In May of last year, I was invited to comment on a new book “Work-life balance in times of recession, austerity and beyond” in an author-meets-critics session, together with Ellen Kossek. This was part of the 7th Community, Work and Family conference in Milan.

It was a great pleasure to discuss Work-life balance in times of recession, austerity and beyond with the book’s editors Suzan Lewis, Deirdre Anderson, Clare Lyonette, Nicola Payne, and Stephen Wood. The book seeks to broaden the dual agenda of promoting WLB to improve both gender equity and workplace productivity, to develop a triple agenda that also promotes social justice toward greater equality, social mobility, and workforce inclusion. The diversity of approaches in the different chapters of this book contributes important insights to the literature, for instance combining insights from action research (that can be criticized for its lack of generalizability) with cross-national compari- sons (that can be criticized for their lack of specificity). As such, the book does what an edited book does at its best: relating diverse perspectives on an important topic to a sum that is greater than its parts.

Ellen Kossek reworked our comments to the form of a book review, which now has been published in the recent issue of Community, Work & Family journal.

Nieuwenhuis, R., & Kossek, E. E. (2018). Work-life balance in times of recession, austerity and beyond (Book Review). Community, Work & Family, 21(1), 106–109. http://doi.org/10.1080/13668803.2017.1388002