Implications for future research

Research bringing together issues about the transition to parenthood and organisational change and well-being is rare. Most cross-national studies of these topics are quantitative in nature. The Transitions research extends the knowledge built up by these other studies and has developed a new, qualitative methodological approach to studying layers of context. As Europe expands, an understanding of the impact of diverse contexts at many layers is crucial. This will involve not just comparing experiences in different countries but in specific different contexts. There are a number of ways on which this research should be developed, and implications of the findings for further research.

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Diverse parents and social inclusion in the new European Workplace

The organisational case study approach used in this study was important for enabling the Transitions team to explore the impact of specific workplace context and enabled us to pinpoint specific factors contributing to or undermining well-being within multiple layers of context, in the light of contextually mediated expectation of support. However, this method involved negotiating access to research participants through organisational gatekeepers and although participants were diverse in some respects (for example all case studies included single parents) there is a need for more research on how diverse employees navigate the transition to parenthood in the context of the rapid pace of organisational changes. For example, the case studies included few disabled parents. One exception was a mother in the UK finance company who was able to negotiate a great deal of support while she underwent a series of hip operations before becoming a parent. She was, however, a high status and highly valued employee. Identifying supports and constraints experienced by disabled parents, and the strategies that employers and others can adopt to enable them to fulfil their parenting and employment obligations will be important for the EU goal of encouraging active inclusion of disabled people in European society and the economy through independent living and for mainstreaming disability as well as gender in the European employment strategy. While the biographical approach used in the Transitions research would be useful for addressing key questions about how to encourage the inclusion of disabled parents in changing workplaces, a more targeted approach to the recruitment of research participants would be necessary.

Expanding the contexts examined

The biographical approach needs to be applied to other national and workplace contexts, including SMEs, where many parents are employed across Europe and also for furthering understandings of the specific issues experienced by those combining self-employment and parenthood in diverse European contexts.

Transitions across the life course

The transition to parenthood is a crucial tipping point for gender equity across Europe. It is also important to look at other crucial transition points in the life course and implications for gender and class equality, social inclusion and exclusion, building on the long tradition of literature on critical transitions (e.g.

Rapoport, 1963; Adler, 1975; Lewis and Cooper, 1988). What is the influence of intensification across the life course? For example, what is impact of having a second or even third child, and (how) could parents reconcile contemporary forms of work with larger families? With an ageing European population and in the contexts of current debates and policy agendas across Europe relating to retirement and pensions, we also need to know more about the transition to retirement. If, as this study suggests, intensified workplace demands perpetuate women's lower participation in the labour market than men’s in many contexts, what will be the impact on gender and material and psychological well-being in retirement? How will current working practices and trends influence the age of retirement and the nature of the transition? Comparative, cross-national research on these questions have important policy implications. The life course methodology used in this study, ideally combined with prospective designs catching people at different transition points, would help to address some of these questions . The richness of data from our life course approach would help to understand different meanings of time, work, family and leisure, and the impact

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of different work-family strategies adopted in earlier phases on the transitions to retirement, and, particularly, how this is influenced by layers of context.

The transition to parenthood and work-family strategies among workers excluded from contemporary organisations

Research also needs to examine parents’ opportunities for negotiating work-family boundaries in the context of organisational/non-organisational boundaries.

A common feature of contemporary organisation is that boundaries between those who are inside the organisation and those who are at the periphery are often unclear. The difficulties in accessing low skilled workers to participate in this study highlight the need to ensure that research does not omit the experiences of workers who are not part of the core organisation, including, for example, temporary agency workers, self-employed contractors and others working within large organisations. Temporary agency work is increasing rapidly in almost all European countries, as part of the general movement towards increased flexibility in employment. A common feature of agency work is a three-way triangular, employment relationship, between a user, the employee and the agency, which can complicate issues of support for parents who are agency workers. Moreover, a significant proportion of agency workers are immigrants, many of who come from cultures which are highly gendered. More needs to be known about how parents can be supported in what is often a context of low pay, few rights and enforced flexibility. The organisational case study and life course approach used in Transitions could be adapted to address this question by broadening the concept of the organisation and specifically examining employment agencies as crucial organisational players. Given the role of immigrants and mobility and the European priority of protecting agency workers, this research is needed at the European and not just national levels.

Well-being

Most research examining the relationship between work and family experiences and strategies and being relies on questionnaire measures of subjective well-being, conceptualised in rather static ways. This study points to the need for a fuller understanding of well-being, as a dynamic and fluid process, sensitive to expectations and context. Further research is needed to explore the relationships between well-being, in all its complexity and sense of entitlement to support for reconciling employment and family obligations as it relates to both social policy and working practices. In particular, there is a need for further examination and understanding of what we have identified as a process of transitional conflict, in families and workplaces, which was beyond the scope of the present project.

Developing methods

The project has developed innovative research strategies and methodologies for further use in this area. (Brannen and Pattman, 2005, Lewis, Guerreiro and Brannen, 2006; Smithson, 2006). There is considerable scope for expanding this methodological approach and developing comparative theoretical concepts and perspectives. The assessment of well-being, in particular and especially at the collective level, is very problematic. It is difficult to assess well-being at a collective level without recourse to other, equally problematic, terms such as stress, climate/culture. This study highlights some of the inherent difficulties of doing justice to the multi-faceted nature of well-being. However, this difficulty should not be a reason for recourse to more simplistic and one-dimensional approaches. Currently much research on well-being is based on methods which

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do not fully acknowledge these difficulties and may produce oversimplified findings.

There may be a role for wider European networks to explore the meanings of well-being, especially insofar as it informs policy.

Action research

The Lisbon agenda is built around the need to generate balanced and sustainable growth which benefits all. As social and economic change is likely to continue to be rapid in most countries, there is a need to monitor changing perspectives on efficiency/performance and individual/family and organisational well-being.

However, the findings from this study suggest that the European social agenda will require mutually reinforcing changes at multiple levels. Social policy can contribute to necessary social change, but changes are also needed in structures, cultures and practices at workplace levels as well as in values and practices within households. Collaborative and participatory action research is needed to move these agendas forward. For example, collaborative interactive action research has been used to bring about systemic changes in workplaces to support a dual agenda of gender equity and organisational effectiveness in the USA (Rapoport et al, 2001). Research applying this approach to European organisations, combined with the European model of social dialogue could be used to develop processes of change that could then be diffused across diverse European workplace contexts.

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5. Dissemination and/or exploitation of