A Life in Balance? Reopening the Family-Work Debate ed. by Catherine Krull and Justyna Sempruch (review)

Despite the title of this edited volume, the family-work debate has never closed. It is even in vogue in the popular media. Recent academic books and articles on this topic include Amy Marcus-Newhall, Diane Halpern, and Sherylle Tan’s edited work, Changing Realities of Work and Family (2009). Nevertheless, some chapters in Krull and Sempruch’s book do shine and add something valuable to the existing literature, particularly the Canadian context.

Among the jewels are Maureen Baker’s comprehensive chapter on maternal employment, child care, and public policy, which compares a number of oecd countries and some Canadian provinces. She clearly shows how women’s employment, earnings, and “choices” are directly affected by social policies, such as the affordability and availability of child care, tax and family benefits, and parental leave. She also discusses the “motherhood penalty,” the negative view employers have of mothers and the gap between the earnings of mothers and women without children. This chapter would make a good reading for a public policy, women’s studies, or sociology of work class, as it combines quantitative data, sound public policy analysis, and feminist knowledge of social and economic pressures on women.

Margaret Hillyard Little’s chapter would also make a good course reading, due to its clear explanations of neoliberalism and the historical overview of Canadian policy on mothers, namely family allowances, childcare, and the inclusion of mothers in workfare schemes. The chapter offers a concise summary of Little’s earlier research with lone parent mothers living on low incomes. It might have been interesting if she had added a discussion of the movement to establish “homemakers’ pensions” in the 1980s, which was supported by the right as well as by some women’s organizations.

Donna Baines and Bonnie Freeman contributed a useful chapter on work, care, resistance, and mothering from an indigenous perspective. They describe the leadership role of Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) women in the family, in sustenance and community activities, and in resisting colonization, arguing that these roles are not separate but intertwined. Baines and Freeman outline how state policies disrupted the lives, families and work of Aboriginal peoples, including the forced removal of Aboriginal children to residential schools and the Sixties Scoop, in which significant numbers of Aboriginal kids were taken away from their families to be raised in white foster homes.

Catherine Krull’s chapter on the nuclear family model mentions a few issues in passing which really deserve chapters of their own. One is the increasing restriction of immigration policy to the nuclear family to the exclusion of grandparents, extended family, and multiple spouses. Also, dna tests are sometimes required to prove a genetic link among family members. This is done to prevent immigration fraud, but undermines adoptive relationships. Krull mentions in passing the role of foreign domestic workers in keeping some well-to-do Canadian families functional, but does not discuss the Canada’s Live-in Caregiver Program, which actually requires mothers who become domestic workers to leave their own families behind. Although the workers may apply for citizenship after three years, the backlog, poor pay, and working conditions generally mean that most women will not have seen their own children for five years.

Nancy Mandell and Sue Wilson’s chapter on intergenerational care work describes the forces that steer women into the caregiving role. They discuss societal expectations and practical financial decisions made when most men continue to bring in more money from paid work than women. They are among the few authors who at least mention the rewards and satisfaction caring can provide, and the deep bonds that are formed with family members. Yes, caring is stressful, and this does have health effects. None of the chapters discuss the positive health effects noted when people feel like they are engaged in something meaningful and have close bonds with others.

Most of the chapters rightly look at neoliberal weakening of social programs, such...