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Bridging literature that addresses the work–family interface and the changing nature of careers, this article examines, from a life course perspective, the extent to which, and why, young people anticipate careers as 'flexible'. Drawing on 123 interviews with men and women engaged in different post-secondary education pathways in Australia, the study draws attention to the role of gender and to some extent class in shaping careers in a network of social relations. Three dimensions of flexible careers are examined: temporal, that is, through imagined possibilities in various stages of early adulthood; structural, including opportunities and constraints afforded by different industry sectors and workplaces; and relational, in terms of household-level role negotiations. The findings revealed that women continue to adapt their career goals to accommodate care, but that both men's and women's careers are shaped by contingencies including household income, home ownership, access to flexible work and ideological expectations of market/family work roles. These contextual dynamics directly impact on decisions in the present. The article underscores the need for an expanded research focus on work and care from a life course perspective in order to promote career flexibility in ways that align with young people's broader aspirations for gender equality.

1. Introduction : locating men in the work-life nexus / Paula McDonald and Emma Jeanes -- 2. The work-family dilemmas of Japan's salarymen / Scott North -- 3. The gender equal father? : the (welfare) politics of masculinity in Sweden, 1960-2010 /?sa Lundqvist -- 4. Men's work-life choices : supporting fathers at work in France and Britain? / Abigail Gregory and Susan Milner -- 5. Inside the glass tower : the construction of masculinities in finance capital / Raewyn Connell -- 6. Time greedy workplaces and marriageable men : the paradox in men's fathering beliefs and strategies / Pamela Kaufman and Kathleen Gerson -- 7. Men, 'father managers' and home-work relations : complexities and contradictions in national policy, corporations and individual lives / Jeff Hearn and Charlotta Niemist? -- 8. Emotional dimensions of fathering and work-family boundaries / Berit Brandth -- 9. All roads lead to hearth and home : how young professional men envision the work, leisure and community nexus / Robert M. Orrange -- 10. Happiness under pressure : the importance of leisure time among fathers in dual-earner households / Peter Brown and Helen Perkins.

pt. 1. Women's representation in local government : facilitators and contraints -- pt. 2. Strategies to increase women's representation in local government -- pt. 3. Making a difference? : the descriptive and substantive representation of women in local government -- pt. 4. Gender and a changing local government sector.

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to establish the strongly entrenched connection between hegemonic masculinity and participation in full‐time employment. It subsequently examines the extent to which male flexible workers in local government represent a challenge to this orthodoxy.Design/methodology/approachThe paper reports on findings from interviews with 12 men and 13 women undertaking flexible work in a local government authority in Australia.FindingsIt was found that while two of the male flexible workers articulate alternative discourses of masculine subjectivity dissociated from participation in full‐time work, the remainder demonstrate the continued centrality of a full‐time presence in the workplace to hegemonic masculinity.Originality/valueThis paper argues that these findings are indicative of the continued dominance of masculinities in local government organisations.

While there is emerging research on the motivations of workers who engage with specific digital platforms, scant attention has been afforded to the contours of the digital economy as they affect workers in occupational or professional contexts. Drawing on interviews with 51 Australian photographers, the authors examined the extent to which, and why, photographers engage with or resist digital platform work. The photographic profession is an ideal context in which to examine such questions due to the fragmentation of the workforce and the recent proliferation of platforms. The findings revealed that the level of worker engagement is explained by platform control over price, service and product quality, and relationship management. The experiences of self-employed, freelance workers complicate our understanding of work afforded by digital platforms. Engaging with the political economy surrounding freelance creative labour, the study enables a richer theorisation of the experiences of platform-generated work in this context.

PurposeEmployee reward is central to contemporary debates about work and employment relations; and in the context of ongoing wage stagnation, benefits represent a growing proportion of total reward value. Past studies have shown that when employees perceive benefits as unfair, this has a negative impact on engagement, performance and retention. Yet no previous studies have explored the components of a benefits system that influence employees' fairness concerns. Using organisational justice as a theoretical lens, the purpose of this paper is to examine how dimensions of an employee benefits system influence the fairness perceptions of employees.Design/methodology/approachThis paper reports on a qualitative, inductive case study of the benefits system in a large finance and insurance company, drawing on three data sources: interviews with the company's benefits managers, organisational documents and open-text responses from a benefits survey.FindingsThree dimensions of the benefits system strongly influenced fairness perceptions – constraints on accessing and utilising benefits; prosocial perceptions about the fairness of benefits to third parties; and the transparency of employee benefits.Practical implicationsThe study informs organisations and benefits managers about the important role of supervisors in perceived benefits usability, and how benefits may be managed and communicated to enhance employee fairness perceptions.Originality/valueThis study makes a conceptual contribution to the benefits literature through a detailed exploration of the type of organisational justice judgements that employees make about benefits; and identifying for the first time prosocial fairness concerns about the impact of benefits on third parties.

What kind of surveillance of employees is evident today? The rights of employers to police and act punitively with regard to workplace dissent and misbehaviour have become contentious legal, policy and ethical issues. Drawing on survey responses from employees in the UK and Australia, this study investigates the scope and scale of employee dissent in relation to critical online comments and the private use of social media during work time. The findings reveal a sufficient pool of misbehaviours, albeit that they are emergent and uneven. Also evident were some apparently contradictory responses with respect to employer rights to profile and discipline, at the same time as asserting employee rights to voice and private online identities. The findings contribute to knowledge of how much and what kinds of online dissent exist in the ambiguous space between the public sphere of work and the private lives of individual employees and what employers do about it.