Work–family balance in international perspective

In recent academic debates on work–family balance, there has frequently been a disparity between theory and practice. With ageing populations globally, it is expected that both men and women will work later into life, and greater effort is needed on the part of governments and families to ensure care and support for elderly and disabled people. These factors combine to make the relationship between work and care a crucial issue for social and employment policy. The books by Milkman and Appelbaum as well as Kröger and Yeandle discuss care comprehensively and extend current debates on the relationship between the policy context and human agency. They highlight the policy lessons to be learned from experiences of the reconciliation of work and care in various contexts.

Unfinished Business by Ruth Milkman and Eileen Appelbaum investigates California’s Paid Family Leave (PFL) programme, implemented in mid-2004. This programme was designed to address the need for paid family leave and to assist, among other groups, the ‘sandwich generation’ – working people with caregiving responsibilities both to elderly parents and to their own young children. This book reports the results of four original surveys conducted in 2004, just prior to the introduction of the PFL programme, and in 2009. The programme came into force in July 2004, and provides eligible male and female workers with six weeks of PFL per year for caring for a new child or a seriously ill relative. PFL covers all private and non-profit workers and these employees receive up to 55% of their weekly wages. The programme is financed by an employee payroll tax and is administered by California’s Employment Development Department, together with the Temporary Disability Insurance (TDI) programme. Milkman and Appelbaum supplement the survey results with recent statistical data from California, and analyse the effect of the PFL programme on employers and workers in the state, as well as the programme’s limitations.

Business and employer organizations, such as the National Federation of Independent Business, had feared that cost increases and fraud would arise from the PFL programme, but these fears proved unjustified. In the USA, employers have opposed decommodification; that is, any service to which workers have a right and which permits them to live without relying on the market. However, the findings from interviews with employers on the impact of PFL indicate that companies had little or no additional costs in replacing leave-takers. Further, the positive effect of PFL on employee morale reduced staff turnover and increased productivity.

However, although the PFL programme has brought numerous benefits, inequalities in terms of awareness and access to the programme persist. Awareness of the programme remains low among low-income workers, Latinos and immigrants, although these groups have perhaps most to gain from the programme. Overall, there has been a relatively low take-up of PFL by workers, due to lack of awareness, employees’ fear of repercussions from their employers and insufficient resources for PFL.

The authors conclude that PFL could be enhanced by expanding outreach, providing greater job protection, increasing the wage replacement level and by extending it to all public employees in California. In addition, they suggest that California’s PFL provision for equal access to paid leave for men and women could be introduced nationally.

While the focus of Milkman and Appelbaum’s book is one US state, the volume edited by Kröger and Yeandle brings together the results of comparative research carried out between 2008 and 2011. It takes a broad look at the reconciliation of work and various care experiences – for elderly relatives, partners and disabled or seriously ill children – and compares them across six countries: Finland, Sweden, Australia, England, Japan and Taiwan. Part One concerns the experiences of individuals who care for older relatives while also in employment. Jolanki et al. report that attitudes towards the care of the elderly are similar in Sweden and Finland in that the role of the family in caring for the elderly is growing as a result of a reduction in public services. In both countries, care services vary across municipalities and are more affordable in Sweden than in Finland. In contrast, Yeandle and Cass hold that the welfare systems in the liberal democracies of Australia and England currently provide only a ‘safety net’, leaving the family with the primary responsibility. Wang et al. emphasize the role of Confucianism in the Taiwanese and Japanese welfare systems, which sees care for the family as the younger generation’s obligation rather than a right. Hence in Japan and Taiwan, government assistance is reserved for those without a family support base (Leung, 2014). Japan, however, has gradually shifted towards a ‘quasi-rights’ model in recent years, with eligibility in the Long Term Care Insurance (LTCI) system taking into consideration the individual’s own status rather than his/her family status. Thus, many older people are now cared for primarily by a professional ‘house helper’, who is provided by local care agencies applying national criteria. The authors suggest that such a shift is imminent in Taiwan.

Part Two of the book concerns working parents who care for disabled children. Miettinen et al. report that in Sweden and Finland, the Nordic welfare model appears to be well coordinated in the provision of a range of public services to assist parents of disabled children. However, parents still assume considerable responsibilities for the care of disabled children, limiting their ability to participate in the labour market. In the liberal democracies of Australia and England, examined by Yeandle and Valentine, similar legal provisions exist for working parent carers of disabled children. However, the provision of local services is inconsistent and parents of disabled children often find themselves excluded from the labour market. For Japan and Taiwan, Chou et al. show that access to financial support and welfare services is limited, as care for disabled children is regarded as a family responsibility.

Part Three looks at working partner–carers: people who work, while also caring for ill or disabled partners. Leinonen and Sand explain that in Finland and Sweden, partner–carers encounter similar problems such as lack of personal time, lack of financial support and inconsistency in the delivery of local services. Fry et al. examine this issue in England and Australia, where the state has recognized that alternative care services, flexible respite provision and mentoring are important elements in partner–carers’ lives. Liu and Osawa state that in Taiwan and Japan, partner care remains largely a family matter, although services are beginning to be developed to assist this group.

By way of conclusion, the editors underline the clear differences between the six countries studied in terms of their welfare systems, but also highlight considerable similarities. For instance, in all six countries, relatively few partner–carers benefit from carer services or leave from their employment. Furthermore, support through employers, good social networks and effective services is crucial to the ability to combine work and care effectively. However, the studies in this book find that family carers frequently lack the support required to reconcile work and care effectively.

These books can be recommended to academics, students and policy makers. Milkman and Appelbaum’s examination of one policy development in one place is necessarily narrower in focus but offers more depth than Kröger and Yeandle’s cross-national analysis. For both, however, wider applications are limited by their relatively undeveloped theoretical basis. Indeed, Kröger and Yeandle mention that they were unable to ask their contributors to work within a single theoretical framework. How, then, can we go beyond the conclusion that different policy systems across a range of countries have varying effects on the gendered nature of care work? A starting point might be to examine the extent to which policies permit women with family responsibilities to become financially independent, irrespective of their care responsibilities; that is, the extent to which they enable women to be both ‘commodified’ and ‘defamilialized’ in providing for themselves. As Nancy Fraser (1994) pointed out in her pioneering article, various social understandings of this conundrum have different results for gender equity and the acknowledgment of care requirements and care work.