The Family Responsibilities Convention Reconsidered: The Work-Family Intersection in International Law Thirty Years On

Authors

• K. Lee Adams, Atlanta's John Marshall Law School

Abstract

This year marks the thirtieth anniversary of the International Labour Organization's (ILO) Workers with Family Responsibilities Convention, 1981, No. 156 coming into force. Family responsibilities in the context of paid work and its implications for gender equality have been the subject of international regulation most specifically in ILO 156, although it remains a marginalized convention. Since then, the interaction of work and family and the conflict between them have exploded as a subject of scholarly importance. This article examines LO 156 in the context of chronological development of other major international legal instruments which address the intersection of work and family. This chronological context reveals explicit and implicit gender norms which have shaped legal treatment of work and family obligations in the 20th Century and suggests new directions to pursue in the 21st Century. The article engages in a detailed critique of LO 156, and proposes revisions to create a more practical work-family convention to better serve the international community in the 21st Century.

Disciplines

Civil Rights and Discrimination | International Law | Labor and Employment Law | Law | Law and Gender

Recommended Citation

K. L. Adams, The Family Responsibilities Convention Reconsidered: The Work-Family Intersection in International Law Thirty Years On, 22 Cardozo J. Int'l & Comp. L. 201 (2014).
Available at: https://larc.cardozo.yu.edu/cjicl/vol22/iss2/2