Work–life reconciliation: Including children in the conversation

Abstract

This paper seeks to further understanding about children’s experiences and knowledges of home and employment reconciliation. The paper, which draws on empirical research with children living in socio-economically diverse areas of North West England, makes three contributions. Firstly, it argues that children must be included in studies of work-balance, as the strategies parents adopt affect the way children are socialised towards appropriate divisions of domestic, caring and labour force responsibilities. Secondly, it contributes to research which considers the temporal and spatial boundaries between home and paid work to add the verbal dimension; demonstrating that children have varying levels of conversational interaction with their parents about employment in the home sphere. Finally, the paper contends that these distinct approaches to the verbal and spatial boundaries of production and reproduction are influenced by class dispositions, localised parenting cultures and constructions of childhood. This results in some children being shielded from the realities of paid work, whilst others are socialised to cope with labour market instability.