The Time Bind: When Work Becomes Home and Home Becomes Work

Arlie Russell Hochschild spent three summers at a Fortune 500 company interviewing top executives, secretaries, factory hands, childcare workers, and others. What she found was startling: though every mother and nearly every father said "family comes first," few working parents took the company up on chances for flex-time, paternity leave, or other "family-friendly" policies. Why not? It seems the roles of home and work had reversed: work was offering the rewards of home - stimulation, guidance, a sense of accomplishment and belonging - while home had become the place where there was too much to do in too little time.

Hochschild's findings are now more relevant than ever. As she shows in her new introduction, the borders between family and work have become ever more permeable. With the Internet extending working hours at home and offices offering domestic enticements - free snacks, soft music - to keep employees later at their jobs, The Time Bind stands as an increasingly important warning about the way we work and live.