 Competing Scenarios for European Fathers: Applying Sen's Capabilities and Agency Framework to Work—Family BalanceBarbara Hobson and
Susanne Fahlén
The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 2009, vol. 624, issue 1, 214-233 Abstract: European policy and discourse create crosscurrents for fathers: the promotion of work-family balance (WFB) and more involved fathering versus work-focused competitiveness and productivity goals in globalized economies. Using Amartya Sen's capabilities and agency paradigm, the authors provide a theoretical framework for analyzing agency inequalities in WFB: the disjuncture between norms/values and practices and between policies and fathers' capabilities to exercise them. The authors apply the capability framework to comparative European data considering working times and desired working times, flexibility and autonomy in employment, as well as perceptions of economic security and job security. The authors find differences in fathers' capabilities and agency for WFB across countries representing different welfare regime configurations, most strikingly between old and new EU member states. The majority of the European fathers wanted to reduce working hours substantially despite possible reductions in pay, underscoring the value of the capabilities framework for understanding potential freedoms for achieving WFB. Keywords: work—family balance; welfare regimes; working times; fathers; Amartya Sen (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:anname:v:624:y:2009:i:1:p:214-233 Access Statistics for this article More articles in The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science |
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