Work-family life balance

The aim of this chapter is to offer a holistic, forward-looking and multi-level analysis of pressing contemporary topics related to work-life balance policies for families with smaller children and to show how they interact with parents’ attitudes and practices. The first section presents a brief overview of current trends in the work-family life related areas. Then the main key drivers of change over the last decade are identified and described. Emphasis is placed on the dramatic organisational changes that have been taking place in the workplace and on their impact on the strategies elaborated by parents to combine their job with family obligations. In the last section, drawing lessons from evidence-based research and the latest data presented in the previous sections, we flesh out the two scenarios to 2030 developed for this purpose in the project.

The Future of Families to 2030

Work-family life balance

future trends and challenges