In today's industrialized societies, the majority of parents work full time while caring for and raising their children and managing household upkeep, trying to keep a precarious balance of fulfilling multiple roles as parent, worker, friend, & child. Increasingly demands of the workplace such as early or late hours, travel, commute, relocation, etc. conflict with the needs of being a parent. At the same time, it is through work that people increasingly define their identity and self-worth, and which provides the opportunity for personal growth, interaction with friends and colleagues, and which provides the income and benefits on which the family subsists. The interface between work and family is an area of increasing research, in terms of understanding stress, job burn out, self-esteem, gender roles, parenting behaviors, and how each facet affects the others. The research in this area has been widely scattered in journals in psychology, family studies, business, sociology, health, and economics, and presented in diverse conferences (e.g., APA, SIOP, Academy of Management). It is difficult for experts in the field to keep up with everything they need to know, with the information dispersed. This Handbook will fill this gap by synthesizing theory, research, policy, and workplace practice/organizational policy issues in one place. The book will be useful as a reference for researchers in the area, as a guide to practitioners and policy makers, and as a resource for teaching in both undergraduate and graduate courses.

Today, women are assuming greater roles within the workplace and men are assuming greater roles within the home. Both spheres have to be seen as a place where males and females are competent. Gersick suggests that women have to let go of the traditional identities related to social role, family, and work. Both men and women have to step into new identities and develop new roles. Will the home look different and the workplace be a different environment? Absolutely, men will do their work in their way within the family and home, while women will clarify their identity within the workplace. Helgessen and Johnson (2010) describe the “female vision” which views the world differently than men. Women also bring a unique perspective to the workplace. This book encourages us to explore, embrace and celebrate these new identities within the workplace and the family.

There are countless books on the market that address the personal challenges and institutional barriers that ambitious female leaders face in the United States. This volume furthers the conversation by comparing the experiences of women in leadership with regards to work-life balance from eight different countries around the globe. Collecting stories from women in the United States, Costa Rica, India, Iran, Nigeria, Norway, Sri Lanka, and Uganda, this volume provides insights into the issues women face globally regarding leadership and work-family integration. It offers a variety of perspectives from around the world, and highlights a variety of cultural norms regarding work and family integration.

Developments in IT and communication technology, coupled with the global 24 hour market, have led to boundaries between work and personal life becoming ever more blurred, while work/life policies and practice struggle to keep up. This book aims to challenge traditional thinking on work life balance, and to explore different ways of promoting change at many levels. It provides a historical overview of the topic, critiques contemporary approaches and offers creative ideas for integrating work and personal life in local, national and global contexts.

Career Management & Work/Life Integration: Using Self-Assessment to Navigate Contemporary Careers is a comprehensive, easy-to-follow guide to managing contemporary careers. Although grounded in theory, the book also provides an extensive set of exercises and activities that can guide career management over the lifespan. Authors Brad Harrington and Douglas T. Hall offer a highly useful self-assessment guide for students and other individuals who want to deal with the challenge of succeeding in a meaningful career while living a happy, well-balanced life.

Work-family researchers have had much success in encouraging both organizations and individuals to recognize the importance of achieving greater balance in life. Work and Life Integration addresses the intersect between work, life, and family in new and interesting ways. It discusses current challenges in dealing with work-life integration issues and sets the stage for future research agendas. The book enlightens the research community and informs the public debates on how workplaces can be made more family sensitive by providing contributions from psychologists, sociologists, and economists who have not shied away from asserting the policy implications of their findings. This text appeals to both practitioners and academics interested in seeking ways to create meaningful lives.

In The Work-Family Challenge contributors from the United Kingdom, Europe and the United States explore the possibilities of challenging traditional employment structures to take account of contemporary work and family realities. They take a critical look at the notion of `family-friendly' employment, and explore ways in which the rapidly changing needs of both organizations and the workforce can be met. The volume argues that real progress requires moving the focus from specific policies and practices towards more systemic organizational change. It examines the contexts and opportunities - global, international, national, sociopolitical, legal and economic - for this change. The book concludes that positive solution

Work, Family, Health, and Well-Being grew out of a conference held in Washington, D.C. in June 2003 on "Workforce/Workplace Mismatch: Work, Family, Health, and Well-Being" sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The text considers multiple dimensions of health and well-being for workers and their families, children, and communities. Investigations into the socioeconomic gradient in health within broad occupational categories have raised important questions about the role of specific working conditions versus the role of conditions of employment such as wages and level of job security afforded a worker and his/her family in affecting health outcomes. Organized into seven parts, this text: *provides an overview of changes in work and family time and time use; *dedicates a section focusing specifically on employers and workplaces; *explores disciplinary perspectives on work, family, health, and well-being; *focuses on the most studied work and family nexus, the interrelationship between parental employment, especially maternal employment and the child's well-being; *examines gender differences in the division of labor, the effect of marriage on health, the shifting nature of care-giving throughout life, and the role of work on various health and well-being outcomes; *explores occupational health literature; and *focuses on the unique work-family issues faced by low-income families and workers in low-wage jobs. This book appeals to anyone in the fields of psychology, sociology, family studies, demographics, economics, anthropology, and social work.

This innovative study confronts the similarities and differences in womenês and menês work_life experiences. Individual and organizational solutions to work_family conflict and strategies for work_life enrichment are explored. It will strongly appeal t