Barbara Hobson – författare

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.

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.

Fatherhood is on the political agenda in many countries, often cast in terms of crisis. One side of the policy debate focuses on fathers as deadbeat dads who do not provide financial support and care for their children. The other revolves around making men into active and engaged fathers. However, these policies are often at odds with the employers' reluctance to accommodate work schedules to fathers' needs. In Making Men into Fathers, prominent scholars in gender studies and the critical studies of men consider how varied institutional settings and policy logics around cash and care contour the possibilities and constraints for new models of fatherhood, determining the choices open to men. From different historical and societal perspectives, the authors provide insights into the studies of men as gendered subjects, including the role of transnational and global issues of fatherhood, and the emergence of men's movements, contesting and reimaging fatherhood.

Recognition Struggles and Social Movements was the first book to look 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. Combining theory and empirical research, it decodes the moral grammar of recognition into real struggles of collective actors who contest social hierarchies in arenas of power - from the Roma in Hungary to the Travesti prostitutes in Brazil, from abortion discourse in the US and Germany to the translation of feminist texts from East and West. Looking through multiple mirrors of gender, race/ethnic and sexual identities, the authors dramatize the competition and conflicts among groups vying for recognition. Written by prominent scholars across disciplinary and geographical borders, this book broke ground in social movement studies confronting issues of power and governance, authenticity, and boundary making.

Fatherhood is on the political agenda in many countries, often cast in terms of crisis. One side of the policy debate focuses on fathers as deadbeat dads who do not provide financial support and care for their children. The other revolves around making men into active and engaged fathers. However, these policies are often at odds with the employers' reluctance to accommodate work schedules to fathers' needs. In Making Men into Fathers, prominent scholars in gender studies and the critical studies of men consider how varied institutional settings and policy logics around cash and care contour the possibilities and constraints for new models of fatherhood, determining the choices open to men. From different historical and societal perspectives, the authors provide insights into the studies of men as gendered subjects, including the role of transnational and global issues of fatherhood, and the emergence of men's movements, contesting and reimaging fatherhood.

Recognition Struggles and Social Movements was the first book to look 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. Combining theory and empirical research, it decodes the moral grammar of recognition into real struggles of collective actors who contest social hierarchies in arenas of power - from the Roma in Hungary to the Travesti prostitutes in Brazil, from abortion discourse in the US and Germany to the translation of feminist texts from East and West. Looking through multiple mirrors of gender, race/ethnic and sexual identities, the authors dramatize the competition and conflicts among groups vying for recognition. Written by prominent scholars across disciplinary and geographical borders, this book broke ground in social movement studies confronting issues of power and governance, authenticity, and boundary making.

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.