Human Resources, Care Giving, Career Progression and Gender: A Gender Neutral Glass Ceiling

The issue of care giving is highly pertinent to government thinking and legislation at present in both the UK and the US, and is of central importance to organizations seeking to adopt family friendly policies and practices. While much has been written about care giving, little empirical evidence has been presented in which to ground the debate. This book looks at the relationship between care for dependents, and career progression using primary empirical comparative data based on UK and US employee surveys and executive interviews. The authors show care giving to be a gender-neutral glass ceiling, challenging the traditional perspective of the glass ceiling as the domain of women's careers and working lives. The book demonstrates how the career progress of caregivers depends upon employee time-freedom and how 'family friendly' policies can and do provoke backlash from the majority of unencumbered employees, who may also have high priorities in their personal lives. These findings are located withinprojections of an aging population and technological change to argue that individuals, organizations, governments and HR professionals must urgently address the wastage of human potential associated with the role of the care-giver in order to sustain current standards of living. The authors focus upon the role of each stakeholder and outline policy options and strategies for change available to organizations and governments. This book is essential reading for students and researchers of Human Resources, those involved in care giving debates and for Human Resource professionals and policy makers.