors and participants to the Congress. The rise of work, family and life pressures on employees and organizations is one of the most significant contemporary phenomena of employment in today’s economies. Major shifts in female labour market participation rates, the breakdown of the standard working week, changes in social attitudes to parenting and family, mobility of populations and changes in public policies have contributed to the need for a much greater gender and spatial awareness in industrial relations theory and practice. Furthermore, the spill-over from work and family issues has generated a growing interest in the consequent effects on communities and within households of these labour market and social changes. The changed context in which we now live and work is significant for all the papers presented in this stream, sometimes explicitly framing the studies, at other times silently but surely forming the backdrop for the studies. On my reading of previous IIRA World Congress programs, work, family and community have not been brought together so purposefully before 1 . Of course, this is not to say that there has not been a trend to incorporate newer areas of interest in IIRA Congresses. For example, gender, work and family started to be more explicitly canvassed from the 11 th World Congress in Bologna, 1998 with a special forum called: ‘Squaring The Circle: Quality Of Work And Family Life, Industrial Relations in a Wider Social Context’. The difference with this 15 th World Congress’s
Read more