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Busby, Nicole; James, Grace --- "Introduction" [2011] ELECD 861; in Busby, Nicole; James, Grace (eds), "Families, Care-giving and Paid Work" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011)

Book Title: Families, Care-giving and Paid Work

Editor(s): Busby, Nicole; James, Grace

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781849802628

Section Title: Introduction

Author(s): Busby, Nicole; James, Grace

Number of pages: 10

Extract:

Introduction
Nicole Busby and Grace James

AIMS, CONTEXTS AND THEMES
The central theme of this edited collection is law's engagement with
working families and its primary rationale is to bring together researchers
from a variety of disciplines to explore this topical area, so as to encourage
better connections between academic debate and policy proposals. There
are two main aims. Firstly, to highlight some of the challenges ­ for parents,
families as a whole, children, employers, policy-makers ­ that needs and
desires for work­family reconciliation raise in contemporary societies, and
secondly to (re)consider law's engagement with the difficulties and dilem-
mas that are posed by our ongoing endeavours to provide frameworks that
relieve tensions between families, care-giving and paid work.
Families in market economies worldwide have long been confronted by
the demands of participating in paid work and providing care for their
`dependent' members. The social, economic and political contexts within
which families do so are, however, very different in the twenty-first century
(see James 2009: 1­6). For example, we have seen an increase in the number
of women who enter the public sphere of the labour market and remain
post-childbirth; there has been a decline in manufacturing industries and
an increase in jobs within the service sector; traditional models of industrial
relations have been eroded and the demand for atypical workers and
flexibility has increased; we have witnessed a growth in technical advances
and globalisation of the economy has meant that countries are ...