Beyond time-binds: Rethinking work–family dynamics for a mobile world

Key concepts in mobilities studies

Several ideas within mobilities studies are highly germane to work–family scholarship Here we focus on three key ideas that challenge foundational assumptions (often implicit) within work–family research. The first concept, employment-related mobility (ERM), captures a broad spectrum of work-related mobilities, thus expanding the foci of existing scholarship. Best viewed as a continuum, ERM includes: mobility to-and-from jobs (e.g. commuting on varying scales); daily circuits of mobility to accomplish work; and mobility of more extended durations and scales (Roseman et al., 2015: 175). Whereas some mobility scholars emphasize both distance/scale and duration (Newhook et al., 2011), others highlight the centrality of mobility (Cohen, 2010), distinguishing between mobility for work (e.g. home repair, offshore oil workers), mobility as work (e.g. truck drivers, pilots), and working while mobile (e.g. lawyers, CEOs). From an empirical standpoint, ERM encompasses a rich mix of work activity, including: (i) home-based employees and entrepreneurs engaged in micro-commutes in their home/communities; (ii) blue-, white-, and pink-collar workers commuting or travelling by foot, bike, bus, rail, car, train, and plane; (iii) mobile workers such as home-care aides and domestic cleaners engaged in peripatetic circuits of mobility; and (iv) those for whom ‘mobility is work’, such as taxi drivers, truck drivers, and flight crews, amongst others.

Tracing the rise of ERM, mobilities scholars point to a constellation of factors. New technologies play a key role, enabling ‘work anytime, anywhere’. Transportation advances are central too, making ERM more economically and logistically feasible (Elliott and Urry, 2010). Equally important are political and economic shifts towards globalized production and networked organizations—what Kesselring (2014) calls ‘corporate mobility regimes’—that work to reconfigure and ‘stretch’ work across time and space, folding mobility into previously immobile jobs (see also Gustafson, 2006; Nicolini, 2012). Other factors contributing to rising ERM include: (i) changing client preferences for on-site delivery; (ii) escalating housing costs in urban centres that necessitate longer commutes; (iii) the rise of dual-earner families and need to coordinate jobs and careers; (iv) high unemployment in economically depressed regions that necessitate mobility for work; and (v) government policies designed to spur labour mobility and create more ‘flexible’ workforces (e.g. unemployment policy requiring travel, trade agreements).

Evidence of rising ERM is found throughout mobilities studies (Adey et al., 2014; Canzler et al., 2008; Collet and Bonnet, 2010; Elliott and Urry, 2010; Gustafson, 2006). Drawing selectively, research confirms increasing commuting times and distances, and more varied forms of ERM, such as business travel, super-commuting, and fly-in, fly-out work (Australia, 2015; Gustafson, 2006; Rapino and Fields, 2013; Sandow, 2014; Viry and Kaufman, 2015). For instance, Adey et al.’s (2014) Handbook of Mobilities traces, amongst other things, the rise of ‘executive mobilities’ amongst CEOs, managers, and professionals in the UK and Europe (Faulconbridge, 2014). At the other end of the occupational spectrum, Venn (2012) documents mobility pressures on the unemployed in several European countries, with policies requiring workers to travel up to 2.5–3 hours a day for ‘suitable work’. Future labour force projections also predict rising ERM owing to occupational and industrial shifts. For instance, in the US, projections to 2030 forecast high demand for mobile workers in home-care, sales, services, and delivery work (IDC, 2015; US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2017). Yet, even setting aside future projections, current (and past) labour force data highlight the centrality of ERM in many jobs that have been routinely overlooked in work–family studies. Illustrating this in the US, for example, we see that CEOs and professionals are well-studied exemplars of business travel, yet comprise just 300,000 workers. In contrast, highly mobile groups, such as sales reps (2.1 million), heavy-truck drivers (1.87 million), and air transport workers (275,000) have been rarely studied, despite the import of ERM in their daily lives (US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2017).

While the concept of ERM highlights the need to study a broad spectrum of work-related mobilities and occupations, a second concept—time–space (and related concepts of space, place, movement, and mobility)—prompts valuable theoretical and methodological redirections. Here, we see how mobilities studies builds upon insights from the ‘spatial turn’ in the humanities and social sciences, which argues for the need to make the analysis of space more central and explicit (see Logan, 2012; Sheller and Urry, 2006). Particularly influential for mobilities scholars are the ideas of Doreen Massey (1993, 2005), who has written extensively about the ‘long history of aspatial analysis in the social sciences’ and the tendency for scholars to privilege ‘time’ over ‘space’ (see also Halford and Leonard, 2006). For Massey, time and space are not separable, but inextricably connected together, as time–space. Moreover, time–space is not simply a more multi-dimensional context in which individuals live their lives; it is dynamic, socially constituted, and shaped by power relations of domination and subordination. Contrary to much-heralded ideas of ‘smooth mobility’ and ‘hypermobility’ in a shrinking world, Massey instead emphasizes the ‘power geometries of time–space’, highlighting how certain social groups have unequal access to, and control, over time–space and mobility. As she states: ‘… some are more in charge of it than others; some initiate flows and movement, others don’t; some are more on the receiving-end of it than others, some are effectively imprisoned by it’ (Massey, 1993: 61).

Taking these insights further, mobilities scholars contend that while the spatial turn has sparked greater attention to issues of space and power, a great deal of scholarly work continues to be ‘amobile’, operating with a ‘sedentarist’ rather than ‘nomadic’ metaphysics that casts mobility as the exception and immobility as the rule (Cresswell, 2011; Holdsworth, 2013; Sheller and Urry, 2006). Inverting this, mobilities scholars begin from the premise of mobility, working to trace and account for ‘space’ and ‘movement’ (as abstract concepts), and ‘place’ and ‘mobility’ (as lived experiences imbued with human meaning). Space is thus represented by the geographic coordinates on a map—for example, New York, 40.7128° N, 74.0059° W—whereas place is socially situated, filled with history and meaning (e.g. ‘my home’, ‘my neighbourhood’). Likewise, movement is the abstract process of moving from location A to B, whereas mobility is ‘movement that is made meaningful’ (Cresswell, 2006: 3, 21). Starting from this conceptual vantage point, mobilities studies thus prompt a more dynamic view, encouraging us to move beyond the exclusive focus on ‘time-binds,’ so well studied by work–family scholars. But this does not mean simply adding new concepts such as ‘place-binds’ or ‘space-binds’. Instead, it involves reconceptualizing ‘time’ and ‘space’ as inextricably linked (i.e. time–space).

A final concept within mobilities studies, especially relevant for work–family studies, is that of co-presence—which refers to a subjective sense of togetherness, or ‘being there’ (Sheller and Urry, 2006; Urry, 2002; Zhao, 2003). Though less developed than other mobilities concepts, co-presence underscores important questions about how a sense of togetherness is accomplished and/or impeded, and in particular how it is shaped by proximity and distance. For work–family studies, the concept of co-presence is an especially salient one. Several important questions here include: how do varied mobilities (physical/embodied or virtual) constrain or nurture co-presence; how does the varied nature, duration, and control of mobility shape co-presence; and to what extent do new forms of mobility change ‘the very nature and need for co-presence’ itself (Urry, 2002: 266). Of special note, for work–family scholars, is that though mobilities studies argues that physical/corporeal proximity and co-presence is central to building trusting, committed, productive ‘economic relationships’ in the context of global economies (Kesselring, 2014; Urry, 2002), researchers have paid far less attention to the implications of ERM for familial and intimate co-presence. Bringing mobilities studies and work–family scholarship together thus has great potential to enrich our understanding of whether and how physical distance erodes co-presence and fuels psychological distancing (Williams and Bargh, 2008), or instead sparks new ways of creating familial co-presence while working ‘on the move’.

Theoretical approaches to work–family dynamics

From a theoretical standpoint, a natural starting point is Greenhaus and Beutell’s (1985) original conceptualization of ‘work–family conflict’ (WFC). This work has been highly influential, generating nearly 8000 citations to date, and informing a vast array of studies on WFC, as well as newer concepts of ‘work–family enrichment’ (Greenhaus and Powell, 2006) and ‘work–family integration’ (Korabik et al., 2008), to name but a few (for overviews, see Allen et al., 2000; Amstad et al., 2011; Bellavia and Frone, 2005; Bianchi and Milkie, 2010; Byron, 2005). What is striking from a mobilities perspective, however, is how little attention is paid in this foundational article to the dynamics of space, place, and mobility. No doubt these issues may have seemed far less important at the time of writing (in the mid-1980s), prior to the acceleration of globalization and emergence of new technologies. Moreover, Greenhaus and Beutell (1985) were focused on a different, but equally fundamental, transformation: the dramatic rise of women’s paid work, and dual-earner families, as women’s time and presence were redistributed between the workplace and home. Yet, while this shift had clear spatial implications—revising the ‘separate spheres model’ of household (caregiver) and paid labour market (breadwinner)—these issues have received scant attention. Instead, building on role theory, which assumes a scarcity of time and other resources, Greenhaus and Beutell (1985: 77) propose three forms of WFC: (i) time-based, (ii) strain-based, and (iii) behaviour-based. Of note, whereas ‘time’ is central to their analysis, space, place, and mobility remain untheorized. A close re-reading of Greenhaus and Beutell (1985), however, finds several instances where mobility is identified as a source of conflict and distress (e.g. sailors on deployment, business travel). These examples are folded into ‘time-based’ conflict, suggesting that ‘space’ is convertible to ‘time’ in some way. This use of what we call ‘time–space conversion’ persists to the present day—an issue we return to in later sections.

From this early, influential, conceptualization, work–family scholarship has grown dramatically. ⁵ Theoretical interest in conflict- and time-based approaches has persisted, reflecting the influence of role and resource theory (Greenhaus and ten Brummelhuis, 2013). But other approaches have emerged, most notably: ecological systems theory, examining work–family dynamics across micro-, meso-, exo- and macro-systems (Voydanoff, 2002); life-course theory (Elder, 1994), focusing on linked lives, historical time, and individual and household strategies (Moen and Yu, 2000); and border theory (Clark, 2000) and boundary theory (Ashforth et al., 2000; Nippert-Eng, 1996), exploring physical, temporal, and psychological borders and boundary crossing between work and family domains. Of these, border and boundary theory do take up issues of movement and mobility, space and time. However, they focus primarily on ‘mental’, ‘cognitive’, and ‘emotional’ boundaries, and transitions between fixed domains of work and home, rather than working with more fluid, nomadic, conceptualizations of work and family, or the power relations of time–space that mobilities studies assumes.

More recently, new theories drawing on positive psychology, and theories of affect and cognition, have also emerged, such as Greenhaus and Powell (2006)’s theory of work–family enrichment (WFE), examining positive relationships between work and family, and ten Brummelhuis and Bakker’s (2012) integrated work–home model, exploring temporal processes and linkages between positive and negative outcomes. Yet, even in these recent theorizations, issues of mobility, space, and place receive little theoretical or empirical attention, left to be considered as an independent variable, or taken up as a ‘niche’ concern (e.g. business travel studies). This ongoing neglect is puzzling given the dramatic rise of mobile work, as well as persistent calls by work–family scholars for ‘new theoretical directions’. On this latter point, Matthews et al. (2015) and ten Brummelhuis and Bakker (2012) offer valuable new theoretical ideas aimed at revitalizing work–family studies, as does a recent special issue in Academy of Management Review (Powell et al., 2019). Yet, as Williams et al. (2016: 520–522) have observed, current theorizing appears to take work–family scholarship in an ‘ever more individualistic direction’, emphasizing issues of individual cognition, decision-making, and positive affect, while neglecting the power relations and macro-structural drivers of work and family life. These tendencies, in our view, can be traced to the continued influence of role theory, which operates, as Connell (1987) observes, with a theory of norms, expectations, and preferences, rather than a theory of power, practice, and constraint. In light of these theoretical considerations, a mobilities lens offers new ideas and strong potential to enhance research in the field.

Searching for ERM in work–family scholarship

We now turn from theoretical approaches to examine systematically work–family studies in leading journals from the past two decades. We pose the same question: how have issues of mobility, space, and place been taken up? We use a systematic literature review (SLR), which allows us to identify a wide range of scholarship, though it is important to note that it may not capture all relevant studies. ⁶ Focusing on a 20-year span (1995–2015)—a period which saw an explosion of interest in work–family issues—we follow established SLR methodologies (Petticrew and Roberts, 2006; Reay et al., 2009), identifying leading journals publishing on work–family issues through a search of EBSCO, JSTOR, and Web of Science using keywords (e.g. ‘work–family conflict’, ‘work–family balance’, ‘work–family enrichment’). This first round of searching generated 301 articles in leading management, organization, and work journals. ⁷ Working with these articles, we then searched to identify articles addressing issues of mobility, space, or place. Our key terms included: ‘mobility’, ‘mobile work’, ‘space’, ‘place’, ‘travel’, ‘commuting’, ‘distance’, ‘temporality’, and ‘power’. This generated a smaller group of articles that we read using a standard protocol, noting: (i) key focus and questions; (ii) occupations studied; and (iii) how mobility, space, place, and power were theorized, measured, and analysed.

Working with the studies identified in our SLR, several valuable insights emerge. First, and most striking, we see that issues of mobility, space, and place have received relatively little attention in work–family studies overall—a surprise given the dramatic rise of ERM in the 20-year period studied. Of the 301 articles identified in our review, just 41 articles, or 13.6%, examined or took up issues of mobility, space, or place in some way. Theoretical discussions are especially infrequent (accounting for just six of the 41 articles), with most focusing on boundary theory and ecological systems theory. There is also little evidence of engagement with ideas or concepts from the ‘spatial’ or ‘mobile turns’, even in more recent writing. Instead, of the 35 empirical studies identified, most focus on a narrow range of ERM (notably, telework or commuting), while a few examine mobility or space as one of many of ‘explanatory variables’ (for example, influence of geographical location, amongst other variables, on job attrition and WFC, as in Deutsch and Yao, 2014). There is also a strong emphasis on elite occupations, especially managers and professionals, as has been noted by others (Greenhaus, 2008; Williams et al., 2016), rather than on a broader occupational range that might shed light on new types of ERM. We also see surprisingly little attention to power dynamics, with just six articles referencing power in some way, and just one of these (2%) discussing power in any substantive manner (Ashforth et al., 2000). ⁸ Overall, our SLR confirms that questions of mobility, space, and place have received minimal attention—typically overlooked, or when taken up, analysed and folded into established approaches.

Most interesting, from a mobilities standpoint, is that when we examine the specific types of ERM studied, we see how implicit spatial assumptions direct attention to specific types of mobilities. Far greater attention has been paid to patterns of spatial concentration and proximate mobilities, especially telework, than to patterns of spatial dispersion and distal mobilities, such as long-distance business travel, or super-commuting. Looking across the studies listed in Table 1, telework accounts for roughly half of all studies (49%, followed by commuting (32% of articles) and then business travel (27% of articles). ⁹ It is only in studies of business travel that we begin to see attention to more varied, distal, mobilities on a regional, national, or global scale (Gustafson, 2006). In addition, we also see a marked tendency to examine mobility by focusing on what goes on within, and between, ‘fixed domains’, such as ‘work’ and ‘home’, rather than operating with more fluid conceptualizations of work and family that are accomplished ‘on the move’. This tendency to assume fixed domains—most evident in assumptions of daily travel between work and home, or alternatively, the intense interest in telework and the attempt to re-locate paid work to the home—is illustrative of the type of ‘sedentarist’ orientation that mobilities scholars critique. On this point, it is also striking that virtually no studies in the SLR examine ‘mobile workers’, or those for whom ‘mobility is work’.

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Table 1

Studies addressing space, place, or mobility.

Journal/articles	Focus	Considers spatiality?	Definitions or measures?
Allen et al. (2008)	Workplace factors associated with family dinners (USA)	Telecommuting	Survey—measures freedom to work wherever is best—at home or at work (1 entirely not true – 5 entirely true)
Ashforth et al. (2000)	Boundary work and micro-role transitions in work–family life	Commuting, business trips, telecommuting	Theoretical paper—no definitions or measures discussed
Coffey et al. (2009)	Perceptions of work–family issues (China)	Commuting	Focus group and open survey—no direct measure of commuting time
Desrochers et al. (2005)	Preliminary validation of work–family integration-blurring scale (USA)	Telecommuting	Survey—measures hours spent working at campus office and at home
Deutsch and Yao (2014)	Attrition rates and WFC for university faculty (USA)	Commuting	Survey—open-ended question on reasons for leaving a faculty position (5% of responses include commuting)
Edgell et al. (2012)	Sufficiency and WFC in the new economy (USA)	Business trips	Survey—measures overnight travel (yes/no) as a feature of ‘non-standard work schedules’
Fagnani and Letablier (2004)	Impact of 35 hours’ law on WFB (France)	Commuting	Survey—open-ended question on impact of laws (finds increased travel frequency/time for some respondents)
Fenner and Renn (2010)	Impact of technology-assisted supplemental work (TASW) on WFC (southeastern US)	Remote work	Survey—measures perceived usefulness of technology, climate for TASW, technology-assisted supplemental work, work-to-family conflict, time management
Geurts et al. (2009)	Work–time and work–family interface (Netherlands)	Commuting	Survey—measure of commuting is average hours per day commuting from home to work and return
Golden (2007)	Impact of telework on those who stay in the office	Telecommuting	Survey—measures teleworker prevalence, face-to-face interactions (percentage of week spent face-to-face with co-workers who telework), job autonomy
Golden and Fromen (2011)	Impact of managerial work mode (traditional, telework, virtual) on subordinate work experiences and outcomes	Telecommuting	Survey—measures feedback, clarity, professional development, workload, job satisfaction, turnover intention, work climate, managerial work mode, subordinate work mode
Gustafson (2006)	Work-related travel, gender, and family obligations (Sweden)	Business trips	Survey—measures travel of 100 km+ in past month, or 300 km+ in prior months, with at least one overnight stay
Hill et al. (2004)	Cross-cultural test of WFI in 48 countries	Business trips	Survey—measures travel involving nights away from home owing to work in past 6 months
Kirchmeyer (2006)	Impact of family and gender on career success (USA)	Geographic job mobility	Survey—measures willingness to relocate (1- any location, 2- some regions, 3- near my current locations)
Kossek et al. (2001)	WFC, family well-being and performance	Place of child- and elder-care	Survey—measures location of child- and elder-care (‘home’ vs ‘non-home’ based care)
Kossek et al. (2006)	Telecommuting, control and work–family boundary management	Telecommuting	Survey—measures use of telecommuting policy (yes/no) and percentage of job done through telework (0–100%)
Lapierre and Allen (2006)	Impact of W-F and F-W supports, org benefits and coping on WFC	Telecommuting	Survey—measures telecommuting policy in (yes/no) and telecommuting used (yes/no)
Lautsch et al. (2009)	Managerial approaches regarding telecommunication implementation	Telecommuting	Survey and interviews—measures supervisor performance rating, employee helping behaviour, employee W-FC
Lazarova et al. (2010)	Positive side of international assignments	International Assignments (IA)	Theoretical paper—IA defined as physical relocation and extended stay in another country
Lindsay and Maher (2013)	Work and family time for families of nurses and builders (Australia)	Commuting	Qualitative interviews—discussion of travel to worksites and school; not measured by time or frequency
McLoyd et al. (2008)	WFC and child adjustment in African-American families (USA)	Commuting	Survey—measure of work demands includes commuting (distance and number of commutes per week)
Major and Morganson (2011)	Leader-Member Exchange (LMX) Theory and coping with WFC	Telecommuting, flexplace	Theoretical paper—specifies flexplace and flextime as examples of problem solving for W-F coping
Matthews et al. (2011)	Work–family interference with disabled children	Telecommuting	Qualitative—open-ended discussion. 18% of respondents identify telecommuting as W-F strategy
Moshavi and Koch (2005)	Family-friendly policy in family firms (USA)	Telecommuting	Survey—measures ‘option to work at home at least one day a week’ (yes/no)
Nicholas and McDowall (2012)	Experiences of business travellers (UK)	Business trips	Qualitative interviews reporting time with and time away from family for trips of 5+ days
Nomaguchi et al. (2005)	Time strain and psychological well-being for dual earner mothers and fathers (USA)	Commuting, telecommuting	Survey—measures daily time spent commuting to and from work (hours per day × days worked per week) and option of working at home (0- home, 1- non-home)
Nomaguchi (2012)	Marital status, gender, and home to work conflict (USA)	Business trips and telecommuting	Survey—measures number of overnight business trips in last 3 months; how often paid work is done at home
Parasuraman et al. (1996)	Work–family, entrepreneurial success, and well-being (USA)	Business trips, commuting	Survey—measures weekly hours at work (including travel and commute time) and out of town travel
St George and Fletcher (2012)	Impact of commuting for parenting (Australia)	Commuting	Qualitative interviews reporting experiences of commuting (no time-based measures used)
Selvarajan et al. (2013)	Social support and WFC	Telecommuting	Survey—measures if telecommuting available (yes/no) on checklist of 7 possible family-friendly policies
Shockley and Allen (2007)	Flexible work arrangements and WFC	Telecommuting	Survey—measures freedom to work wherever is best—at home or at work (1 entirely not true – 5 entirely true)
ten Brummelhuis et al. (2008)	Positive and negative effects of family involvement on work-related burnout (Netherlands)	Commuting	Multi-method—time diaries tracked time spent on commuting, along with work, household work, childcare, sleeping, leisure
Thompson et al. (1999)	Work–family culture, benefit utilization and WFC (USA)	Telecommuting	Survey—measures working from home
Troup and Rose (2012)	Formal and informal telework (Australia)	Telecommuting	Survey—measures worked at home in past 12 months, formal or informal arrangement (yes/no)
van der Klis and Karsten (2009)	Commuting as work–family adaptive strategy (Netherlands)	Commuting	Qualitative interviews reporting experience of commuting, time spent with family per week
Van Dyne et al. (2007)	Work–family practices that enhance group processes and effectiveness	Telework; flexplace; FaceTime	Theoretical paper—identifies work practices targeted at group coordination and group motivation
Virick et al. (2010)	Determining factors related to employee satisfaction with telecommuting (US)	Telecommuting	Survey—measures extent of telecommuting, perceived performance outcome orientation, worker types, job satisfaction, life satisfaction
Voydanoff (2002)	Linkages between WFI and work, family and individuals’ outcomes	Business trips, commuting, and telecommuting	Theoretical paper—travel, commuting discussed vis a vis boundary crossing; within- and between-domain demands
Voydanoff (2005a)	Demand and resources approach to work-fit and balance	Business trips, commuting	Theoretical paper—identifies travel and commuting as demands both ‘within’ and ‘between’ domains
Voydanoff (2005b)	Consequences of boundary-spanning demands and resources for WFC and perceived stress (USA)	Business trips, commuting, telecommuting	Survey—measures commuting (minutes spent) and travel (nights away from home), work at home as part of regular workweek (0 - no, 1 - yes)
Watanabe and Falci (2016)	Faculty turnover intentions and WFB (USA)	Business trips	Survey—measures average hours per week spent on work activities but does not include time spent on travel

Note: Meta-analyses such as Bianchi and Milkie (2010), Byron (2005), and Kelly et al. (2008) were identified but not included in the table above.

With respect to methodologies and methods, we can also identify important ways in which the exploration of mobility, space, and place is foreclosed. For instance, the majority of studies in our SLR are positivist in nature, reflecting a ‘variables approach’ and bringing the sophisticated measurement and analytic techniques that are an admired hallmark of work–family research (Williams et al., 2016). Yet, there are recurring problems in accounting for mobility and space, with a pronounced tendency to engage in what we refer to earlier as ‘time–space conversion’—where measures of time serve as proxies for space and mobility. For instance, studies of telework typically measure the number of hours, or percentage of work time, in a home-based location (e.g. Desrochers et al., 2005; Golden, 2007; Kossek et al., 2006). Commuting is measured by combining daily commuting and working time (Nomaguchi et al., 2005; Parasuraman et al., 1996; ten Brummelhuis et al., 2008; Wierda-Boer et al., 2008). Business travel is measured by ‘time spent on business travel’ or ‘number of overnight trips from home’. Although some studies adopt more nuanced approaches (for example, Edgell et al., 2012)—which marks an improvement given evidence that travel and work time are experienced differently (Chamorro-Premuzic, 2015; Sandow, 2014; van der Klis and Karsten, 2009)—the heavy reliance on time-based measures is a great limitation, failing to capture how individuals navigate and experience ERM. Finally, and equally important, we find few studies that consider issues of power, by exploring whether individuals have control over ERM, or the freedom to determine the location of their work (for valuable exceptions, see Kossek et al., 2006; Shockley and Allen, 2007).

In short, our systematic review of studies in leading academic journals highlights important limitations in work–family research. Theoretically, these include: (i) the lack of explicit attention to issues of mobility, space, and place; (ii) the reliance on approaches that place priority on ‘time’ and ‘time-binds’; and (iii) the tendency to gloss over considerations of power and constraint. Empirically, when questions of mobility and space have been taken up, the primary focus has been on situations of spatial concentration and proximate mobilities, such as telework or commuting—leaving other forms of ERM either unexamined or to be taken up as a ‘niche’ concern (Gustafson, 2006). Although these limitations do not diminish the rich insights generated by work–family studies, they do highlight the potential value of greater dialogue and bridge-building between work–family and mobilities perspectives. In the next section, we explore what might be produced through such an exercise, outlining a ‘mobilities inspired’ agenda that sparks new ways of thinking about mobility in work and family, encouraging a more ‘movement-driven’ approach (Buscher and Urry, 2009).

Excavating a broader spectrum of employment-related mobilities

A first and central contribution of a mobilities approach is to prompt critical redirections that are theoretical, conceptual, and methodological in nature—acknowledging the twinned role of time and space (as time–space), the centrality of mobility to work and family life, and the need to more fully excavate a broad spectrum of ERM. Here, we draw on DeVault’s notion of ‘excavation’ to imagine the new insights and knowledge that future work–family studies might generate by considering varied forms of understudied ERM, thus ‘uncovering and articulating what has been hidden or unacknowledged’ (1999: 55). It is important to emphasize that this first shift is not at the surface level, involving a search for new research sites or themes, for instance. Instead, it is a theoretically-driven reorientation that embraces a movement-driven point of view, and works to uncover how varied scales, durations, and tempos of ERM shape experiences of work and family. Adding to this process are exciting methodological innovations, including the use of ‘mobile methods’, that aid in capturing the fleeting, processual, aspects of work and family as they play out on the move.

Concerning the types of ERM most in need of excavation, our SLR clearly shows the need to study diverse scales and durations of ERM, moving beyond telework and short-distance commuting (conceptually reflecting spatial concentration and proximate mobilities) to study mobility arrangements that are regional, national, and global in scale (conceptually reflecting spatial dispersion and distal mobilities). Not only have these latter forms of ERM been vastly understudied relative to their growing importance, there is good reason to believe they pose unique challenges for individuals and families, given evidence on the ‘liability of distance’, the link between physical and psychological distancing, and the demands associated with what Cohen and Gossling (2015) call the ‘darker side’ of mobility (see also Liu et al., 2011; Williams and Bargh, 2008). Here, greater exchange between work–family and mobilities perspectives could enhance our understanding of many understudied forms of ERM, including: (i) manual/trades workers engaged in fly-in, fly-out work in mining, oil, and other resource sectors; (ii) those for whom mobility is work, such as long-haul truckers and overseas flight crews; and (iii) knowledge workers, project managers, entrepreneurs, creative workers, and others engaged in regular or irregular longer-distance travel and super-commuting.

Intersecting with scale, a mobilities lens would also encourage attention to varied durations and tempos of ERM. For instance, studies comparing national or global ERM that is regular and predictable (e.g. weekly commuting of trades workers or professionals), with intermittent, non-routine, mobility (e.g. irregular trips of professionals or entrepreneurs for projects, conferences, or trade shows) can generate insights into the varied experience of ERM, and the mobility routines, practices, and knowledge involved. Here, the mobilities emphasis on understanding ‘lived time’ and ‘experienced time’ can generate new insights, taking us beyond the surface-level accounting of ‘clock time’ identified in our SLR. It can also enhance our understanding of how ERM shapes work–family dynamics over time—for instance, comparing sustained involvement with ERM, with more episodic or shorter-duration cycles. Beyond these empirical insights, a mobilities perspective can also contribute to recent theorizing on temporality in work–family life, with a mobility lens offering a stronger theorization of time–space than exists at present (see, for example, ten Brummelhuis and Bakker, 2012).

A mobilities lens also opens up rich possibilities with the use of ‘mobile methods’. Faced with the challenge of capturing ‘fleeting experiences’ that elude traditional methods (e.g. cross-sectional surveys), mobilities scholars have explored creative new approaches, such as mobile ethnographies and interviews, time–space diaries, and people and object mapping that synthesize the use of ride-alongs, walk-alongs, and GPS (see, for example, Buscher and Urry, 2009: D’Andrea et al., 2011; Evans and Jones, 2011; Laurier, 2004; Sheller, 2011; Watts and Urry, 2008). Although these methodological innovations are not necessarily unique to mobilities studies, the ‘movement’ and ‘meaning’ orientation can helpfully push work–family studies beyond its usual methodological repertoire. Here, we also see opportunities for reciprocal exchange with some work–family researchers who are developing innovative methods designed to capture the complex, ongoing, negotiation of work–family life (see, for instance, Radcliffe and Cassell, 2014; for discussions, see Eby et al., 2005; Williams et al., 2016).

Exemplars in the mobilities paradigm that illustrate the approach described in this first shift include Dorow and Mandizadza’s (2018) study of Canadian oil sands workers engaged in long-distance/duration ERM, completing two to three weeks of work, before returning to families across the country for short periods of respite. Using ethnographic techniques, Dorow and Mandizadza (2018) shed light on the wide-ranging implications of ERM, as work and family are stretched across time–space—necessitating practices of remote parenting, the coordination of the (often clashing) temporalities of work camp and distant family life, and the emotional effort of maintaining co-presence with family and friends while enduring loneliness, isolation, and boredom. Their study also illustrates how gender, race, and class-shaped experiences of ERM and ‘mobility regimes’ of long-distance ERM increasingly operate in some sectors (e.g. oil, mining), where costs allow, as alternatives to traditional arrangements of ‘company towns’. Though their study may seem to focus on a ‘specialized form’ of ERM, it is in fact highly relevant to a growing range of jobs where long-distance/duration ERM is on the rise and in need of much greater attention.

Turning to situations of spatial concentration and proximate mobility, we have already noted how certain examples of such work (i.e. telework) have been well-studied by work–family scholars. But our SLR also identifies striking gaps in relation to other newly emerging forms of recurring, proximate, mobilities that are emblematic of ‘fully mobile workers’ and ‘gig economies’ (e.g. Uber drivers, couriers, and delivery workers). Attention to this form of ERM seems especially important given the forecasted growth of such jobs, and the potential for both constraint (given ‘on-demand’ services) and opportunity in blending work and family activities in novel ways (e.g. picking up children as part of a circuit of mobility, running family errands or meeting with friends while on a break). Indeed, during the writing of this article, we have been struck by recruitment campaigns such as Uber’s Where To? that romantically portrays the work–family benefits of Uber driving over the store-bound sedentarism of working as a supermarket cashier. ¹⁰ Future mobilities-inspired studies can glean many new insights about this rapidly growing work niche, which include not only Uber and other transport and delivery jobs, but home healthcare aides, repair techs, emergency workers, and sales representatives, to name but a few. On this last point, we would note that though some mobilities scholars examine this type of mobility (see, for instance, Brown and O’Hara, 2003; Cohen, 2010; Sharma, 2017), work–family issues are not a central concern. Likewise, though some work–family studies recognize mobile work and the creation of ‘third spaces’ ¹¹ (e.g. Towers et al., 2006), a deeper engagement with mobilities ideas would help this work move beyond time-based approaches, measures, and well-studied forms of ERM (e.g. telework).

Unpacking the power-geometries of employment-related mobilities

A second critical contribution of mobilities studies, one that goes hand-in-hand with the excavation of a broader spectrum of ERM, is to address issues of power, and the linkages between macro-level political economic contexts and the micro-level behaviours and experiences of work and family. Here, Massey’s ideas of ‘power-geometries’ are especially valuable. Illustrating this, Kesselring’s (2014) examination of ‘corporate mobility regimes’, which builds on Massey, demonstrates how studies can contextualize individual decisions as they are shaped by employers’ changing utilization of time–space, and specific strategies that ‘normalize’ and ‘rationalize’ ERM. Studying what he calls ‘mobility pioneers’ (e.g. knowledge and professional workers), Kesselring (2006, 2014) shows how economies characterized by ever-increasing expectations of productive mobility and continuous availability operate to the advantage of employers, leaving individuals and families to absorb the assorted costs of ERM. Such costs include lost weekends to travel and recovery, regularly missing family events and leisure, and seeing friendships and community involvement atrophy owing to dislocation and distance. Yet, Kesselring also takes up issues of agency, tracing how individuals and families utilize mobilities knowledge, routines, and practices to navigate, negotiate, and resist the macro-level pressures associated with ever-rising ERM—an issue we discuss in more depth in the next section.

Future work–family studies can usefully deploy the concept of ‘mobilities regimes’, in conjunction with established concepts from work–family scholarship, such as ‘work–family orientations’, to enhance knowledge about ‘opportunity-based’ and ‘necessity-based’ ERM—where the former involves mobility that is voluntarily chosen to improve job opportunities and economic security, and the latter is pursued, or imposed, owing to a lack of viable alternatives. Such an approach would help to address oft-noted limitations in work–family research, where issues of power and constraint are glossed over, in favour of explanations that emphasize individual ‘preferences’ for segmenting or integrating family and work. Notable exceptions to this approach do exist, such as Kossek et al. (2006), who challenge assumptions that individuals and families can always match their work–family preferences to available work. Such an approach, used in conjunction with an analysis of the mobility regimes in play, could be highly productive for work–family research, especially when used in comparative designs that contrast opportunity- and necessity-based ERM. Likewise, for mobilities scholars, stronger empirical engagement with work–family issues could also help to refine the concept of ‘mobility regimes’ which, at times, seem to operate deterministically, rather than opening up excavation of how employer-generated mobility regimes are navigated and experienced by workers and families who vary in relative skills, bargaining power, and control over mobility (Massey, 1993).

Concerning specific power dynamics of interest, we would argue that non-standard and precarious work is especially in need of sustained attention. In fact, it is both interesting and puzzling that despite the significant attention paid by work–family scholars to the growing ‘time demands’ of the 24/7 economy—for example, unpredictable schedules, insufficient hours, and temporal flexibility that favour employers over employees (Jacobs and Gerson, 2004; Presser, 2003)—there has been so little corresponding attention to questions of space, place, and work location. Yet, rising ERM is central to the time–space restructuring and reconfiguration of work observed across many sectors, whether generated through requirements that employees work across multiple worksites with the same company (e.g. fast food outlets), the hollowing out of regional economies, or the need for growing numbers of service workers to hold multiple jobs owing to insufficient hours and zero-hours contracts (Standing, 2014). A prime example of this can be found in Williams and Boushey’s (2010) analysis of the ‘missing faces’ within work–family research, which highlights how low-income single mothers travel several hours daily on public transport to cobble together multiple precarious jobs to support their families. While this example draws attention to the power-geometries within relative localized, proximate ERM, we see the same dynamics operating over national/global scales, as Dorow and Mandizadza’s (2018) study shows, with mobility regimes of long-distance ERM drawing heavily from peripheral, sunset regions, with high levels of unemployment and precarious manual labourers.

Beyond labour market precarity, a mobilities lens can also make important contributions to illuminating inequalities within, and between, labour markets and households. Here, mobilities scholarship, which emphasizes linkages between im/mobile workers, offers strong potential to generate insights into the experiences of immobile family members, who keep the ‘home fires burning’, thus facilitating ERM while also sharpening gender inequalities in the household as a result. Currently, a handful of studies on business travellers, long-haul truckers, fishers, and military personnel confirm fairly traditional patterns of men as mobile breadwinners, and women as the non-mobile support, especially where young children are involved (Børve and Bungum, 2015; Gustafson, 2006; Willerton et al., 2011; Zvonkovic and Notter, 2006). But not all such work draws on a mobility lens, and there is far more to learn about the interconnections of im/mobilities in the understudied forms of ERM we have noted. Moreover, how ERM is practised and experienced in diverse and less traditional households (e.g. single person, female breadwinner, same-sex, multi-generational) is an area in need of greater study. On this point, we again see opportunities for productive exchange, with mobilities studies giving added impetus to long-standing, but relatively neglected, calls in work–family scholarship for greater research attention to issues of class and gender, and more diverse family forms (Williams et al., 2016).

Illuminating the practices, experiences, and meanings of mobilities

A third contribution of a mobilities perspective is to shed light on the practices, experiences, and meanings of ERM, and the ways in which a sense of co-presence is realized. Underlying this contribution is a shift away from the individual tenor of much work–family research, towards a relational approach that attends to context, practices, and meanings (Manderscheid, 2014). Here, several research questions are key: What are the specific practices, routines, and knowledge individuals and families develop in navigating varied forms of ERM? How is a sense of co-presence achieved while ‘at a distance’ and ‘on the move’? In addressing these questions, work–family studies can benefit from the practice-based and interpretive approaches employed by many mobilities scholars. Aiding this, the use of innovative ‘mobile methods’, discussed earlier, offers a growing mix of creative techniques for capturing work–family processes and negotiation in daily life, pushing our understandings beyond traditional outcome-oriented approaches.

In this vein, a central issue that work–family studies can productively explore concerns questions of co-presence (Urry, 2002; Zhao, 2003), and the mobility practices that individuals and their families develop to foster a sense of togetherness. Here, a mobilities lens encourages in-depth exploration of varied practices—for instance, family rituals that smooth exits and re-entries; the use of portable affect (e.g. photos, music, gifts) to boost spirits; and embodied and/or virtual travel aimed at creating co-presence (Elliot and Urry, 2010; Zvonkovic and Notter, 2006). In tracing varied practices, a mobilities lens pushes beyond standard approaches of tallying clock time, individual activity, and discrete outcomes, building a relational, process-oriented understanding of work and family life. Equally important, work–family studies can also examine how mobility knowledge, expertise, and support shape experiences of ERM. Here, Kesselring’s (2014) concept of ‘mobility competencies’ is highly relevant, raising questions about the ways in which individuals and families accumulate and hone expertise, knowledge, and routines through recurring mobility, as they learn to navigate transportation systems, coordinate temporalities, and retain connections through communication technologies. For instance, Kesselring argues that well-honed mobility competencies enable workers and their families to manage many unique demands of ERM, such as jet lag, time changes, and the physical, mental, and emotional demands of living in, and between, often discordant temporalities of transport systems, varied work locations, and family life at a distance (see Chamorro-Premuzic, 2015; Cohen and Gossling, 2015; Gustafson, 2006).

Valuable exemplars that take up such issues are found in Baldassar’s (2016) study of mobility practices, which traces the ‘circulation of care’ through time–space in families ‘at a distance’. Rather than focusing on discrete outcomes, such as whether individuals report work–family conflict, the focus is on developing a multi-layered understanding of how physical and virtual mobility are used to bring family members together. Baldassar (2016) identifies distinct forms of co-presence, such as ‘active co-presence’ (where prompt attention, focus, and emotional engagement is required) and ‘passive co-presence’ (where lines of conversation are left open over extended periods of time, through ongoing texts or a continual Skype feed during a birthday celebration or Sunday family dinner, for example). There is also attention to how varied forms of caring (e.g. routine, crisis, instrumental, expressive) are coordinated through hybrid networks of local and distant family, neighbours, and friends. Baldassar argues that physical co-presence should not be assumed as the ‘gold standard’ of family life; instead, empirical study is needed to determine how distance operates, and whether it is detrimental, as is commonly assumed. This approach generates rich insights into how individuals, families, and friends develop and hone mobility practices to foster a sense of connection and co-presence.

Other exemplars using a mobilities lens focus on recurring, proximate, mobilities—what Strandell (2014) calls ‘small scale’ mobilities—to understand how the coordination of work and family activities, and the connectedness between family members, is accomplished. For instance, Jensen et al. (2015) explores the ‘everyday mobilities’ of families in urban households, drawing on GPS tracking, interviews, and memory mapping, to trace the complex mobilities practices of working parents and children in synchronizing their individual and household activities, and affective ties. Likewise, Strandell (2014) and Christensen (2009) examine how working parents, children, and paid caregivers, develop practices of coordinated care and remote parenting through virtual mobilities (e.g. texting, mobile phone calls) in order to offer advice, resolve conflict, and offer emotional support while at a distance.

Linking this mobilities-inspired research to the work–family studies identified in our SLR highlights the potential value of a mobilities lens. For instance, Geurts et al. (2009) in their study of control over working time, express surprise that ‘time spent commuting’ does not contribute to work-to-family interference, as they hypothesize. But a mobilities approach can help to unravel this, moving beyond ‘clock time’ to explore how commuting is practised and experienced (Lyons, 2014). Likewise, another area where a mobilities lens can generate new insights is around communication technologies (e.g. mobile phones, FaceTime), which family members use to achieve ‘connected presence’ throughout the day. Here, we see strong potential for exchange between work–family and mobilities research, given a growing body of work–family research on this topic. We concur with Wajcman et al. (2008), however, in noting that work–family studies have primarily focused on whether technologies operate as tools of ‘work extension’, leaving other questions aside. Offering a great exemplar of a more open stance to these questions, Wajcman et al. (2008) explore mobile phone use by individuals and families, showing that, contrary to the ‘work extension’ thesis, phones are primarily used to create ‘connected presence’ through daily micro-coordination and maintenance of intimate ties. While a mobilities lens is not central to Wajcman et al.’s (2008) study, nor do they focus on specific types of ERM, their work as well as other studies (for example, Duxbury et al., 2014; Mullan and Wajcman, 2017) are instructive in identifying where further exchange between work–family and mobilities ideas can be fruitful.