FAMILY FRIENDLY MEASURES AT THE WORK PLACE Executive Summary

Research on family-friendly measures at the workplace reveals that these instruments are the outcome of a long history of struggle, mainly by the women’s movement, with antecedents in social and political thought, as well as in social and political policies and practices. These include feminist debates on marriage and the family, on paid and unpaid work, on careers, on state policies regarding families, women, and work and on gender in organisations, amongst others. Debates between neo-classical economists on optimal modes of household reproduction are also relevant here, as is research on family obligations and the life course, as well as on time use by family members. Changing family patterns including the growing phenomenon of lone parenting, and new forms of couple behaviour such as reciprocal marriages and equal parenting, with the more direct involvement of men in the family, also require consideration. Accounts of the labour process and of changes in the labour market are also pertinent, and include global shifts from manufacturing to service industries, different forms of labour contracts, and changes in supply and demand, which in some countries lead to high demand for very skilled workers and low demand for unskilled workers.