Abstract
The issues of ‘precarious parents’ is not about juggling family responsibilities and the insecurity of the job (and therefore of the income), but it is about the mismatch between a series of very useful activities that these parents do (at home and for work) and the conditions for the (monetary) valorisation of these activities.
So, in my view, conventional work-life balance (work and family reconciliation) approach may lack a critical aspect. Not just about the paid job and caring commitments, but the sets of activities that are useful at home and in society/economy versus monetary valorisation (*VFT) of these activities.
This approach stresses: human activities (work) and socio-economic conditions linked to wage relations.
Precarity makes these social contradictions more visible: more acute the need to have secure income. Most literature on w-l balance accept the division of paid and unpaid work.
There is then studies that ‘complicate’ the picture asserting that care work is work [feminist approach is anti-functionalist], but blurring the boundaries often overlook the fact that (parents’) living time is ‘divided’:
The critical approach, while considering care work as work, also recognises that paid employment places divisions on the basis that their activities need to be ‘valorised’ (that is: precarious parents need an income).
So, in my view, conventional work-life balance (work and family reconciliation) approach may lack a critical aspect. Not just about the paid job and caring commitments, but the sets of activities that are useful at home and in society/economy versus monetary valorisation (*VFT) of these activities.
This approach stresses: human activities (work) and socio-economic conditions linked to wage relations.
Precarity makes these social contradictions more visible: more acute the need to have secure income. Most literature on w-l balance accept the division of paid and unpaid work.
There is then studies that ‘complicate’ the picture asserting that care work is work [feminist approach is anti-functionalist], but blurring the boundaries often overlook the fact that (parents’) living time is ‘divided’:
The critical approach, while considering care work as work, also recognises that paid employment places divisions on the basis that their activities need to be ‘valorised’ (that is: precarious parents need an income).
Original language | English |
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Publication status | Unpublished - 3 Jul 2021 |
Event | Conference of the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE): Precarity, capitalism and work-Life boundaries in post-Covid. - Online Duration: 3 Jul 2021 → 3 Jul 2021 |
Academic conference
Academic conference | Conference of the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE) |
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Period | 3/07/21 → 3/07/21 |