A cultural study of the work and family balance

This book is about the cultural aspects of the work-family balance. Most of the publications in this field consider the ¿time¿ and ¿energy¿ that parents dedicate to one domain or the other as the main factors in explaining the dilemmas that parents face in balancing these spheres. Conversely, this study considers how working parents use emotional and material resources in managing their various commitments and analyses how parents attach different symbolic values (through family¿s meals, play time with children, job gratification etc.) to the domains of daily life. These emotional and material resources are highly dependant from parents¿ occupational level. Indeed, this research finds that the possibility of managing work-family balance is connected to job status, autonomy and power dynamics and such a relation reflects different patterns of the work-family interface within the middle-class respondents to this study. Here is where this research fills a gap in the literature, as there is little research on the symbolic level of work-family balance and on how this symbolic level is continuously framed by work conditions and parental obligations.