Dual-Earner Families
International Perspectives
- Suzan Lewis - Middlesex University London, UK
- Dafna Izraeli - Bar-Ilan University, Israel
- Helen M Hootsmans - Consultant, Amersfoort, Netherlands
In particular the book explores the ways in which dual-earner couples in these different contexts are reconstructing gender and family roles to balance the demands of work and the family.
`As corporations struggle with the development of policy that is appropriate for their global operations, this book should provide some welcome insights into the needs that working family members are expressing on an international scale.' - Work Times
`The book clearly demonstrates the importance of avoiding ethnocentric analyses, while providing crossnational insights about the opportunities, pressures and potential `agendas for change' for dual earners. A most informative and topical volume, it makes interesting reading for those concerned with developments in the family, with changing patterns of work and employment, and with issues of gender and gender equality.' - IIRA Bulletin
`Drawing on material from many parts of the world this is an essential contribution to the debate about gender and role relationships.' - Journal of the Institute of Health Education
`essential reading for those concerned with developments in the family, with changing patterns of work and employment and with issues of gender and gender equality.' - American Sociological Association Newsletter
`This edited collection of 13 articles on the state of dual-earner families in several nations is probably the best available review summary of empirical studies on this topic. Each chapter is filled with data, and the international perspective is informative as it shows how different cultural and economic conditions have produced both the same and unique problems for the wives in this new family structure.... There is a wealth of information here which questions whether the nuclear dual-earner family is an ideal worth pursuit.' - Journal of Marriage and the Family
`this volume performs a valuable function by expanding the scope of existing literature.... This book will be a valuable resource for scholars interested in policy.' - Family Relations
`an important contribution to cross-national research by highlighting similarities and differences of social policies and norms of behaviour, and their impact on shaping women's options.... a valuable contribution to clarifying the current problems and prospects faced by working women, while indicating the wider implications for the public agenda.... relevance to many audiences.' - ndustrial Relations Journal
`The book effectively brings to life the problems encountered by dual-earner couples trying to combine the demands of domestic labour and paid employment. The editors successfully strike a balance between differences and similarities in context and in response to these problems. They examine change over time as well as continuity.... All the studies also make a contribution to the growing literature on the nature of the inter-dependence of decisions on the division of domestic labour (including care of children and the elderly) and those concerning employment outside the household. The strategies discussed for coping with the demands of employment and domestic work are wide ranging.... Lewis et al provide a useful way of moving beyond a narrowly Western view of the situation of dual-earners and include a discussion of future possibilities as well as past influences.' - Sociology
