The challenges of reconciling working and family life among female workers subject to flexible working hours

Abstract

Transformations in the working sphere have shaped new forms of organizing and managing the productive space, based on an intensive process of flexibilization. In this context, the central elements of work - job, wages, the workday - become increasingly more flexible, variable and unpredictable, changing the way workers experience the productive space. Women are mainly affected by these changes, since they are in the most flexible and precarious jobs. Furthermore, the responsibility to articulate work and family spheres still falls on them, and this tension increases with flexibilization. The French academic production is one of the most traditional and important when it comes to studies of gender relations at work, transformation and modernization of the working sphere, and the "reconciling" of work and family, giving bases to our theoretical framework. This internship research aims to perform a thorough literature review on French studies and the latest research on labor relations in the current context of flexibility, gender relations and those established between the productive and reproductive sphere, establishing a dialogue and bringing these studies to the doctoral research developed. The internship will take place inside the Gender, Labour and Mobility laboratory of the Parisian Sociological and Political Researches Centre (CRESPPA), attached to the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS). (AU)