Across welfare societies we have seen the emergence of policies and norms for work-life balance alongside rising expectations among working parents to be able to participate in employment and caregiving, and to have more time for family life and leisure. Yet despite this value placed upon work-life balance, working parents face increasing work demands, as well as rising numbers of insecure and precarious jobs, both of which produce a deepening sense of economic uncertainty in everyday life, which has been intensified in the current period of financial crises. The agency and capabilities gap addresses these tensions in work-life balance within families, workplace organizations, and policy frameworks. Inspired by Amartya Sen's capabilities approach, this volume considers not just what individuals do, but also their scope of alternatives to make other choices. It includes rich contextualized studies across Western and Eastern European countries and Japan, with a focus on gendered agency inequalities for work-life balance.

An important contribution to the current literature on gender and social politics, this book challenges mainstream thinking on welfare states, citizenship, family, work, and social policy. Contested Concepts in Gender and Social Politics analyses the corresponding shifts in political discourse, and the changes in socio-political configurations that mirror changing gender relations.The discussion is both international and interdisciplinary, and focuses on topics that include citizenship, social exclusion and inclusion, care, social capital and representation, amongst others. The contributors examine these issues in relation to current policy debates and consider how they are embedded in particular European intellectual traditions. They also explore how feminist scholarship has engaged with these issues, and assess how these contested concepts can improve understanding both of the position of women and of gender relations more broadly. This is the first major transnational attempt to address the conceptual basis for current work in the field of social policy and social politics from both a feminist and genuinely comparative viewpoint. As such it will be invaluable to undergraduate and graduate students of social policy, politics and sociology.

Across welfare societies we have seen the emergence of policies and norms for work-life balance alongside rising expectations among working parents to be able to participate in employment and caregiving, and to have more time for family life and leisure. Yet despite this value placed upon work-life balance, working parents face increasing work demands, as well as rising numbers of insecure and precarious jobs, both of which produce a deepening sense of economic uncertainty in everyday life, which has been intensified in the current period of financial crises. The agency and capabilities gap addresses these tensions in work-life balance within families, workplace organizations, and policy frameworks. Inspired by Amartya Sen's capabilities approach, this volume considers not just what individuals do, but also their scope of alternatives to make other choices. It includes rich contextualized studies across Western and Eastern European countries and Japan, with a focus on gendered agency inequalities for work-life balance.

An important contribution to the current literature on gender and social politics, this book challenges mainstream thinking on welfare states, citizenship, family, work, and social policy. Contested Concepts in Gender and Social Politics analyses the corresponding shifts in political discourse, and the changes in socio-political configurations that mirror changing gender relations.The discussion is both international and interdisciplinary, and focuses on topics that include citizenship, social exclusion and inclusion, care, social capital and representation, amongst others. The contributors examine these issues in relation to current policy debates and consider how they are embedded in particular European intellectual traditions. They also explore how feminist scholarship has engaged with these issues, and assess how these contested concepts can improve understanding both of the position of women and of gender relations more broadly. This is the first major transnational attempt to address the conceptual basis for current work in the field of social policy and social politics from both a feminist and genuinely comparative viewpoint. As such it will be invaluable to undergraduate and graduate students of social policy, politics and sociology.

This study looks comparatively and cross-nationally at the dynamic interplay between those fighting for a fairer division of economic resources and those struggling for recognition and respect of group differences. The book addresses key debates on the political gender of multiculturalism and identity politics with original empirical research. Written by prominent scholars across disciplinary and geographical borders, it transcends social movement studies by confronting issues of power and governance, authenticity, and boundary making.

Prominent scholars in gender studies and the critical studies of men consider herein how varied institutional settings and policy influence the development of new models of fatherhood, and determine choices. The authors provide new insights from different historical and societal perspectives into the studies of men as gendered subjects, including the role of transnational and global issues on the practices of fatherhood, and the emergence of men's movements in contesting and reimaging fatherhood.

This study looks comparatively and cross-nationally at the dynamic interplay between those fighting for a fairer division of economic resources and those struggling for recognition and respect of group differences. The book addresses key debates on the political gender of multiculturalism and identity politics with original empirical research. Written by prominent scholars across disciplinary and geographical borders, it transcends social movement studies by confronting issues of power and governance, authenticity, and boundary making.

Prominent scholars in gender studies and the critical studies of men consider herein how varied institutional settings and policy influence the development of new models of fatherhood, and determine choices. The authors provide new insights from different historical and societal perspectives into the studies of men as gendered subjects, including the role of transnational and global issues on the practices of fatherhood, and the emergence of men's movements in contesting and reimaging fatherhood.

Citizenship has come under intense discussion recently because of threats to welfare and shifting immigration policies. The European Union has opened transnational citizenship rights and fledgling democracies throughout the world are struggling to establish their own versions of citizenship. Extending Citizenship, Reconfiguring States connects all these current discussions and places them in historical perspective. The book presents a thematically unified analysis of changing citizenship practices over two centuries_from the eve of the French Revolution to contemporary China. Showing how rights emerge with the appearance of new social groups and the reconfiguration of states, the authors identify conditions under which rights and citizenship expand as new groups develop within consolidated states as well as how rights and citizenship emerge within fragmented states with cross-cutting legal jurisdictions.