Work–life Balance and Working from Home

In recent years, there has been increasing focus on the question of how to balance work and life commitments in both academic and political debates. Homeworking is one initiative that has been promoted as a way of improving the work–life balance. This paper examines the experience of homeworking drawing on a recently completed ESRC study on homeworkers. Using the data from 45 interviews and 3 focus groups with homeworkers from different socio-economic backgrounds, it explores the question of whether working (or not) from home improves people's capacity to balance their work and life commitments.

[1]  Owen Darbishire Book Review: 'Teleworking: International Perspective, from Telecommuting to the Virtual Organisation' edited by Paul J. Jackson and Jos M. Van der Wielen. Routledge, London and New York, 1998 , 2000 .

[2]  S. Ahrentzen Home as a Workplace in the Lives of Women , 1992 .

[3]  E. Kevin Kelloway,et al.  Flexible work arrangements : managing the work-family boundary , 1998 .

[4]  U. Huws,et al.  Virtually Free? : gender, work and spatial choice , 1997 .

[5]  Brian D. Loader,et al.  Cyberspace divide: equality, agency and policy in the information society , 1998 .

[6]  Wired to the World, Chained to the Home: Telework in Daily Life (review) , 2003 .

[7]  Jeanne Moore,et al.  PLACING HOME IN CONTEXT , 2000 .

[8]  M. Barrett Managing Telework: Perspectives from Human Resource Management and Work Psychology , 2001, Journal of the Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management.

[9]  Mary Barrett K Daniels, DA Lamond and P Standen Managing Telework: Perspectives from Human Resource Management and Work Psychology Business Press (Thomson Learning) , 2001 .

[10]  Hartley Dean Business versus Families: Whose Side is New Labour on? , 2002, Social Policy and Society.

[11]  Cherry Rowlings Juggling Work and Care: The Experiences of Working Carers of Older Adults, Judith Philips, Miriam Bernard and Minda Chittenden, Bristol, The Policy Press, 2002, pp. iii + 48, ISBN 1 86134 433 0, £10.95 , 2003 .

[12]  J.M.M. van der Wielen,et al.  Teleworking : International perspectives. From telecommunity to the virtual organisation , 1998 .

[13]  S. Tietze,et al.  When "Work" Comes "Home": Coping Strategies of Teleworkers and their Families , 2002 .

[14]  F. Williams In and beyond New Labour: towards a new political ethics of care , 2001 .

[15]  Kiran Mirchandani,et al.  NO LONGER A STRUGGLE? : Teleworkers’ reconstruction of the work–non-work boundary , 2002 .

[16]  E. Poutsma,et al.  EUROPEAN FOUNDATION for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions , 1999 .

[17]  Annie Phizacklea,et al.  Homeworking Women: Gender, Racism and Class at Work , 1995 .

[18]  London Work and parents Competitiveness and choice: the government response on simplification of maternity leave, paternity leave and adoption leave , 2001 .

[19]  D. Guest Perspectives on the Study of Work-life Balance , 2002 .

[20]  Great Britain. Foreign Office.,et al.  Labour force survey , 1982 .

[21]  Cath Sullivan Space and the intersection of work and family in homeworking households , 2000 .

[22]  S. Duncan Policy Discourses on ‘Reconciling Work and Life’ in the EU , 2002, Social Policy and Society.

[23]  L. Haas,et al.  The impact of organizational culture on men's use of parental leave in Sweden , 2002 .

[24]  C. Higgins,et al.  Telework and the balance between work and family: is telework part of the problem or part of the solution? , 1998 .

[25]  A. Büssing,et al.  TELEWORKING AND QUALITY OF LIFE , 2002 .

[26]  R. Madigan,et al.  Gender and the meaning of the home , 1990 .

[27]  A. J. Hawkins,et al.  Work and family in the virtual office: Perceived influences of mobile telework. , 1996 .

[28]  Suzan Lewis,et al.  Home-based Telework, Gender, and the Synchronization of Work and Family: Perspectives of Teleworkers and their Co-residents , 2001 .

[29]  Margrethe H. Olson,et al.  Working at Home with Computers: Work and Nonwork Issues , 1984 .

[30]  A. Felstead,et al.  Homeworkers in Britain , 1996 .

[31]  Helen Jarvis,et al.  The Tangled Webs We Weave: Household Strategies to Co-Ordinate Home and Work , 1999 .

[32]  Leslie Haddon THE EXPERIENCE OF TELEWORKING : A view from the home , 2002 .

[33]  Ellen Galinsky,et al.  The Changing Workforce. Highlights of the National Study, No. 1. , 1993 .