Striking a Balance: Work, Family, Life [Paperback]

Robert W. Drago (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 29, 2007

In this provocative book, economist and work/life expert Robert Drago constructs a unique vision of the meaning of balance, unmasking the real reasons most Americans lead unbalanced lives. Sifting through the vast body of relevant research from a range of academic disciplines, including new findings from the author's own studies, Striking a Balance: Work, Family, Life examines the deeply held but unexamined beliefs about work, womanhood, and society that are responsible for our out-of-balance lives. In his optimistic final chapter, Drago calls on us to challenge those beliefs, and provides a road map for change. If we take this path, he argues, we will not only improve our life balance, but also address the nearly one-fifth of our population who require but do not receive adequate care, the "new gender gap" between women who care for others and women who succeed in high-powered careers, and even the rise in income inequality. With a forward by Juliet B. Schor, author of The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Bob Drago provides us with a powerful new framework to help solve the problem of imbalance in contemporary society--some people have too much work, many have too little income and not enough care-giving, and virtually everyone suffers from a lack of gender equality. To the work-life paradigm he adds the almost forgotten concept of leisure, with surprising results. His real-life solutions are inspiring, his policy prescriptions are simple, clear, and mercifully few. This book is an enjoyable, engaging read. Read it and change your life and the world. --Heidi Hartmann, Ph.D., President, Institute for Women's Policy Research

Framed in terms of the care gap, the new gender gap between mothers and others, and the widening income gap, this lively and accessible book makes it clear why so many of us find it difficult to strike a balance in our lives. It can be read with profit by students of labor economics, those concerned with women and work, or anyone who has ever had to juggle the demands of care and career. --Eileen Applebaum, Director, Center for Women and Work, and Professor, School of Management and Labor Relations, Rutgers University

It is hard for American working parents to achieve balanced lives, but as Bob Drago argues in this important and timely book, we can change that. We know we have a crisis when, as his research shows, over half of the mothers who teach college chemistry and about 40 percent who teach English say that they returned to work sooner than they wanted after having a child because they wanted to be taken seriously as academics, and many of them felt forced to choose their work over their children. Rather than groaning about forced imbalance, however, Drago powerfully marshals the evidence and points to the models we need to create balance for both sexes. A must read for us all. --Arlie Russell Hochschiled, author of The Time Bind and The Commercialization of Intimate Life

About the Author

Robert W. Drago is a Professor of Labor Studies and Women's Studies at Penn State University, and a Professorial Fellow at the University of Melbourne. The author of over 70 articles and 4 books, he helped to found takecarenet.org and the workfam newsgroup. He lives in State College, PA, has two wonderful daughters, and writes music in his spare time.

Product Details

• Paperback: 183 pages
• Publisher: Dollars & Sense; 1st edition (January 29, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1878585622
• ISBN-13: 978-1878585622
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #889,397 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #28 in Books > Business & Investing > Business Life > Work Life Balance

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Striking a Balance, March 20, 2007

By 

Lotte Bailyn - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Striking a Balance: Work, Family, Life (Paperback)

This book is for anyone who feels that life is complicated and getting more so all the time. In clear language Drago gives data to show that Americans are working more and defines 3 important gaps Americans face: a care gap, a gender gap, and an income gap. These are interrelated, of course, as Drago makes clear. And he contributes to our understanding of the gender gap by expanding it to include the gap between women who are involved in actual care work (whether paid or not) and those successful in professional jobs and hence not directly involved in care. He anchors his discussion in three norms, all of which contribute to these gaps: motherhood, ideal worker, and individualism, and supports his discussion with both data and stories. A particularly interesting formulation is his definition of balance, by which he means involvement in all three of paid work, unpaid work, and leisure. He describes the kind of social infrastructure necessary to support such balance for all people in our society and ends with a work and family bill of rights. A great discussion of the challenges we all face.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A persuasive academic treatise, July 9, 2007

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Striking a Balance: Work, Family, Life (Paperback)

Written by Robert W. Drago (Professor of Labor Studies and Women's Studies, Penn State University), Striking a Balance: Work, Family, Life is not a self-help book for the individual, but rather a scholarly examination of the modern societal problems of the care gap (too many children, elderly, and disabled, particularly among the poor, are not getting the care they need), the gender gap (women are forced to choose between success in their careers and providing adequate care to their children, or any other form of care work for low or no pay) and the income gap (the rich get richer and the poor get poorer). At the heart of these problems is not just cold hard economics, but also societal norms - the "motherhood norm" that insists women should provide care for little or no pay; the "ideal worker norm" that conditions employers to expect their workers to put in long hours up to an inhuman level; and the "individualism norm", a society-infused belief that the government should not help those needing care. Striking a Balance prescribes society-wide remedies to these growing problems: paid family leave, early childhood education and child care financing, guaranteed health insurance, and a minimum wage increase indexed to inflation, and the simple importance of allowing men and women from all walks of life to have their voices heard. Extensively researched, Striking a Balance: Work Family Life is a persuasive academic treatise about the need for social change, and highly recommended for reading for not only college library shelves, but also anyone looking for a better understanding of why the government needs to pay more attention to minimum wage, health care, and paid family leave issues.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The way out of the work vs. life box, May 8, 2007

By 

Joe Robinson "Joe Robinson" (Santa Monica, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Striking a Balance: Work, Family, Life (Paperback)

This excellent analysis of the current state of working and trying to live at the same time in America is a great wakeup call from the overwork hypnosis reining for too long. Unlike in other advanced nations, we've never had a real national conversation about the impacts of large numbers of caregivers in the workplace and skyrocketing workweeks. Drago makes those repercussions of work without end very clear, in imploding families, skyrocketing health costs and absentee lives. Armed with a trove of research, he shows us not only the downside, but also a way out, when we can see the unconscious norms that skew our value system and sanity--the ideal worker norm, the motherhood norm, and the individualism norm. This much-needed book should should be required reading for every exec, congressperson, and presidential-candidate policy guru in the land.