BEGIN:VCALENDAR VERSION:2.0 PRODID:-//PYVOBJECT//NONSGML Version 1//EN BEGIN:VTIMEZONE TZID:Africa/Nairobi BEGIN:STANDARD DTSTART:20000101T000000 RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=1 TZNAME:EAT TZOFFSETFROM:+0300 TZOFFSETTO:+0300 END:STANDARD END:VTIMEZONE BEGIN:VEVENT UID:20260921T013157Z - 2422@Ursa DTSTART;TZID=Africa/Nairobi:20261119T090000 DTEND;TZID=Africa/Nairobi:20261119T161500 CREATED:20260921T013157Z DESCRIPTION:3rd Annual Family Research Conference\nIn troduction: Dual-earner households are now the norm across urban and peri- urban Kenya. Yet\, public discourse still treats work and family as separa te worlds. One is public and demanding. The other is private and secondary . New research involving 41 working parents suggests this picture is wrong on every count. Many working parents are not failing to balance two domai ns. Instead\, they are absorbing the cost of a legal and institutional sys tem that was never built to recognise the two as connected at all. Work it self\, the research finds\, does not sit neutrally alongside family life. These findings unfold across four connected themes. First\, the work-famil y binary itself does not hold as a stable\, shared frame. Participants hol d plural\, sometimes contradictory theories of whether work and family are even separable. Second\, where the ideal of balance persists\, parents an d spouses often internalise their failure to reach it as personal. Structu ral conditions\, constant digital connectivity\, unsupported remote and hy brid arrangements\, transfer\, hiring\, pay and posting policies indiffere nt to caregiving\, understaffing\, and thinning social support\, are conve rted into private narratives of inadequacy. Third\, the research traces th is displacement to its legal root: employment law’s thin\, transactional conception of work which fails to recognise the relationship between the work and family it purports to regulate\, leaving individuals to bear stru cturally-produced strain alone. Fourth\, and most fundamentally\, work its elf is found to be capable of humanising or dehumanising the person who pe rforms it. It can sustain capability through purpose and connection\, or e rode it under structural failure\, with consequences that extend into marr iage\, parenting\, and mental health. Taken together\, these findings sugg est that a work-family balance standard\, applied uniformly\, is not only [...] DTSTAMP:20260921T013157Z LOCATION:Strathmore University\, Ole Sangale Link Road\, Madaraka Estate\, Nairobi KE-30 00200\, Kenya SUMMARY:3rd Annual Family Research Conference X-ALT-DESC;FMTTYPE=text/html:3rd Annual Family Research C onference\nIntroduction: Dual-earner households are now the norm acros s urban and peri-urban Kenya. Yet\, public discourse still treats work and family as separate worlds. One is public and demanding. The other is priv ate and secondary. New research involving 41 working parents suggests this picture is wrong on every count. Many working parents are not failing to balance two domains. Instead\, they are absorbing the cost of a legal and institutional system that was never built to recognise the two as connecte d at all. Work itself\, the research finds\, does not sit neutrally alongs ide family life. These findings unfold across four connected themes. First \, the work-family binary itself does not hold as a stable\, shared frame. Participants hold plural\, sometimes contradictory theories of whether wo rk and family are even separable. Second\, where the ideal of balance pers ists\, parents and spouses often internalise their failure to reach it as personal. Structural conditions\, constant digital connectivity\, unsuppor ted remote and hybrid arrangements\, transfer\, hiring\, pay and posting p olicies indifferent to caregiving\, understaffing\, and thinning social su pport\, are converted into private narratives of inadequacy. Third\, the r esearch traces this displacement to its legal root: employment law’s thi n\, transactional conception of work which fails to recognise the relation ship between the work and family it purports to regulate\, leaving individ uals to bear structurally-produced strain alone. Fourth\, and most fundame ntally\, work itself is found to be capable of humanising or dehumanising the person who performs it. It can sustain capability through purpose and connection\, or erode it under structural failure\, with consequences that extend into marriage\, parenting\, and mental health. Taken together\, th ese findings suggest that a work-family balance standard\, applied uniform ly\, is not only [...] END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR