Taking Care of Others’ Work-Family Balance : The Case of Family Child Care Providers in France

This paper presents preliminary results of the collective research on child care professionals’ work practices we initiated in France in April 2017. This qualitative research relies on a series of interviews and observations with family child care providers during their working time, at their home and at collective child care activities provided for them by the city council. The research analyses how parents of young children (employers) and professionals (employees) negotiate their own work and family imperatives with one another. We analyze how both parties engage specific resources in order to weigh in the work/family bargain. How do professionals/parents take into account the fact that they are a key element of the others’ own conciliation of work and family? This research on child care proposes a twofold contribution to the research field of work/family balance. First, through studying one of its very old modalities, we aim at increasing knowledge on the expanding sphere of work-at-home employment. Second, the analysis will focus on the social outcomes of such negotiations of work/family for woman professionals working from home, who are coming from modest social backgrounds, and whose skills and social status are relatively neglected.