Redesigning work for gender equity and work-personal life integration

Abstract

This paper describes a series of intervention projects in the conditions and design of work geared to increasing gender equity in organizations and the ability of employees to integrate their working lives with their personal lives. It shows that approaching work with a work–family lens tends to lead to changes in the temporal conditions of work, in what has come to be known as flexibility in the workplace. With a gender lens, more nuanced aspects of the institutions governing the workplace come into sight allowing the possibility of greater actual change in the way that work is designed and accomplished, thus leading to a better fit between the current workforce and the workplace. Although such intervention projects are being done in multiple countries, the discussion is most relevant to the USA, with its limited – almost non-existent – national support for the reconciliation of work and family needs.