ABSTRACT
Flexible working and family-friendly practices aimed at supporting employees’ work-life balance have come to the forefront of employment policies in many countries in the past two decades. As employers have voluntarily introduced such policies and practices, which we treat generically in this chapter as work-life balance (WLB) provisions, governments have both refl ected this development and sought to encourage it further by passing legislation that provides rights for employees to have access to these supports. Legislation has been particularly concerned with encouraging employers to help mothers through the transition to parenthood, the return to work and subsequent child care. This was closely tied to concerns to reduce gender inequality and primarily aimed at encouraging the participation of mothers in the labour market. Subsequently, the work-family agenda has been extended, fi rstly to paternity leave and other ways of helping both parents become more involved with childcare, and then to the provision of help for all employees with caring responsibilities. Although the Nordic countries led the way in this respect, among the liberal market economies, the UK government has been at the forefront of such trends.
