Navigating the Return-to-Work Experience for New Parents: Maintaining Work-Family Well-Being

by Maria Karanika-Murray (Editor), Cary Cooper (Editor)

Overview

Parenthood can be one of the most fulfilling, altering, and challenging life events. This book is set within the background of the reality of many parents’ return-to-work experience, the task of re-engaging with work and maintaining a job or a career, and the difficulties that parenthood poses for balancing the demands of a new family with the demands of work. It helps us understand this reality, give voice to new parents, and offer relief in the knowledge that we know a lot about these challenges and, most importantly, how we can start to address them.

The book brings together a number of internationally recognized experts from research, practice, and policy to explore the issues and offer evidence-based solutions around return-to-work after having children. It takes a balanced approach to theory and practice to cover topics such as equality, stereotypes, work-family conflict, training and development, and workplace culture, among others, whilst integrating research and policy, and illustrating learnings with case studies from parents and examples from countries that lead the way.

It will appeal to parents, researchers, and employers in any sector or economy across the world. Ultimately, it will help develop ways for new parents to re-engage with work successfully while maintaining their work-family well-being.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780367223014
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	03/03/2020
Pages:	180
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Maria Karanika-Murray is an Associate Professor in Occupational Health Psychology at the Department of Psychology, Nottingham Trent University. In her work she brings together different methodologies, disciplines, and stakeholders with the aim to understand the context and develop ways to support work-related health and well-being.at the Department of Psychology, Nottingham Trent University. Her work brings together different methodologies, disciplines, and stakeholders, with the aim to understand the context and develop ways to support work-related health and well-being.

Sir Cary Cooper, CBE, is the 50th Anniversary Professor of Organizational Psychology and Health at ALLIANCE Manchester Business School of the University of Manchester, President of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (HR professional body), Immediate Past President of the British Academy of Management, and President of the Institute of Welfare.

Table of Contents

List of Contributors

Foreword

Ann Francke, Chartered Management Institute, London

Foreword

Laura Addati, International Labour Organization, Geneva

Chapter 1. Introduction—Understanding the return-to-work experience for parents: what is and what could be

Maria Karanika-Murray & Cary Cooper

Chapter 2. New Parents Navigating the Workplace: Pregnancy, Stereotype Threat, and Work-Family Conflict

Lindsey M. Lavaysse, Erica L. Bettac, & Tahira M. Probst

Chapter 3. Building the support network of new parents at work and outside

Helen Pluut & Sara De Hauw

Chapter 4. Practical strategies for work-family resources management in the return-to-work experiences of new parents

Angela Martin, Sarah Dawkins, Vanessa Miles, Sarah Cotton & Justine Alter

Chapter 5. Return to work for fathers: A group with specific needs?

Marc Grau-Grau

Chapter 6. Fathers and leave for parenting: how can we increase uptake?

Adrienne Burgess & Jeremy Davies

Chapter 7. Work-family integration and gender equality: How Nordic countries lead the way
Gayle Kaufman

Chapter 8. Career Progression: Left out of the Game?
Nina M. Junker, Alina S. Hernandez Bark & Jamie L. Gloor

Chapter 9. Career development after parenthood: choices, challenges and opportunities

Julia Yates

Chapter 10. Training and development for employees returning to work after parental leave

Joanna Yarker, Hans-Joachim Wolfram & Nina Mareen Junker

Chapter 11. Childcare options in France: Beyond the hypothetic free choices

Danielle Boyer & Claude Martin

Chapter 12. What can employers do? Creating an inclusive workplace that fosters work-family wellbeing

Hans van Dijk & Loes Meeussen

Chapter 13. Going beyond policies to ease parents back into work and rebalance roles: The importance of individualized-deals

Inés Martínez-Corts & J. Pablo Moreno-Beltrán

Chapter 14. What we have leanred and what we can do to support parents' return-to-work

Cary Cooper & Maria Karanika-Murray

Index

Editorial Reviews

"What a fascinating book! As both a researcher and campaigner in this area, I welcome the way that the authors have pulled together a terrific mix of contributors from research, practice and policy, to tackle the issues faced by both mothers and fathers in returning to work after childbirth. We have so much to learn from the countries represented here." - Sue Vinnicombe, CBE, Professor of Women and Leadership, Cranfield University, UK

"Men and women participate more equally in the labor market than ever before in many parts of the world. This is probably one of the biggest societal changes to come about in the 20^th century. Surprisingly, however, the realities and practicalities of such emancipated labor participation are not well studied, nor are they well understood. One of those realities and practicalities concerns having and raising children. Specifically, parents returning to work are an overlooked group. Fortunately, this book charts the territory and gives important pointers as to where to look, what to understand better, and what we can do. This edited collection of 12 chapters by a range of important scholars provides a wide overview of the issues involved. There is attention for stereotype threats, strategies that parents use, the special case of fathers, the career issues involved, and practices that organizations can offer, just to name a few of the topics addressed. The editors, Maria Karanika-Murray and Cary Cooper, expertly organized the materials and provided an inspiring introduction of the issue. They also added a final chapter that is rich in lessons learned and personal reflections. The bottom line appears to be that the issue requires a lot of maturity from parents, organizations, and governments alike: we all can and need to do our part. On a personal level, when reading this book, it is intriguing to see academics trying to get to grips with the challenge of parenting themselves within the current timeframe and context. I wish this book had been around when I first became a parent." - Marc van Veldhoven, Professor of Work, Health & Well-being, Tilburg University, The Netherlands

From the Publisher