Yes / This paper critically examines how low-paid workers, who need to work in more than one legitimate job to make ends meet, attempt to reconcile work and life. The concept of work-life articulation is utilised to investigate the experiences, strategies and practicalities of combining multiple employment with domestic and care duties. Based on detailed qualitative research, the findings reveal workers with 2, 3, 4, 5 and even 7 different jobs due to low-pay, limited working hours and employment instability. The study highlights the increasing variability of working hours, together with the dual fragmentation of working time and employment. It identifies unique dimensions of work extensification, as these workers have an amalgamation of jobs dispersed across fragmented, expansive and complex temporalities and spatialities. This research makes explicit the interconnected economic and temporal challenges of low-pay, insufficient hours and precarious employment, which creates significant challenges of juggling multiple jobs with familial responsibilities.

Yes / This article focuses on the work-life ‘balance’ challenges of those who work in organisations that operate beyond standard hours. The concept of work-life articulation is utilised to examine the experiences and practicalities of attempting to reconcile the, often competing, demands of employment and family life. Qualitative research was conducted in two private sector businesses and one third sector organisation in the UK during the onset of the 2008 financial crisis. The findings reveal increasing competitive pressures, efficiency drives and work intensification. ‘Business needs’ are prioritised over care responsibilities, and in the private sector organisations there is declining flexible working with a reassertion of the management prerogative. This article contributes to current debates over work-life ‘balance’ and highlights variable, changeable and unpredictable working time arrangements that permeate non-standard hours, which creates additional complexities and challenges for family time schedules and routines. / ESRC