The Linkages between Work and Family: State of Knowledge and Policy Implications

The linkages between work and family emerged as a distinct area of research
in the1960s and 1970s (Perry-Jenkins et al. 2000). When the male breadwinner model was still the norm, disjoint bodies of literature existed on work and on the family, but rarely was the connection between the two
studied. By the 1980s, it was widely acknowledged that work and family are
interrelated domains (Pleck 1977; Goldsmith 1988; Edwards and Rothbard
2000; Voyandoff 2002; Voyandoff 2004) with the area of work-family studies
evolving into a rapidly expanding domain of study (for a review of research from the 1990s, see Haas 1999; Greenhaus and Parasuraman 1999; Perry-Jenkins et al. 2000; Fredrikson-Goldsen and Scharlach 2001). This report elaborates on the current state of knowledge in research on the work-family interface, focussing on trends in the gender division of paid and unpaid labour, changing family formation behaviour and the consequences of employment for family well-being.