The Politics of Work‐Family Policies. Comparing Japan, France, Germany and the United States, by Patricia Boling. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 268pp., ISBN: 978‐1‐107‐09812‐1.
| Date | 01 June 2017 |
| Author | Valeria Pulignano |
| Published date | 01 June 2017 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/bjir.12243 |
Book Reviews 453
The Politics of Work-Family Policies. Comparing Japan, France, Germany and the
United States, by Patricia Boling. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,
268pp., ISBN: 978-1-107-09812-1.
The use of work–family policies is traditionally deemed to help employees decrease
work-to-family conflict by reducing the diculty of balancing multiple roles and
enabling parents as employees to cope with conflicting demands from the private
(life) and the public (work) sphere (Allen 2001). Moreover, under contemporary
demographic and family changes, work–family policies haveincreased their relevance
in promoting justice, equality and child well-being.For example, studies in the United
Statesillustrate that children who suer from acute illnesses havebeen shown to recover
more quickly if a parent can stay home (Waldfogel 2006). On the other side, and
directly linked to this,research has documented how significantly parental availability
influences the level of preventivecare children receive. Forexample, studies report that
working parents have cited schedule conflicts and workplace inflexibility as important
obstacles to getting their children immunized against preventable childhood diseases
(see ‘Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’ and ‘WHO Vaccine Preventable
Diseases: Monitoring System’ in Earle et al. 2011).
Because of the relevant social consequences, it would be expected work–family
policies (such as parental leave, sick leave, vacation days and days of rest) to have
an homogeneous and growing development. However,we see that these policies often
dier between dierent countries, and sometimes there are in sharp contrast to each
other on the one hand. On the other hand, we do also see that those who claim
for making these policies more supportive of parents, particularly mothers, and their
children, often face sti opposition from those who say such policies will harm the
country’s abilityto compete economically with other countries (Earle et al. 2011).
Within this contested terrain, the book by Patricia Boling is undoubtedly one of
the few current volumes which presents in an empirically exhaustive and analytically
original waythe results of a large research conducted on the development and change in
work–family policies on a broadscale in and outside Europe. By drawing on historical
institutionalist tradition in political science and sociology, she assesses the policy
approaches in the area of work–family within four post-industrial wealthy countries
such as France, Germany, Japanand the United States and explains these approaches
in the light of the policy histories, power resources and political institutions within
each dierent national setting. She used a variety of cross-national comparative data
(for example, OECD, Eurostat data and the ILOand national government secondary
sources) related to demographic features as well as labour market and work–family
policies to interrogate and deeply analyse her data. The result is a coherent and
clearly structured text, which consists of eight chapters, including introduction and
conclusion. The first two chapters reviewthe national and comparative data in use and
provide the context for consideringthe dierent policy approaches France, Germany,
Japan and the United States have historically adopted, and their changes. Chapters
3–6 provide an historical and in-depth examinationof the work–family policy changes
in each of the dierent countries of study. Chapter 7 provides an evaluation of ‘what
works best’ in the four core investigated countries. The examination includes Sweden
in the analysis, due to the fact Nordic countries (and also France) are often held up
as models for other nations to follow. Chapter 8 oers a comparative analysis of the
reasons why countries choose the policy approaches they do.
C
2017 John Wiley& Sons Ltd.
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