Longer working hours, insecure jobs, child care, declining birth rates, parental leave, the "mummy track," the success or failure of feminism--the levels of passion, vitriol, despair and guilt these subjects engender attest to the importance Australians place on them, and rightly so. Their effects go beyond how we feel: they affect vital economic and demographic trends.

The Work/Life Collision, grounded in thorough quantitative and qualitative research, analyses how these factors affect each other, in particular the collision of work and care and its implications for how we live.

Pocock demonstrates how the existing "work/care" regime that shapes how we live and work has high social costs--for mothers, fathers, families and those who want to be both workers and carers. She weighs the hidden costs of how we live and work now--costs that can be measured in bedrooms, kitchens, workplaces and streetscapes--and in our declining birth rate and embedded gender inequality.

The Work/Life Collision goes further than just explaining our growing anxiety about quality of life, despite the evidence of unmatched material wealth. Pocock proposes ways in which a new "work/care" regime can be built, through:

• the redistribution of working hours
• the rehabilitation of degraded and insecure part-time jobs
• a new system of leave from paid work, and
• better support for mothers, fathers and all kinds of dependants.

She guides us through the real experiences of Australian households and points to a uniquely Australian solution to a fairer world.

Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1: The work/life collision
CHAPTER 2: Mapping labour, households and care
CHAPTER 3: Work is reconfiguring our communities
CHAPTER 4: Mother wars: the market meets sacred motherhood
CHAPTER 5: The hidden costs of work: love, intimacy and work
CHAPTER 6: Long hours: family unfriendliness at work
CHAPTER 7: Short hours: choice and security at work
CHAPTER 8: Caring for those who depend on us
CHAPTER 9: Combining work and life: the role of leave
CHAPTER 10: Countering the collision: what we can do now
Bibliography
Appendix

"Pocock writes in a direct, non-judgemental style, using plenty of anecdotes, quotes and research and suggesting solutions to problems. An excellent resource for human resources practitioners, managers and those wanting a big picture perspective."

-- Wendy Taylor, the Age, 11 December 2004

"The book is so graphic there are parts of it I could hardly bear to read but it is important to read it because it illustrates all the lifeless and painless socio-economic statistics we as policy planners see continuously rolling under our noses; it helps explain why those painless statistics actually represent a policy imperative."

-- Pru Goward, Federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner, 2003