Seminar
Work and Family, the New Challenges:
Insights from Familialist and Liberal Welfare Regimes

Kathleen Gerson (New York University)
Jerry Jacobs (University of Pennsylvania)

3 June 2019, h. 14.00-18.00
Sala Laurea Blu
Department of Cultures, Politics and Society - University of Turin
Campus Luigi Einaudi
Via Lungo Dora Siena, 100
Turin

The seminar aims to bring together different scholars (from US and Europe) that have extensively worked on changes in work-family balances at the micro, meso and macro level. During the last decades, the ways in which men and women engage in paid work and form a family have changed profoundly. All post-industrial countries have experienced similar shifts, including a rise in mother's employment rate, a rise in father's involvement in domestic and childcare, a postponement of marriage and childbirths, aging of the population, new technologies in the care market. Countries belonging to different welfare regimes, such as the US, Australia and the UK on the one hand, defined 'liberal', or as Spain, Italy, and Japan, defined 'familialist', do share similar levels of (de)commodification but they differ in terms of degrees and forms of (de)familization. This has important implications for work-family systems and for their gender, class and ethnic divides.
By inviting two distinguished American scholars (Kathleen Gerson, New York University; Jerry Jacobs, University of Pennsylvania) and by making them conversing with experts of 'Familialist' countries (Margarita Estevez Abe, University of Syracuse and Collegio Carlo Alberto; Mauro Migliavacca, University of Genoa; Manuela Naldini, University of Turin and Collegio Carlo Alberto; Chiara Saraceno, Collegio Carlo Alberto; and Cristina Solera, University of Turin and Collegio Carlo Alberto), the seminar aims at adding insights on their similarities and differences and their implications for micro and macro work-family outcomes.

Program

Introduction 

14.10 Manuela Naldini (University of Turin and Collegio Carlo Alberto) and Mauro Migliavacca (University of Genoa)

Session A. Work-care Interplay: Insights from USA

Chair Cristina Solera (University of Turin and Collegio Carlo Alberto)

14.30 Kathleen Gerson (New York University) 
Different Ways of Not Having It All: Strategies of Gender, Work, and Care in the New Economy
15.00 Jerry Jacobs (University of Pennsylvania)
Will the robots take care of grandma? New challenges for care
15.30 Questions and Answers
15.50 Coffee Break

Session B. Work-family Interplay: Insights from Familialist countries

Chair Cristina Solera (University of Turin and Collegio Carlo Alberto)

16.20 Mauro Migliavacca (University of Genoa) and Manuela Naldini (University of Turin and Collegio Carlo Alberto)
Gender and Work-Family Balance: differences and Communality between the US, Australia, Japan and Italy
16.40 Margarita Estevez Abe (University of Syracuse and Collegio Carlo Alberto) 
Labour Shortage and Work-Family Reconciliation in Germany, Italy and Japan
17.00 Questions and Answers
17.15- 18.00 Overall Discussion guided by Chiara Saraceno