Working Women in America - Softcover

This study of the dynamic growth in women's labour force participation aims to provide an understanding of the actual experience of working women at the end of the millennium. It offers a broad perspective on the diversity of women and their work, and it raises the need to rethink ideas concerning work, family and gender roles in order to help solve women's work and family dilemmas. It utilizes a structural approach to rethink these ideas and resolve these dilemmas. The book's central argument is that to understand the position of women in the work world, one must analyze women's situation in the economy, the family, education, and the polity - in short, within society as large - because these various social institutions connect, reflect and influence one another. The authors begin with an historical perspective on women at work which recognizes the importance of the economic and legal dimensions of women's work lives.