Responsibility, Work and Family Life: Children's and Parents' Experiences of Working Parenthood

In the UK, more children than ever before are being brought up by parents who are engaged in some form of paid employment outside the home (Philo et al. 2008). This change has been met with interest by academics, policy-makers and indeed employers, with particular concern about how the demands of work and family are managed by parents and the impact this has on children’s lives. The challenges of reconciling the competing demands of paid work and family life on parents’ time have been acknowledged at a political level (OECD 2007) and research has offered insights into how the competing frameworks of work and family are constructed and managed by parents (Daly 2001, Cunningham-Burley et al. 2006, Backett-Milburn et al. 2008, Ba 2010). In particular it has been noted that working parents express a feeling of being ‘harried’ (Southerton and Tomlinson 2005), of being constantly busy (Brannen 2005) and of their time being ‘squeezed’ (Southerton 2003).