Work-family justice – meanings and possibilities: introduction to the work and family researchers network special issue

ABSTRACT

Work-family justice is a key organizing concept centering intellectual and policy work that calls attention to tensions and challenges in work and family integration and highlights key solutions. This special issue extends knowledge about structural, cultural, historical, and political factors that inform the range of diverse work-family complexities. It presents building blocks to sustain healthier work and family lives that are central to the ideas of work-family justice. In this introductory article, we discuss changes, issues and tensions in the realms of work and family, and we advocate for assessing the intersection of work-family through a global lens. We build upon earlier rigorous scholarship ascertaining the best supports for a healthy and fulfilled workforce and populace, which can advance equality and sustain and improve wellbeing. The special issue introduction also highlights exceptional individual research studies, that – as a whole – elevate work-family scholarship and the solutions that can enhance work-family justice.

KEYWORDS:

• Work-family
• justice
• inequalities
• social context
• policy
• Global North and Global South

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 https://hrnews.co.uk/88-of-uk-workforce-have-experienced-burnout-in-the-past-two-years/.

2 https://www.axa.co.uk/newsroom/media-releases/2023/the-true-cost-of-running-on-empty-work-related-stress-costing-uk-economy-28bn-a-year/.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Melissa A. Milkie

Melissa A. Milkie is Professor of Sociology and Chair of the tri-campus Graduate Department, at the Department of Sociology, University of Toronto, Canada. She served recently (2021-2022) as President of the Work and Family Researchers Network. Professor Milkie’s research focuses on structural and cultural changes in gender, work and family life over recent decades and how work-family configurations are linked to mental health and well-being.

Heejung Chung

Heejung Chung is Professor of Sociology, at the School of Social Policy, Sociology, and Social Research, University of Kent, UK. She has served on the WFRN executive board from 2019-2022. Professor Chung’s interest lies in exploring gender, class and racial inequalities patterns both in the labour market and at home, focusing on the role contexts – namely institutions/policies, culture and other socio-economic factors – have in changing these relationships. She is the author of the recently published book The Flexibility Paradox (Policy Press).

Ameeta Jaga

Ameeta Jaga is Professor of Organisational Psychology and the Deputy Dean of Transformation and Inclusion at the faculty of Commerce, University of Cape Town, South Africa. She is the serving secretary of the WFRN (2021-2023). Professor Jaga’s work navigates the work-family interface drawing particularly on matters of culture and gender. Her works draw on southern theories to prioritise context while underlining global inequalities in knowledge production.