Challenges for Work and Family in the Twenty-First Century. - Review - book review

Administrative Science Quarterly, Sept, 2000 by Leslie A. Perlow

Dana Vannoy and Paula J. Dubeck, eds. New York: de Gruyter, 1998. 234 PP. $21.95, paper.

Challenges for Work and Family is a compilation of papers drawn from a conference sponsored by the Kunz Center for the Study of Work and Family. The conference was designed to examine the influence of social and economic systems on families, communities, and work environments. As Vannoy notes, "We began this conference project with the idea of addressing issues highly relevant to social and corporate policy in the next century. These issues include: (1) the need for more families to function well in response to family instability and its effects for children; (2) the need for new structures o work allowing parents to be employed and raise children (in response to the prevalence of and trend toward dual-earner families); (3) the need for healthy work environments for all (in response to the inevitable, increasing diversity and diminishing civility in some arenas of work); (4) the need for reasonable security or adequate pay for citizens (in response to the developing dual economy and growing poverty); and (5) the need for work for more persons to do in postindustrial society (in response to technological change)" (p. 217).

This broad agenda is reflected in the chapters selected for the book. Different from the typical book on work and family, which details the specific trade-offs between work and family, the chapters in this book explore issues as diverse as Medicare, eldercare, the percentage of women in female occupations, downsizing, the case of the part-time manager, race and family values, and methods for improving third-grade education. Each of these chapters is for the most part interesting, informative, and thought-provoking. Taken as a whole, however, these chapters are not consistent in their aim, ranging from purely empirical investigations, with limited discussion of their practical implications, to self-help guides. Moreover, the book lacks an overarching framework that links together the various issues and helps the reader focus on the material pertinent for a discussion of work and family.

The book begins with Dubeck's overview of the challenges involved in better integrating work and family in the twenty-first century. She outlines the changes in women's labor force participation and the resulting need for new institutional arrangements. She reiterates the need for the work and family conflict to be recast in terms of the explicit interdependence between work and family. Finally, she promotes the exploration of the intersection of gender, race, and class as a source of possible ways to restructure institutional arrangements. The editors then organize the subsequent thirteen chapters into three subsections: present realities, work and family adaptations to a changing context, and new considerations for the twenty-first century. While these headings ostensibly follow from the issues raised in Dubeck's introduction, the chapters themselves bring much broader meaning to each of these headings.

The section on present realities contains four chapters. First, Gerson argues that the economy, workplace, community, and government must adjust to accommodate changes in gender roles and family division of labor. Next, Wallace suggests that downsizing produces social and economic disparities among people, and people need help learning to cope with these differences. Then, Presser explores how globalization requires organizations to create nonstandard work schedules, which in turn create stress for marriages and intergenerational relations. In the final chapter in this section, Zinn suggests that the debate over family values fails to take into account how race operates as a macrostructural force situating families differently and thereby producing different arrangements.

The next section, on work and family adaptations to a changing context, includes four chapters that reflect multiple interpretations of what constitutes a work and family adaptation. Two explore knowledge gained from particular changes in work or family. Raabe provides evidence that a program allowing U.S. federal government managers to work part time can be a win-win situation for individuals, their families, and the organization, but she also cautions that the organization culture and structure can facilitate or undermine the success of the part-time manager. Daly and Deinhart interviewed couples in which the man is a fully participating father in everyday family life and document the challenges both men and women face in sharing household responsibilities. A third chapter in this section, by Penn, describes the increase in job insecurity in one company town, Rochester, New York, and suggests that the resulting lack of social capital is debilitating and must be addressed. The fourth chapter, by Fernandez an d Kim, documents variation across race and ethnic groups in both the economic well-being of families and their strategies to maintain their economic status.