‘Work-life balance’ generally refers to how people may combine paid employmentwith family responsibilities. The UK government’s attempts to promote work-lifebalance are connected to wider concerns to maximise labour-force participation andinclude policies on tax credits, child care and employment rights. Employers favourwork-life balance if it promotes the flexibility of labour supply and enables them toretain valued staff. There are concerns about the extent to which work-life balancepolicies benefit lower-income groups. This paper reports findings from a study, basedon in-depth interviews with 42 economically active parents from a low-incomeneighbourhood. Participants supported the idea of work-life balance, but many foundit difficult to achieve. Stress and long hours are unavoidable in some jobs, or elseincome and prospects must be forgone in order to obtain ‘family-friendly’ workingconditions. Employment rights are poorly understood. Standards of management atwork are inconsistent. Pay levels are insufficient and, though benefits/tax credits help,they are complex and badly administered. Childcare provision is available, but qualityand access is uneven. Participants had mixed views as to the efficacy of support andservices available in the neighbourhood. Participants offered different accounts oftheir experiences depending upon whether they were having to put their work first orfamily life first, and whether they felt ambivalent or content about this. The clearestfinding was that participants tended to be fundamentally disempowered - by theunpredictability of the labour market, the dominance of a ‘business case’ rationale,their lack of confidence in childcare provision and a lack of belief in their employmentand benefit rights.[...]
