No one can deny the significance attributed to the issue of reconciling work and private life by contemporary society, the EU and other international organisations. Its relevance is evident in the multifaceted nature of this topic and the need for each party to the employment contract to strike a proper balance between professional and personal responsibilities, based on the assumption that people can successfully harmonise their work with life. Following on from these considerations, this volume provides a detailed analysis of work-life balance and its regulation in a number of EU countries, emphasizing the consequences that the current economic crisis has brought about in this field.

This book analyses the most important problems and challenges of the current labour market from the point of view of the balance between the parties of the employment contract. The contributions here are related to various pressing topics, including, for example, the future of work and worker protection on an international level against the strengthening of employers’ powers. In addition, the nature and limits of employers’ power, non-competition contractual clauses and workers’ rights in the face of new communication and information technologies are also discussed. The contributors are drawn from several countries, such as Portugal, Spain, Bolivia, Italy, México and Switzerland. The book will appeal to lawyers, legal experts, human resources experts, economist, judges, academia, and staff from companies and trade unions, and employers’ representation. The volume features insights and contributions in different languages, with chapters in Spanish (12), English (4) and Portuguese (5).

This collective work has the aim to bring together several contributions by scholars from different Countries through the leitmotif of the analysis of work through digital platforms, also in the light of the latest proposal for a European Union directive. The first section focuses on the analysis of digital platform work, in various aspects, including issues concerning the use of artificial intelligence. The second section analyses issues related to the development of workers’ rights through digital platforms. In the third section, the authors made considerations on the intervention of the draft directive on qualification.

The work-life balance of fathers has increasingly come under scrutiny in political and academic debates and this collection brings together qualitative and quantitative analyses to explore their approaches to reconciling paid work and care responsibilities.