All work is gendered and all work is embodied. Yet, in common with so many features of social life, these connections have remained largely unnoticed in most areas of social enquiry. All three topics - gender, bodies and work - have their own history and theoretical concerns and have recently showed signs of convergence. This volume recognizes this convergence and explores the inter-connections more specifically. The authors provide a set of questions which draw together themes already pre...

Nordic countries lead the way in facilitating better work-family integration through their design of parental leave policies that encourage men towards life courses with greater care responsibilities.Based on original research, this compelling book offers a novel analysis of the everyday parental practices of fathers and parents in Norway as a way of understanding the workings of labour market and welfare policies, whilst considering how migrant fathers might relate to the expectat...

This book explores how rural gender relations are changing in a globalising world that fundamentally impacts on the structure of agricultural life in rural areas and urban-rural relations. It analyses the development of rural gender relations in specific places around the world and looks into the effects of the increasing connectivity and mobility of people across places. The themes covered are: gender and mobility, gender and agriculture, Gender and rural politics, rurality and Gender ide...

This volume brings together contributors from 18 countries to provide international perspectives on the politics of parental leave policies in different parts of the world. Initially looking at the politics of care leave policies in eight countries across Europe, the US, Latin America and Asia, the book moves on to consider a variety of key issues in depth, including gender equality, flexibility and challenges for fathers in using leave. In the final section of the book, contributors look ...

Feminist concern with difference has rarely extended to rurality even if it is now widely recognized that experiences of inequality depend on intersections of several identities in each individual life. This lack of concern may reflect the urban background of the majority of feminist academics or at least their urban positionality once in the academy. It may equivalently be that feminists have been influenced by stereotypes of rural women as traditional and reactionary, and thus seen them ...

Work-life integration is an increasingly hot topic in the media, social research, governments and in people’s everyday lives. This volume offers a new type of lens for understanding work-family reconciliation by studying how work-family dynamics are shaped, squeezed and developed between consistent or competing logics in different societies in Europe and the US.The three institutions of "state", "family" and "working life", and their under-explored primary logics of "regulation", "...