IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/woemps/v13y1999i2p225-247.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Tangled Webs We Weave: Household Strategies to Co-Ordinate Home and Work

Author

Listed:
  • Helen Jarvis

    (Geography Department University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne Daysh Building Claremont Road NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE NE1 7RU)

Abstract

The connections between home and work are manifest in tensions which exist between individual employment mobility and the social and spatial situatedness of the household micro-economy. This nexus is a significant dimension of a growing number of dual earning households. At a fundamental level, the co-ordination of home and work hinges on opportunities and constraints pertaining to residential location and mobility and the way this issue is negotiated through the life-course. However, this is not simply determined by the many logistical difficulties associated with the co-ordination of more than one employment from a single residential location. Households are `situated' in place in a variety of ways which feed into strategies of relative mobility and attachment to place. It is suggested that the way that households accommodate the demands of home and work are constituted through a meshing together of the action spaces and social relations of individual household members in these spheres. In effect, household behaviour emerges from a `tangled web' of networks: of social and kin relations; of resource provision; and of information, knowledge and learning. This paper argues for the need to attend to the situatedness of household strategies that attempt to co-ordinate home and work. It suggests that this is achieved by observing the way strategies of relative mobility and attachment to place reproduce, and are reproduced through, networks within a locale. Existing concepts of strategy and network are combined and operationalised together through the interpretation of biographical narratives from interviews with couples from a sample of nuclear family households.

Suggested Citation

  • Helen Jarvis, 1999. "The Tangled Webs We Weave: Household Strategies to Co-Ordinate Home and Work," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 13(2), pages 225-247, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:13:y:1999:i:2:p:225-247
    DOI: 10.1177/09500179922117926
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/09500179922117926
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/09500179922117926?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hannan, Michael T, 1982. "Families, Markets, and Social Structures: An Essay on Becker's A Treatise on the Family," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 20(1), pages 65-72, March.
    2. Gary S. Becker, 1981. "A Treatise on the Family," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number beck81-1.
    3. Ferber, Marianne A. & Nelson, Julie A. (ed.), 1993. "Beyond Economic Man," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 1, number 9780226242019, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lagrell, Ellen & Thulin, Eva & Vilhelmson, Bertil, 2018. "Accessibility strategies beyond the private car: A study of voluntarily carless families with young children in Gothenburg," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 72(C), pages 218-227.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Olena Hankivsk & Jane Friesen & Colleen Varcoe & Fiona MacPhail & Lorraine Greaves & Charmaine Spencer, 2004. "Expanding Economic Costing in Health Care: Values, Gender and Diversity," Canadian Public Policy, University of Toronto Press, vol. 30(3), pages 257-282, September.
    2. Robin Bartlett & Marianne Ferber & Carole Green, 2009. "The Committee on Economic Education: Its Effect on the Introductory Course and Women in Economics," Forum for Social Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(2-3), pages 153-172, January.
    3. Cagatay, Nilufer & Elson, Diane & Grow, Caren, 1995. "Introduction," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 23(11), pages 1827-1836, November.
    4. Brenda Wyss, 1999. "Culture and Gender In Household Economies: The Case of Jamaican Child Support Payments," Feminist Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(2), pages 1-24.
    5. Brenda Wyss, 2001. "Gender and cash child support in Jamaica," Review of Radical Political Economics, Union for Radical Political Economics, vol. 33(4), pages 415-439, December.
    6. Ruttan, Vernon W., 2007. "Imperialism, Colonialism and Collaboration in the Social Sciences," Staff Papers 7356, University of Minnesota, Department of Applied Economics.
    7. Beneria, Lourdes, 1995. "Toward a greater integration of gender in economics," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 23(11), pages 1839-1850, November.
    8. Fiona MacPhail, 1998. "Moving Beyond Statistical Validity in Economics," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 45(1), pages 119-149, November.
    9. Astrid Agenjo‐Calderón & Lina Gálvez‐Muñoz, 2019. "Feminist Economics: Theoretical and Political Dimensions," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 78(1), pages 137-166, January.
    10. Joanna R. Pepin & Liana C. Sayer & Lynne M. Casper, 2018. "Marital Status and Mothers’ Time Use: Childcare, Housework, Leisure, and Sleep," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 55(1), pages 107-133, February.
    11. Robin Bartlett & Marianne Ferber & Carole Green, 2009. "The Committee on Economic Education: Its Effect on the Introductory Course and Women in Economics," Forum for Social Economics, Springer;The Association for Social Economics, vol. 38(2), pages 153-172, July.
    12. Guillaume Allègre & Thomas Melonio & Xavier Timbeau, 2012. "Dépenses publiques d'éducation et inégalités. Une perspective de cycle de vie," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 63(6), pages 1055-1079.
    13. Lamia Kandil & Hélène Perivier, 2017. "La division sexuée du travail dans les couples selon le statut marital en France - une étude à partir des enquêtes emploi du temps de 1985-1986, 1998-1999, et 2009-2010," Documents de Travail de l'OFCE 2017-03, Observatoire Francais des Conjonctures Economiques (OFCE).
    14. Yan Yu, 2015. "The Male Breadwinner/Female Homemaker Model and Perceived Marital Stability: A Comparison of Chinese Wives in the United States and Urban China," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 36(1), pages 34-47, March.
    15. Kota Ogasawara & Mizuki Komura, 2022. "Consequences of war: Japan’s demographic transition and the marriage market," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 35(3), pages 1037-1069, July.
    16. Marcén, Miriam & Molina, José Alberto & Morales, Marina, 2018. "The effect of culture on the fertility decisions of immigrant women in the United States," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 15-28.
    17. Michael E. Martell & Peyton Nash, 2020. "For Love and Money? Earnings and Marriage Among Same-Sex Couples," Journal of Labor Research, Springer, vol. 41(3), pages 260-294, September.
    18. Luis Garicano & Thomas N. Hubbard, 2016. "The Returns to Knowledge Hierarchies," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 32(4), pages 653-684.
    19. Jennifer Roberts & Karl Taylor, 2017. "Intra-household commuting choices and local labour markets," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 69(3), pages 734-757.
    20. Delia Furtado, 2012. "Human Capital And Interethnic Marriage Decisions," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 50(1), pages 82-93, January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:woemps:v:13:y:1999:i:2:p:225-247. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.britsoc.co.uk/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.