The Second Shift
Working Families and the Revolution at Home
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4.0 • 4 Ratings
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
An updated edition of a standard in its field that remains relevant more than thirty years after its original publication.
Over thirty years ago, sociologist and University of California, Berkeley professor Arlie Hochschild set off a tidal wave of conversation and controversy with her bestselling book, The Second Shift. Hochschild's examination of life in dual-career housholds finds that, factoring in paid work, child care, and housework, working mothers put in one month of labor more than their spouses do every year. Updated for a workforce that is now half female, this edition cites a range of updated studies and statistics, with an afterword from Hochschild that addresses how far working mothers have come since the book's first publication, and how much farther we all still must go.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
As more women work outside the home (54% in 1986) more tensions arise within their families. In this study of two-career parents, Hochschild, professor of sociology at UC Berkeley and herself a dual-career parent, identifies as ``second shift'' the domestic activity that occupies parents before they go to and after they return from office or shop. Conducted from 1981-1988, her interviews with working parents with children under age six reveal the inner lives of these families. We hear from women who are lawyers, executives, word processors, garment pattern cutters--and from their husbands, baby-sitters, friends and neighbors. There is agreement as to the difficulty of both parents working full time and raising children well; however, the perceptions of which partner shoulders prime responsibility vary. Even in self-perceived egalitarian couples, inequity appears, with women generally spending much more time than men on housework and childcare. This well-researched popular sociology book is presented with style and sympathy.
