CAPABLE: Enhancing Capabilities? Rethinking Work-life Policies and their Impact from a New Perspective
The ERC-project CAPABLE is a comparative study in eight European countries, which investigates women and men’s real opportunities to balance work-life, and the role of social policy in shaping these opportunities. The CAPABLE project developed from a desire to understand how gender inequality in work, family and private lives continues to exist despite advancements made in work-family policies in recent decades. Work-family research has produced key insights in this area, but work-family theories fail to sufficiently explain the tenacity of gender inequality. By adopting a multi-dimensional approach, CAPABLE will generate fundamentally new knowledge on how work-life balance policies impact men and women’s capability to live the life they have reason to value. CAPABLE progresses scientific and policy frontiers using innovative, mixed-methods approaches at multiple policy levels to analyse:
- the design of work-family policies;
- what these policy designs mean for what men and women are effectively able to achieve - their capabilities - to achieve work-life balance given varying individual, community and social contexts;
- whether work-life policies enhance individual wellbeing; and
- what policy tools are needed for developing sustainable work-life balance policies at national and local levels that enhance gender equal work-life capabilities.
Project manager
Also involved in this project
- Dr. Robin Buning (project assistant)
- Clarissa Skinner (temporary research assistant)
- Hannelore van Hoffen (student assistant)
Funding
This project is funded by the 'European Research Council (ERC)', research innovation programme 'European Union’s Horizon2020' (grant agreement no 771290).