Venue: Room 6.207, University Place, The University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL  Download map

Hosts: Professor Colette Fagan and Dr Helen Norman, University of Manchester

The seminar series brings together researchers and practitioners to seek solutions to a ‘triple agenda’: how to enhance employees’ WLB, organisational effectiveness and social justice. It identifies changes in work arrangements and WLB policies and asks:

• Whether WLB is becoming more difficult for everyone, or is the impact uneven?
• Are economic pressures reducing employers’ willingness to implement WLB initiatives, or making it more difficult to do so?
• Which national and organizational WLB policies and services are resilient, which are adapting and which are being cut back?
• How do these developments impact on different groups of workers?

In this second seminar we consider these questions through a focus on occupational and contractual inequalities in working schedules and WLB, and the gender inequalities which are woven throughout. The seminar opens with an analysis of the situation in UK and France, and then locates the discussion in the wider European policy perspective. The afternoon session continues the discussion of the equality, diversity and social justice issues involved, with a break out session to consider practical implications and possible solutions. The seminar aim is to contribute to evidence-based debates about WLB policies and practices. 

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Seminar programme

10 am  Coffee and registration

10.30  Introduction: 

Professor Colette Fagan, University of Manchester

10.40  Recession, work-time and Work Life Balance: class inequalities in the UK:

Professor Tracey Warren, University of Nottingham (click to download this presentation) (click to download biog and talk summary)

11.10  Recent reforms in work/life balance policies in France: the ambivalent impact on parents in precarious work arrangements:

Dr. Jeanne Fagnani, CNRS, Paris (click to download this presentation) (click to download biog and talk summary)

11.40  Discussant – a European perspective:

Greet Vermeylen, EuroFound (European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions) (click to download this presentation) (click to download biog)

11.55  Open discussion

12.15  Lunch

13.00  Long hours of work as a strategy for care dodging:

Professor Mustafa Ozbilgin, University of Brunel (click to download this presentation) (click to download biog and talk summary)

13.30  Austerity measures and access to justice following pregnancy-related discrimination:

Professor Grace James, University of Reading (click to download this presentation) (click to download biog and talk summary)

2.00  ‘Working Families Organisation – our work and research with employers’, followed by open discussion:

Jonathan Swan, Working Families (click to download this presentation) (click to download biog and talk summary)

2.30  Coffee and break-out session

3.20  Summing up and introduction to the forthcoming seminars

4pm  Seminar closes

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD A SUMMARY OF THE SEMINAR OUTCOMES