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Work and Care in the Life Course: Understanding the Context for Family Arrangements

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2009

Sue Yeandle
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Abstract

The article develops a case study of the family and work history of an interviewee which is used to illustrate the context in which family arrangements for work, care and support develop. The study uses Finch and Mason's (1993) focus on human agency to develop a ‘family responsibilities account’, and then goes on to explore three aspects of the social structural context in which the life has been lived. These are developed from Connell's analysis (1987) of gender relations: constraints associated with the division of labour, with issues of power and with emotional and personal life (cathexis).

A detailed account of the life in question is given, and this is reanalysed using the four approaches indicated. The result is an overall account which emphasises the complexity of social life and of human decision-making, even at the apparently mundane level of choices about family life, paid employment, domestic work and the care and support of kin. The extent to which constraining factors interweave with individual agency is demonstrated, and the significance of the analysis for policymakers is noted: each change in arrangements for work and care in a life affects others, and policy must be made in an awareness of the complexity of its unintended effects as well as of its objectives.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Social Policy , Volume 25 , Issue 4 , October 1996 , pp. 507 - 527
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

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