Kathleen Gerson (New York University) and Jerry Jacobs (University of Pennsylvania)

“Work and Family, the New Challenges: Insights from Familialist and Liberal Welfare Regimes”

Abstract: The seminar aims to bring together different scholars (from US and Europe) that have extensively worked on changes in work-family balances at the micro, meso and macro level. During the last decades, the ways in which men and women engage in paid work and form a family have changed profoundly. All postindustrial countries have experienced similar shifts, including a rise in mother’s employment rate, a rise in father’s involvement in domestic and childcare, a postponement of marriage and childbirths, aging of the population, new technologies in the care market. Countries belonging to different welfare regimes, such as the US, Australia and the UK on the one hand, defined ‘liberal’, or as Spain, Italy, and Japan, defined ‘familialist’, do share similar levels of (de)commodification but they differ in terms of degrees and forms of (de)familization. This has important implications for work-family systems and for their gender, class and ethnic divides.
By inviting two distinguished American scholars (Kathleen Gerson, New York University; Jerry Jacobs, University of Pennsylvania) and by making them conversing with experts of ‘Familialist’ countries (Margarita Estevez Abe, University of Syracuse and Collegio Carlo Alberto, Mauro Migliavacca, University of Genoa, Manuela Naldini, University of Turin and Collegio Carlo Alberto; Chiara Saraceno Collegio Carlo Alberto and Cristina Solera, University of Turin and Collegio Carlo Alberto), the seminar aims at adding insights on their similarities and differences and their implications for micro and macro work-family outcomes.