Susan Milner

Trade Unions and Work‐life Balance: Changing Times in France and the UK?

The mixed empirical findings to date have indicated that some, but not all, unions in industrialized countries are actively involved in campaigning and bargaining around work–life balance (WLB) issues, as part of a modernization agenda linked to feminization and to ‘positive flexibility’. This article seeks to identify factors that might encourage or inhibit trade unions from involvement in WLB issues, within a cross‐national comparative perspective focusing on two countries (France and the UK) that have contrasting working time regimes and approaches to WLB. It draws on original research carried out in two sectors — insurance and social work — in these two countries. The article links the emergence of union WLB programmes and bargaining agendas to gender‐equality concerns within the union and to the gender composition of the sector, as well as to the working time regime, including the mode of action, partnership being a significant corollary of WLB campaigning in the UK. We find support for the modernization thesis in the UK, particularly in the public sector, but within severe constraints defined by employer initiative.

What is “New” about Fatherhood? The Social Construction of Fatherhood in France and the UK

This article reviews the way that fatherhood is constructed in the public discourse and more broadly in the public sphere in the UK and France by examining (1) the fatherhood regime and its influence on the construction of fatherhood in the two countries; (2) gender attitudes and parenting roles; and (3) popular images of fatherhood, particularly as represented in women’s and men’s magazines in France and in the UK. The authors explore to what extent “new” features of fatherhood in the two countries are reflected in its public representation and how this representation is influenced by national fatherhood regimes and notably social policy. The authors find that “new fatherhood” is finding its way into popular representations of fatherhood in both countries, but that cultural products tend to be conservative in their representations and reinforce existing stereotypes rather than innovative in representations of gender relations.

Fatherhood regimes and father involvement in France and the UK

This paper contrasts and compares the institutional framework for fatherhood and father involvement and the survey evidence relating to fathers’ contribution to childcare and domestic work in the two countries. It shows that while mens contribution to such activities appears to be increasing in both France and the UK, change is slow and father involvement does not necessarily seem to correlate directly either with patterns of female labour force participation or with the support offered by the institutional framework. The authors explore the theoretical frameworks most appropriate for explaining their findings and situate them primarily in terms of Pfau-Effingers theorization of the gender arrangement (1998, 2002, 2004). The authors conclude that while change in father involvement is slow, the introduction of statutory and organizational work–life balance measures which alter the gender order open up opportunities for negotiated change in the division of the labour in the home.

Work‐life balance in times of economic crisis and austerity

Purpose – The purpose of this editorial is to provide an overview of the wider debates concerning the evolution of work‐life balance practice and policy since the onset of the “Great Recession” of 2008 and to draw out some comparisons of the issues raised by the papers in the special issue by focusing particularly on the example of the UK.Design/methodology/approach – The editorial analyses how the direction and pace of changes in work‐life balance practice and policy varies between different national contexts and welfare regimes and also asks whether, within the same national context, the changes taking place are always consistent.Findings – The special issue draws together an international overview of work‐life balance measures which focuses particularly on measures for fathers, an EU‐wide analysis of the use of flexible employment and its relationship with work‐family conflict and a number of specific country case studies from Southern Europe where recession has been particularly severe (Spain and Ital...

Gender equality bargaining in France and the UK: an uphill struggle?

Collective bargaining is widely advocated as one means of addressing continued gender pay disparities. However, since collective bargaining has been weakened as a mode of employment regulation, its efficacy relative to statutory regulation is a matter of debate. This article examines the relationship between collective bargaining and the law and the impact of bargaining content and structures on gender equality outcomes, by focusing on France and the United Kingdom, two European Union (EU) countries which have markedly different collective bargaining traditions and structures, contrasting legal traditions and different gender regimes. The comparison highlights the respective contributions of supportive legislation, bargaining structures and bargaining equity as drivers of change, emphasizing the particular importance of supportive legislation in the two countries, as well as the particular vulnerability of UK gains (in the context of recessionary conditions, a voluntaristic approach and a weakened and localized bargaining framework) and the weakness of bargaining in relation in France, in the context of supportive legislation but inadequate legal enforcement.

Introduction: A healthy scepticism?

This article seeks to provide a framework for the following articles in this issue which analyze national case studies of Euroscepticism (in Britain, France, Germany and the Nordic region). It draws on existing analysis of European public opinion surveys in order to identify trends and suggest some explanations for fluctuations in support for European integration in the 1990s. It links these trends with debates about the relationship between elites and mass opinion formation in the European Union, particularly the role of political parties. It suggests that Euroscepticism might be healthy inasmuch as it indicates an increasingly aware and critical citizenry.

Towards a European labour market? Trade unions and flexicurity in France and Britain

The flexicurity approach to labour market policy may offer advantages for trade unions but also poses challenges, given their weak situation in policy formulation at EU level and in many member states. This article explores unions’ capacity to mobilize around flexicurity issues and to influence policy debates and outcomes in two member states. In the UK, flexicurity has low political salience and unions have little capacity for mobilization or influence, although they have linked flexicurity to campaigns on agency workers and restructuring. In France, unions have developed alternative proposals on making employment pathways secure and have succeeded in shifting debate towards these proposals rather than the Commission’s flexicurity recommendations, although differences with the positions of employers and the state have limited outcomes to date. EU policies provide only weak leverage, since trade unions’ ability to influence labour market policy depends on their position within domestic institutions.

Euroscepticism in France and changing state‐society relations

This article seeks to explain the marked downturn in French public support for the European Union in the early 1990s. Although public support has increased since 1997, voting for Eurosceptic parties has remained important although such parties continue to be marginalized in national elections. The article discusses party‐based Euroscepticism in the context of the domestic party system and political institutions. It further analyses French policy on European integration and notes difficulties associated with domestic adjustment to macroeconomic decisions at European level, with reference to debates about ‘French exceptionalism*. It concludes that political leadership can shape public reactions to adjustment.

Change and resistance to change: The political management of europeanisation in France

Abstract European integration poses dilemmas of governance for EU member‐state governments. Specifically, how are national leaders to manage the interface between ‘Europe’ as cause of change, catalyst for reform, and scapegoat for dissent? Some answers can be found in France, where Lionel Jospins government has embarked on a radical process of reconstructing French European policy and discourse with a view to incorporating ‘Europe’ into a broader political project of national renewal and reform. The governments goal is to relativise the significance of ‘Europe’ in the socio‐economic and political life of the country, in order to deflate its potential as a scapegoat for disaffected individuals and groups within civil society and the political elites. Conclusions drawn from the French experience since June 1997 provide a starting point for comparative research into the relationship, in the EU member states, between citizens, state, and the Europeanisation of domestic politics.

The European social model in crisis – is Europe losing its soul?

rarely – due to his own nature and the regulations imposed upon an émigré by British law – allow himself to speak out, prompting critics such as Hannah Arendt to charge that ‘he was concerned only with his personal dignity and had kept himself completely aloof’ (246). However, at the very end of his life, which was ended by his own hand, did he begin to accept that writers had a duty to express their views in public and to comment critically about Nazism; he had come at last to accept that symbolic language, characteristic of his Erasmus biography, could not function as adequate criticism of, or protection against, Adolf Hitler.