Work-Life Practices and Policies

Catalog description

Explore the causes and consequences of conflicts between work, family, and other life commitments, and how these may be resolved. LER 472 Work-Life Practices and Policies (3)(BA) This course meets the Bachelor of Arts degree requirements. The interdisciplinary field of work-family and work-life developed as a result of middle-class women's entry into the labor force, a movement that generated conflict between family and paid work commitments. Overall, the course addresses the reasons the field developed, relevant theoretical perspectives regarding the issues, and related problems as well as proposed solutions at both the public and private sector levels. The overarching objectives of the course are to expand students' understanding of conflicts between work and family commitments, and how these might be resolved through private and public sector initiatives. Specifically, the course concerns how individuals, families, and organizations interact to help hinder the achievement of balance between work and life commitments, and relevant effects on those involved. The changing demographics of the family, laws and trends around working time, father and mother time with children, the expanded need for elder care, work-life programs such as flextime, concierge services, paid parental leave, part-time careers, paid time-off banks, and the role of unions, corporations and government legislation are covered. The course attempts to link the likely future needs of students to broader trends in society and how balance could be achieved at the level of individuals, families, other stakeholders in the community, and for society as well. Fields of research relevant to the course include labor studies, women's studies, Industrial/Organizational psychology, the sociology of work and of family, and child development. Students will be evaluated on the basis of class participation, through two in-class examinations, and through a final written or oral project providing a chronology and analysis of an adult's work-family history.