Time bind

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This article is about a sociological concept. For educational discipline, see General semantics.

Time bind is a concept introduced by sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild in 1997 with the publication of her The Time Bind: When Work Becomes Home and Home Becomes Work. This concept refers to the blurring distinction between work and home social environments.

Hochschild found in her research that although every mother and nearly every father said "family comes first," few of these working parents questioned their long hours or took the company up on chances for flextime, paternity leave, or other "family friendly" policies. Her conclusion is that the roles of home and work had reversed: work was offering stimulation, guidance, and a sense of belonging, while home had become the stressful place in which there was too much to do in too little time.