Work/Life Balance, Gender Equity and Social Change

Abstract

‘Work/life balance’ as a contemporary issue is fundamentally linked with gender justice. The issue emerged from historical transformations of the gender order, in which masculinities and femininities were attached to distinct spheres of home and workplace; but this institutional division has been weakening. Current dilemmas are documented in a field study of gender equity issues in ten public sector worksites. Because domestic labour is still predominantly women's work, ‘family friendly’ workplace policies mainly serve to support women's domestic commitments. Women are held accountable for managing the balance, though this has now also become part of the work of managers. Other aspects of public sector restructuring work against men's commitment to domestic equality. In these circumstances the ideal of ‘balance’ is itself open to debate. The ideological consequences of the re‐inscription of maternity and contemporary anxieties about masculinity require a renewal of the concept of the common good as a basis of policy.