Advanced Search

Journal Navigation

Journal Home

Subscriptions

Archive

Contact Us

Table of Contents

Click here to watch the video

CiteULike is a free service for managing and discovering scholarly references - click here to get started.

Sign In to gain access to subscriptions and/or personal tools.
The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow References
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to Saved Citations
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Right arrow Request Reprints
Right arrow Add to My Marked Citations
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via HighWire
Right arrow Citing Articles via Web of Science (3)
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Right arrow Citing Articles via Scopus
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Wax, A. L.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Complore   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us   Add to Digg   Add to Reddit   Add to Technorati   Add to Twitter  
What's this?

Family-Friendly Workplace Reform: Prospects for Change

Amy L. Wax

The recent surge of women and mothers into the workforce has generated a call for changes that make it easier to combine employment with family life. Because neoclassical economic theory assumes that existing workplace structures are efficient, suggestions for reform have encountered resistance on the grounds that familyfriendly reforms will prove costly for firms and society as a whole. In particular, so-called "accommodation mandates," which require employers to extend benefits like paid leave and job protection to parents, have been attacked as potentially inefficient and as harmful to those they are designed to help. This article challenges the suggestion that existing arrangements maximize social welfare and that family-friendly reforms will undermine efficiency. Using dynamic game-theoretic models, it explains how management-worker interactions can get stuck in equilibria that generate less wellbeing overall than more family-friendly alternatives, and it shows how family-friendly arrangements may be difficult to maintain despite their potential for making everyone better off. The article speculates on measures that might foster the adoption and stability of family-friendly workplace forms.

Key Words: game theory • family-friendly workplace • accommodation mandates • work-family balance

The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. 596, No. 1, 36-61 (2004)
DOI: 10.1177/0002716204269189
Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Complore Complore   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us   Add to Digg Digg   Add to Reddit Reddit   Add to Technorati Technorati   Add to Twitter Twitter    What's this?


This article has been cited by other articles:


Home page
 Gender SocietyHome page
L. Haas and C. P. Hwang
Gender and Organizational Culture: Correlates of Companies' Responsiveness to Fathers in Sweden
Gender Society, February 1, 2007; 21(1): 52 - 79.
[Abstract] [PDF]

Home page
 The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social ScienceHome page
G. Moore
Mommies and Daddies on the Fast Track in Other Wealthy Nations
The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, November 1, 2004; 596(1): 208 - 213.
[Abstract] [PDF]