Call for Papers for a Special Issue. Work-life balance/imbalance: individual, organizational and social experiences

Call for Papers for a Special Issue

Work-life balance/imbalance: individual, organizational and social experiences

Maintaining a proper balance between work and family life is not only an important factor as far as individuals’ subjective well-being is concerned, but it is also an issue deeply related to decisions on child-bearing and to the quality of time one spends with loved ones. Work-life balance also has great influence on demography (low fertility), economy (efficiency of the labour force) and Research & Development (shortage of – mostly female – researchers in certain fields). Despite the continuous complaints of working parents and seemingly generous policy initiatives, the most acute dilemmas have not decreased in the last few decades. A significant portion of society still feels that finding and maintaining this balance is a highly complicated challenge of everyday life. Moreover, individuals are deeply affected by structural insecurity due to the latest economic recession, too, which brings into focus again that research on work-life balance is both timely and relevant at academic and policy levels.

Though different investigations show that juggling multiple responsibilities and roles can cause serious tensions in individuals’ work and private life everywhere (Hochschild, 2001; Hobson et al., 2014), we have limited information about how people in East European countries perceive their situation, what can alleviate these tensions and what are the constraining factors in doing so (Clark, 2000). Research approaches towards work-life balance, or as it is often called in the literature ‘balanced life’, are dominated by Western theories, and mostly neglect Central and Eastern Europe. Thus, there is a strong need to incorporate the scientific knowledge deriving from the region which this issue of Intersections EEJSP aims to accomplish.

Demographic effects of work-life balance/imbalance are more extensively covered by previous publications in the field. In order to recover the existing gaps in the literature papers applying individual, organizational and family centred approaches (e.g. discussing gendered experiences of im/balance, as well as strategies of accomplishing what is considered a balanced relationship between work and family life) are considered highly relevant for this issue.

To conclude, we invite papers that touch upon the work-life balance dilemmas from a Central Eastern European perspective. Both theoretical and empirical papers are welcome. We encourage scholars to submit an abstract of 600-800 words including a short bio and the description of the main question(s) and finding(s) of the paper together with the methodology applied, by October 30^th, 2015 through our online submission system. Authors will receive feedback from the editorial team by November 15, 2015.

 

Tentative submission timetable and deadlines:

Full paper submission – February 29, 2016

Reviews to Authors – April 29, 2016

Revisions submitted – June 30, 2016

Further reviews and acceptance – September 30, 2016

Publication: December, 2016

 

For more information visit: http://intersections.tk.mta.hu

Please submit your abstract through the online submission system at http://intersections.tk.mta.hu/index.php/intersections/login

If you are a new user, please register at http://intersections.tk.mta.hu/index.php/intersections/user/register

For publication guidelines, please consult http://intersections.tk.mta.hu/index.php/intersections/about/submissions#authorGuidelines

 

In case of any further questions contact our Guest Editors:

Beáta Nagy (beata.nagy@uni-corvinus.hu), Zsuzsanna Gering (Gering.ZsuzsannaMargit@bgf.hu) and Gábor Király (gabor.kiraly@uni-corvinus.hu).

If you encounter technical problems contact István Hegedűs (intersections@tk.mta.hu).