As populations age around the world, increasing efforts are required from both families and governments to secure care and support for older and disabled people.At the same time both women and men are expected to increase and lengthen their participation in paid work, which makes combining caring and working a burning issue for social and employment policy and economic sustainability. International discussion about the reconciliation of work and care has previously focused mostly on childcare. Combining paid work and family care widens the debate, bringing into discussion the experiences of those providing support to their partners, older relatives and disabled or seriously ill children. The book analyses the situations of these working carers in Nordic, liberal and East Asian welfare systems. Highlighting what can be learned from individual experiences, the book analyses the changing welfare and labour market policies which shape the lives of working carers in Finland, Sweden, Australia, England, Japan and Taiwan.

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In this bold new book, Linda McClain offers a liberal and feminist theory of the relationships between family life and politics--a topic dominated by conservative thinkers. McClain agrees that stable family lives are vital to forming persons into capable, responsible, self-governing citizens. But what are the public values at stake when we think about families, and what sorts of families should government recognize and promote? Arguing that family life helps create the virtues and character required for citizenship, McClain shows that the connection between family self-government and democratic self-government does not require the deep-laid gender inequality that has historically accompanied it. Examining controversial issues in family law and policy--among them, the governmental promotion of heterosexual marriage and the denial of marriage to same-sex couples, the regulation of family life through welfare policy, and constitutional rights to reproductive freedom--McClain argues for a political theory of the family that embraces equality, defends rights as facilitating responsibility, and supports families in ways that respect men's and women's capacities for self-government.

Central to all our lives, work affects our status in the state, the family, and the economy. This comprehensive reader examines the myriad ways in which work—whether it is well-paid, unpaid, or underpaid—profoundly influences our roles in both the public and private spheres. Jacqueline Goodman has selected a key set of essays that examine influential arguments on such central themes as (1) the origins of the gendered division of labor; (2) historical trends and economic transformations that affect and are affected by women's position in market and non-market work; (3) the effects of occupational and job segregation by sex on status, pay, and promotion; (4) the ways in which formal and informal organizational culture shape and in turn are shaped by gender in professional and managerial positions; (5) class consciousness among wage-earning men and women; (6) the different forms of gender discrimination that women and men face in the workplace; (7) the problems working parents face and the ways in which different societies, subcultures, and genders cope; and (8) alternative approaches to improving the lives of working women and their families in the global economy. With its rich interdisciplinary perspective, this text is ideal for courses in sociology, political science, anthropology, and women's and gender studies. Contributions by: Amel Adib, Kevin Bales, Dorothy Sue Cobble, Sharon M. Collins, Ruth Schwartz Cowan, Susan Eisenberg, Ashley English, Yen Le Espiritu, Anne Fausto-Sterling, Nancy Folbre, Carla Freeman, Michele Ruth Gamburd, Jacqueline Goodman, Janet C. Gornick, Yvonne Guerrier, Luigi Guiso, Shannon Harper, Heidi Hartmann, Ariane Hegewisch, Arlie Russell Hochschild, Pierrette Hondagneu-Sotelo, Jacqueline Jones, Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Ivy Kennelly, Alice Kessler-Harris, Michael Kimmel, Eleanor Leacock, Judith Lorber, Susan E. Martin, Marcia K.Meyers, Ferdinando Monte, Martha C. Nussbaum, Jennifer Pierce, Pun Ngai, Barbara Reskin, Tracey Reynolds, Leslie Salzinger, Paola Sapienza, Joan W. Scott, Tyson Smith, Margaret Talbot, Louise A. Tilly, Christine L. Williams, Muhammad Yunus, and Luigi Zingales. , , ,

In the last decade, the topic of motherhood has emerged as a distinct and established field of scholarly inquiry. A cursory review of motherhood research reveals that hundreds of scholarly articles have been published on almost every motherhood theme imaginable. The Encyclopedia of Motherhood is a collection of approximately 700 articles in a three-volume, A-to-Z set exploring major topics related to motherhood, from geographical, historical and cultural entries to anthropological and psychological contributions. In human society, few institutions are as important as motherhood, and this unique encyclopedia captures the interdisciplinary foundation of the subject in one convenient reference. The Encyclopedia is a comprehensive resource designed to provide an understanding of the complexities of motherhood for academic and public libraries, and is written by academics and institutional experts in the social and behavioural sciences.

Presenting empirical research on the lives of care workers, sex workers, au pairs, and their families, this anthology is a unique study of gender and migration. Written by researchers from Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden, the account brings the Nordic example to the international debate on how globalization affects and commercializes women's traditional work and analyzes the social and legal migration regulations. Uncovering some uncomfortable facts about new ethnic hierarchies, social class, and gender discrimination in these countries, this book is an essential read for those interested in migration, care work, and gender issues.

This book is intended for for use in upper level undergraduate and graduate courses in social work with the family, social work with the elderly and social work with children.

Highlighting what can be learned from individual experiences, the book analyses the changing welfare and labour market policies which shape the lives of working carers in Finland, Sweden, Australia, England, Japan and Taiwan.

The last half-century has witnessed substantial change in the opportunities and rewards available to men and women in the workplace. While the gender pay gap narrowed and female labor force participation rose dramatically in recent decades, some dimensions of gender inequality—most notably the division of labor in the family—have been more resistant to change, or have changed more slowly in recent years than in the past. These trends suggest that one of two possible futures could lie ahead: an optimistic scenario in which gender inequalities continue to erode, or a pessimistic scenario where contemporary institutional arrangements persevere and the gender revolution stalls. In The Declining Significance of Gender?, editors Francine Blau, Mary Brinton, and David Grusky bring together top gender scholars in sociology and economics to make sense of the recent changes in gender inequality, and to judge whether the optimistic or pessimistic view better depicts the prospects and bottlenecks that lie ahead. It examines the economic, organizational, political, and cultural forces that have changed the status of women and men in the labor market. The contributors examine the economic assumption that discrimination in hiring is economically inefficient and will be weeded out eventually by market competition. They explore the effect that family-family organizational policies have had in drawing women into the workplace and giving them even footing in the organizational hierarchy. Several chapters ask whether political interventions might reduce or increase gender inequality, and others discuss whether a social ethos favoring egalitarianism is working to overcome generations of discriminatory treatment against women. Although there is much rhetoric about the future of gender inequality, The Declining Significance of Gender? provides a sustained attempt to consider analytically the forces that are shaping the gender revolution. Its wide-ranging analysis of contemporary gender disparities will stimulate readers to think more deeply and in new ways about the extent to which gender remains a major fault line of inequality.