The Work and Family Researchers Network: an organizational and intellectual agenda

Abstract

This essay outlines the organizational form and programmatic goals of the Work and Family Researchers Network (WFRN). This international membership organization aspires to bring together researchers and scholars from a range of academic disciplines as well as policy makers and practitioners. A brief sketch of the structure of the WFRN emphasizes its marriage of virtual and face-to-face communities. A sketch of the intellectual domain of work and family research maps this field with respect to basic social science and applied concerns. I suggest that the preoccupations of this field of inquiry are not marginal but rather occupy intellectually central space in several disciplines. Moreover, the policy questions of interest to work and family researchers are numerous and noteworthy, as they pertain to different stages of the life course and individuals facing a wide array of work and family interactions. Work and family research is interdisciplinary, based on the extensive cross-disciplinary citation patterns that are already well established in this area. WFRN can nonetheless play a role in facilitating communication and fostering collaborations. The essay ends with a brief note about opportunities and challenges that lie ahead.

Este ensayo resume el modelo organizativo y los objetivos de la Red de Investigadores sobre Familia y Trabajo (WFRN). Esta organización de membresía internacional aspira a reunir investigadores y eruditos provenientes de diferentes disciplinas académicas, así como a diseñadores de políticas y profesionales. Un breve resumen de la estructura de WFRN enfatiza la unión de comunidades virtuales y las de carne y hueso. Este ensayo explora el campo intelectual de trabajo y familia con respeto a las ciencias sociales básicas y los asuntos de interés relevantes. Con esto quiero decir que los asuntos de este campo de investigación no son marginales, sino que ocupan un espacio intelectual central en varias disciplinas. Además, las cuestiones políticas relevantes para los investigadores sobre familia y trabajo son numerosas y reseñables, en tanto que hacen referencia a diferentes etapas del curso de la vida y a individuos que se enfrentan a un amplio abanico de interacciones entre el trabajo y la familia. Las investigaciones sobre trabajo y familia son interdisciplinares, con base en los amplios modelos de citación multidisciplinar que ya están bien establecidos en este área. Sin embargo, WFRN puede facilitar la comunicación y fomentar la colaboración. Este ensayo termina con una breve nota sobre las oportunidades y los desafíos que están por venir.

Keywords:

• work and family research
• academic disciplines
• interdisciplinary research
• scholarly communication
• work and family policy

Palabras clave:

• investigación sobre trabajo y familia
• disciplinas académicas
• modelos de citas
• comunicación científica
• políticas de trabajo y familia

Notes on contributor

Jerry A. Jacobs is a professor of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, where he has taught since earning his Ph.D. in sociology at Harvard in 1983. In 2012, he served as a Founding President of the Work and Family Researchers Network, an interdisciplinary and international scholarly association that focuses on work and family issues. His numerous books, edited volumes, journal articles and book chapters have addressed various aspects of women's employment, including authority, earnings, working conditions, part-time work and work–family conflict, and entry into male-dominated occupations. Specific studies have targeted women physicians, academics, managers and welfare recipients. His research with Kathleen Gerson was honored with the Rosabeth Moss Kanter Award for Excellence in Work-Family Research in 2002, and led to the publication of The Time Divide: Work, Family and Gender Inequality, published by Harvard University Press in 2004. His current projects include an experimental survey of attitudes toward the employment of parents of young children.

Notes

1. For reviews of portions of this literature, see Byron (2005) and Eby, Casper, Lockwood, Bordeaux, and Brinley (2005).

2. This analysis relies on the ISI Web of Knowledge data base because of its journal classification system and its ability to classify publications by year.