Professor Kriesberg explores in this book the many myths about the poor, the welfare dependents, and the husbandless mothers. The evidence marshalled does not support the idea that people continue on welfare generation after generation, that the children of broken families have disrupted marriages themselves, that the poor seek out public housing and public assistance because they prefer such dependency, or that husbandless mothers all have lower educational goals for their children than do married mothers. Beginning with major theoretical issues, Professor Kriesberg developed specific hypotheses about the life of the poor and the culture of poverty; the hypotheses were tested with data from a study of families in and around four public housing projects in Syracuse. Issues discussed in the book include the social worlds of the housing projects and the relations between the tenants and the residents of surrounding neighborhoods; the recruitment and selection of families into public housing; and the alternatives the female heads of families face in obtaining money for their families. Two chapters are devoted to an analysis of childrearing patterns that affect the child's later independence and educational achievements, focusing upon intergenerational processes and contemporary conditions such as housing, income, and family structure. Here the complex interplay of parental values, beliefs, and actual conduct is studied. Finally the sociological and policy implications of the findings are set forth with specific proposals concerning the reduction of poverty. This in-depth analysis of poverty with its emphasis on fatherless families will be of interest to sociologists and social workers and those concerned with poverty, employment, women's rights, civil rights, education, and urban development.

The Welfare State Reader has established itself as a vital source of outstanding original research since its original appearance in 2000. In the third edition, Pierson, Castles and Naumann have comprehensively overhauled the content, bringing it wholly up to date with contemporary discussions about this most crucial area of social and political life. The book includes seventeen new selections, all reflecting the latest thinking and research in welfare state studies. These readings are organized around contemporary debates, such as the current trajectories of, constraints on and challenges to contemporary welfare regimes, as well as evolving ideas and emergent forms that constitute the future of welfare. In particular, new readings focus on issues such as ageing populations and low fertility, climate change and global financial uncertainty, and nascent 'politics of happiness'. As in previous editions, the volume begins with a collection of readings that provide a grounding in core approaches to welfare, and each section is set in context by a new editorial introduction. As well as bringing together classic debates, The Welfare State Reader represents an invaluable guide to what is happening at the cutting edge of welfare research, giving the reader an unrivalled overview of debates surrounding the welfare state.

Although it was an important specialization in economics in the mid-twentieth century, welfare economics has received less attention in the twenty-first century. This book explores the history of welfare economics, with a view to explaining its rise and subsequent decline. Drawing on both philosophy and economics, this book offers a new and original perspective on the history of welfare economics, starting with Pigou and charting the trajectory of applied and theoretical welfare economics throughout the twentieth century. This book will be of interest to students and researchers of philosophy, economics and history of economic thought.

Teenage parenting, particularly mothering, is commonly seen as both personally and socially undesirable. Governments across the world demonstrate concern about teenage pregnancy figures, setting targets and sponsoring campaigns to lower rates of teenage pregnancy and this view is reflected across society and throughout the media.
"Teenage Pregnancy and Parenthood "explores a broad range of perspectives on pregnancy and parenting at a young age from a number of international and cultural contexts, and looks at interventions and examples of good practice. Bringing together contributions from leading international academics in the field, this book discusses amongst other topics:
- sexual health and unwanted pregnancy among adolescents
- young mothers as peer educators in school-based sex education
- teenage pregnancy and social exclusion
- the needs of young girls with emotional and behavioral problems
- teen fathers - deconstructing patriarchy and masculinity
"Teenage Pregnancy and Parenthood" explores the contexts in which the critique of young parenthood is often conducted. It draws attention to the assumptions underlying policy positions and argues that these limit an effective consideration of adolescent sexuality and gender roles in society. It is invaluable reading for academics and postgraduate students, as well as policy makers and practitioners in health, sex education, youth care and related areas.

First published in 1999, this book attempts to understand housing co-operatives in terms of their development over time and their relationships to other types of housing tenure. The book considers them within the framework of the broader co-operative movement and its role in society's overall system of production and exchange. There is an examination of the role of a form of ownership which is neither "private", nor "state" in six countries, and in some cases the fortunes of housing co-operatives seem closely to correlate with periods of political liberalization and crises, heralding a shift in ideological orientation.

This book is about the family lives of some 10,000 children and adults who live in an all-Negro public housing project in St Louis. The Pruitt-Igoe project is only one of the many environments in which urban Negro Americans lived in the 1960s, but the character of the family life there shares much with the family life of lower-class Negroes as it has been described by other investigators in other cities and at other times, in Harlem, Chicago, New Orleans, or Washington D.C. This book is primarily concerned with private life as it is lived from day to day in a federally built and supported slum. The questions, which are treated here, have to do with the kinds of interpersonal relationships that develop in nuclear families, the socialization processes that operate in families as children grow up in a slum environment, the informal relationships of children and adolescents and adults with each other, and, finally, the world views (the existential framework) arising from the life experiences of the Pruitt-Igoeans and the ways they make use of this framework to order their experiences and make sense out of them. The lives of these persons are examined in terms of life cycles. Each child there is born into a constricted world, the world of lower class, Negro existence, and as he grows he is shaped and directed by that existence through the day-to-day experiences and relationships available to him. The crucial transition from child of a family; to progenitor of a new family begins in adolescence, and for this reason the book pays particular attention to how each new generation of parents expresses the cultural and social structural forces that formed it and continue to constrain its behavior. This book, in short, is about intimate personal life in a particular ghetto setting. It does not analyze the larger institutional, social structural, and ideological forces that provide the social, economic, and political context in which lower-class Negro life is lived. These larger macro sociological forces are treated in another volume based on research in the Pruitt-Igoe community. However, this book does draw on the large body of literature on the structural position of Negroes in American society as background for its analysis of Pruitt-Igoe private life. "Lee Rainwater" is professor emeritus of sociology at Harvard University and research director of the Luxembourg Income Study. He was one of the original founders of Transaction. He has been associate editor of "Journal of Marriage and the Family" and on the review board of "Sociological Quarterly." He was written various books and in many professional journals.

This groundbreaking book shows how major shifts in federal policy are spurring local public housing authorities to demolish their high-rise, low-income developments, and replace them with affordable low-rise, mixed income communities. It focuses on Chicago, and that city's affordable housing crisis, but it provides analytical frameworks that can be applied to developments in every American city. "Where Are Poor People to Live?" provides valuable new empirical information on public housing, framed by a critical perspective that shows how shifts in national policy have devolved the U.S. welfare state to local government, while promoting market-based action as the preferred mode of public policy execution. The editors and chapter authors share a concern that proponents of public housing restructuring give little attention to the social, political, and economic risks involved in the current campaign to remake public housing. At the same time, the book examines the public housing redevelopment process in Chicago, with an eye to identifying opportunities for redeveloping projects and building new communities across America that will be truly hospitable to those most in need of assisted housing. While the focus is on affordable housing, the issues addressed here cut across the broad policy areas of housing and community development, and will impact the entire field of urban politics and planning.

Aging populations are creating tremendous pressures on social security systems throughout the world, lifting the need for reform to the top of policy agendas. Proposed reforms often have different implications for men and women. At the same time, traditional family and gender roles are changing with the decline in fertility rates and the rapid rise in women's participation in the paid labor force.

While trying to adapt social security systems to the fiscal demands of aging societies, policymakers face the compelling challenge of how to design pension reforms that achieve fair outcomes for women. Gender and Social Security Reform examines how different countries are attempting to meet this challenge. Drawing on comparative studies of European and Latin American countries along with a series of case studies of individual countries, the book provides insights into the gender dimensions of alternative designs for reform. All of the countries studied have recently reformed or are about to reform their pension systems, with a clear trend towards tightening the link between contributions and benefits in order to secure the long-term sustainability of pensions. The book also alerts policymakers to other issues: Should pension systems be gender-neutral or compensate for inequalities in paid and unpaid labor? Does compensation preserve gender discrimination? Are unisex life tables a reliable or fair redistributive tool for women? Or should annuities be linked directly to life expectancy, differentiated by sex and potentially other factors? Does a minimum pension guarantee risk compromising the principle of individual responsibility and work? How can recognition for caring work be balanced with work incentives? What can be done to help social security systems preserve freedom of choice in terms of work-family balance for women, men or the modem family unit as a whole?

In analyzing the gender implications of recent social security policies and practices this book reframes the conventional discourse of reform.

Drawing upon Foucauldian analyzes of governmentality, the authors contend that social housing must be understood according to a range of political rationalities that saturate current practice and policy. They critically address the practice of dividing social from private tenure; situating subjects such as the purpose and financing of social housing, the regulation of its providers and occupiers and its relationship to changing perceptions of private renting and owner-occupation, within the context of an argument that all housing tenures form part of an understanding of social housing. They also take up the ways in which social housing is regulated through the invocation and manipulation of obscure notions of housing 'need' and 'affordability', and finally, they consider how social housing has provided a focus for debates about sustainable communities and for concerns about anti-social behaviour. Regulating Social Housing provides a rich and insightful analysis that will be of value to legal scholars, criminologists and other social scientists with interests in housing, urban studies and contemporary forms of regulation.

This groundbreaking book shows how major shifts in federal policy are spurring local public housing authorities to demolish their high-rise, low-income developments, and replace them with affordable low-rise, mixed income communities. It focuses on Chicago, and that city's affordable housing crisis, but it provides analytical frameworks that can be applied to developments in every American city. "Where Are Poor People to Live?" provides valuable new empirical information on public housing, framed by a critical perspective that shows how shifts in national policy have devolved the U.S. welfare state to local government, while promoting market-based action as the preferred mode of public policy execution. The editors and chapter authors share a concern that proponents of public housing restructuring give little attention to the social, political, and economic risks involved in the current campaign to remake public housing. At the same time, the book examines the public housing redevelopment process in Chicago, with an eye to identifying opportunities for redeveloping projects and building new communities across America that will be truly hospitable to those most in need of assisted housing. While the focus is on affordable housing, the issues addressed here cut across the broad policy areas of housing and community development, and will impact the entire field of urban politics and planning.

One of today's most important national concerns is the projected bankruptcy of Social Security some time in the next few decades and its consequent inability to pay full benefits on time. Yet despite two decades of warnings about this, nothing is being done. The saying that Social Security is the third rail of American politics-touch it and you die-still holds true. In Social Security: False Consciousness and Crisis, John Attarian argues that the major cause of the current impasse is the misleading manner in which the program has been depicted to the public and the beliefs about Social Security which prevail as a result.Most Americans see Social Security as retirement insurance under which taxpayers pay premiums to buy benefits for old age, with their contributions being held in a trust fund which will pay guaranteed benefits which will be theirs as an earned right as America "keeps its compact between the generations." Attarian demonstrates that this false picture was deliberately fostered by Social Security officials to ensure the program's constitutionality while downplaying the power of Congress to eliminate, cut, delay, or tax benefits or deny them to certain classes of people. As the core of his argument shows, Social Security was structured and presented in this manner to the public as well so as to make it popular and politically invulnerable. While this strategy succeeded, it was inaccurate in crucial respects, and the inaccuracies have worsened as the program has aged. The resultant false consciousness about Social Security has decisively shaped the responses to the program's financial crises over the last two decades and helped preclude corrective action. Attarian attacks all of the misconceptions about Social Security point by point so that debate can proceed based on realities, not misunderstandings. He addresses as well issues surrounding Social Security reform, showing how numerous proposals now circulating have lethal faults. Most of these refuse to cut current benefits and are thereby saddled with the huge costs of transition to a new system. Others risk politicizing the stock market. Virtually all ignore the larger economic and political context that threatens to defeat their purpose. Attarian concludes with his own proposal to radically restructure the program from a universal entitlement to a floor of protection.Treating the Social Security crisis in unusually broad perspective, Attarian is critical of both the status quo and the privatization camps, and his recommendations offer an alternative to both. The book will be of interest to policy makers as well as citizens concerned about the future of Social Security.John Attarian is adjunct scholar at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy in Midland, MI. He is the author of Economism and the National Prospect."A contribution to the important discussion of Social Security's fragile future and our options to restore its health."--Dorcas R. Hardy, former Commissioner of Social Security and author of Social Insecurity: The Crisis in America's Social Security System and How to Plan Now for Your Own Financial SurvivalWell written and drawing on lots of research. Does a good job explaining the coming crisis in Social Security, particularly the often overlooked political aspects. Attarian is especially thorough in reporting how the program was misleadingly presented to the public, and on the discrepancies between the perceptions and the realities of Social Security."--A. Haewoth Robertson, The Retirement Policy Institute"As the United States (along with the rest of the developed countries) debates how to reform our pay-as-you-go retirement system and make it sustainable in an aging world, it is essential that we speak and think clearly about how we got here. We need to look critically at the dysfunctional mythology surrounding words 'trust fund,' 'social insurance,' 'earned rights,' and 'lock box.' That's just what John Attarian does in this comprehensive and critical overview of the hisotry of Social Security. It's a first rate peice of work."--Peter G. Peterson, The Blackstone Group"Nearly every historian who looks carefully at growth of Social Security both as a federal program and as a popular mythology comments at least in passing on how the artful or shall we say downright deceitful use of key terms like insurance and statutory right has to pave the way for the programs expansion. At last, John Attarian tells the full story. In comprehensive detail, he shows, blow by blow, of how Social Security's key leaders and advocates were compelled to describe the program in one way to the public and in an entirely different way to legislators and judges. America's understanding of Social Security remians confused today, even as discussion of far-reaching reforms are underway which makes this book timely indeed."--Neil Howe, Life Course Associates

The Possibility of Politics explores the power of political reform, specifically reform of the modern welfare state. Can reform be effective if limited to cautious and piecemeal interventions that avoid radicalism and revolution? Can it also avoid unwanted consequences? Will the welfare state survive in the future?

Stein Ringen views the welfare state as a large-scale experiment in political reform. To ask if the welfare state works is to ask if political reform is possible at all. By its nature, the welfare state is reform on a grand scale, for it attempts to change the circumstances individuals and families live under without changing and disrupting society itself. But is it realistic to believe a population can get together, set goals and then try to meet these goals through collective actions, specifically public policies, without causing unintended consequences and destroying the state in the process? The welfare state attempts, idealistically, to redistribute welfare without reshaping the economic processes that cause inequities in the first place. Ringen considers how well redistribution has met the test in terms of political legitimacy, its intended effects on poverty and inequality, as well as its undesired and unintended effects on economic efficiency and the quality of private life. Ultimately, does the welfare state work? Further, is the welfare state a good thing?

In considering these questions, The Possibility of Politics should be of particular value to academics and advanced students interested in political theory, public economics, social administration, and political sociology.

Stein Ringen is professor of sociology and social policy at Oxford University and a Fellow of Green College. He teaches social and political theory and research methodology for graduates in social policy, sociology, politics, economic and social history and other subjects.

This accessible work provides a 'political sociology' of welfare states in industrial societies, with both historical and contemporary perspectives. Ellison focuses on the social and political underpinnings of a number of welfare regimes and looks at the transformations they have undergone and the challenges they face. This book assesses current debates about the role of 'globalization' in welfare state change, paying particular attention to contemporary views about the capacity of embedded institutional structures to limit the effects of global economic pressures. Ellison assesses the changing nature of social policies in nine OECD countries - selected to include 'liberal, 'social democratic' and 'continental' welfare regimes. Taking labour market and pension policies as the main areas of investigation, this volume provides 'snapshots' of welfare reform in each case, charting the ways in which different regimes 'manage' the range of challenges with which they are confronted. Ultimately, the book suggests that all contemporary welfare regimes are experiencing a level of 'neoliberal drift'. As yet, this trend towards liberalization remains constrained in those countries with more 'coordinated' economies and institutionalized forms of social partnership - but the question is for how long? This book will be of great interest to students and scholars of International Politics, Sociology and Social Policy.

Modern families are economic institutions of great productivity. They contribute as much to a society's economic well-being as does worker productivity in formal markets. In "Citizens, Families, and Reform," Stein Ringen shows how long-standing inequalities of income and class are flexible and changing in post-industrial societies. Such inequalities respond to structural changes such as social mobility and to public policies such as those of the welfare state. His book is a study of the process from careful statistical analysis to specific policy recommendations.
The book draws on two strands of research, one on children and families and the other on social inequality. Both summarize detailed statistical analysis. Ringen's basic premise is that prudent social policy should start from investment in families. Progress and reform in society, such as extended access to education, tends to modify social divisions and stimulate open opportunity, particularly in the area of higher education. The book addresses the situation of children, who have a surprisingly lower standard of living than adult population groups by most measures of well-being. Ringen attributes this disparity to flaws in the distribution of power, which leads to the disenfranchisement of children as citizens. He addresses this problem by discussing children and voting rights, building a case for realizing the ideal of one person, one vote, by extending the vote to children.
Real democracies are necessarily imperfect. Ringen argues for the classical liberal theory of social progress through economic growth and equality of opportunity and warns against the "terrible temptation towards perfection." His new introduction reviews the debates sparked by the book's original publication in 1997 and suggests areas in which his arguments have been vindicated.
"Stein Ringen" is professor of sociology and social policy and fellow of Green College, University of Oxford. He has held various academic posts in government, including assistant director general in the Norwegian Ministry of Justice. He is the author of "The Possibility of Politics," to be reissued by Transaction in 2006.

In this volume, Lena Sommestad explores the significance of rural womanhood in the formation of Sweden's gender-egalitarian welfare state in the early 20th century. Drawing on a rich array of documents, photographs, and interviews with women and men, she analyzes the changing gender division of labor in dairying and illuminates the dynamic processes and debates that shaped industrial workplaces. The book demonstrates the importance of rural women's gainful labor and organized activism to Sweden's citizenship-based social policies, which enabled married women to combine childrearing with breadwinning.

The European Union's (EU) fundamental principles on free movement of persons and non-discrimination have long challenged the traditional closure of the welfare state. Although EU-wide free movement and national welfare appeared largely unproblematic before Eastern enlargement, the increased differences among EU member states in economic development and welfare provision have resulted in fears about potential welfare migration. Because rights of EU citizens were shaped to an important extent by jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice, these are often not very clearly delineated, and easily politicised. This comprehensive volume shows the normative limits of a strict non-discriminatory approach to EU citizens' access to national welfare and analyses how the Court developed its jurisprudence, partly reacting to politicisation. Although, empirically, free movement negatively impacts national welfare only under extreme conditions, it is notable that member states have adjusted their social policies in reaction to EU jurisprudence and migration pressure alike. Their heterogeneous institutions of national welfare, administration and labour markets imply for member states that they face very different opportunities and challenges in view of intra-EU migration. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of European Public Policy.

Current debates concerning the future of social security provision in advanced capitalist states have raised the issue of a citizen's basic income (CBI) as a possible reform package: a proposal based on the principles of individuality, universality and unconditionality which would ensure a minimum income guaranteed for all members of society. Implementing a CBI, would consequently entail radical reform of existing patterns of welfare delivery and would bring into question the institutionalized relationship between work and welfare. Ailsa McKay's book makes a unique and positive contribution to the CBI literature by examining the proposal from a feminist economics perspective. Gender concerns are central to any debate on the future of social security policy, in that state intervention in the field of income redistribution has differential impacts on men and women. By drawing attention to the potential a CBI has in promoting equal rights of freedom for men and women this book serves to open up the debate to incorporate a more realistic and inclusive vision of the nature of modern socio-economic relationships.

More than 900 million people currently live in urban slums and the number is growing as rapid urbanization continues in the developing world. A Home in the City urges countries to strengthen their focus on the growing urban crisis and improving the lives of slum dwellers. Proposed are specific investments and policy changes required at local and national levels to create a vibrant, equitable and productive urban environment. It underscores the need for close strategic partnerships between local authorities and organizations of the urban poor for slum upgrading and improved urban management. From adopting citywide strategies and establishing adequate and affordable infrastructure and services, to building effective public transport and constructing low-income housing, it offers valuable methods to prevent future slum formation and to improve the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers by 2020.

Packaging supportive services with housinga pressing issue for older adults The population of older adults is expected to explode in the coming years. Linking Housing and Services for Older Adults: Obstacles, Options, and Opportunities examines a crucial, complex, and often overlooked issue for policymakers and the public at large: older adults' increasing needs for housing and supportive long-term care services. As baby boomers strive to help their parents make difficult decisions about their options, pressure mounts for policymakers to develop appropriate housing and services. This book brings together respected experts to discuss the answers to difficult questions about meeting the housing and support service needs of aging adults. Linking Housing and Services for Older Adults: Obstacles, Options, and Opportunities explores in-depth the tough issues pertaining to which populations are presently being served, what their needs are, and who is being left out. You'll learn exactly what types of services are available, who is providing them, and how are they packaged. From residential care to assisted living to institutional care, this book addresses all facets of the complicated problems of providing availability to fulfill need. This important source presents insightful analysis of the total range of issues and the challenges to progress as well as offering specific recommendations to effectively offer housing and vital long-term care supportive services to older adults. Linking Housing and Services for Older Adults: Obstacles, Options, and Opportunities discusses in detail: the argument for increased development of supportive housing for older adultsand the barriers preventing it the issues related to providing a variety of housing and service options to the Medicaid population two case studies that illustrate how policies aimed at linking housing and services play out at the state and local leveland the need for strong leadership and the ability to develop key partnerships as vital aspects for success the interrelationship of factors regarding nursing home admission, the availability of subsidized housing, and Medicaid eligibility the need for care management to be holisticincluding environmental care assessment, repair, and renovation management in addition to current long-term care settings creating affordable assisted living facilities for older persons receiving Medicaid services the successful components of the national Coming Home Program four case studies emphasizing different finance and regulatory approachesproviding lessons learned for developers, state agencies, and advocates of affordable assisted living This vital educational resource is also an essential reference for local, state, and national policymakers, housing officials, and long-term care providers.

By stressing the importance of subjectivity and interpretation, social constructionism offers a different conception of reality from the traditional approach to housing policy analysis. This book provides an up-to-date review of the social constructionist perspective and considers its philosophical basis. It discusses how social problems are constructed and, in turn, how this informs policy-making. It is divided into two parts. The first section is theoretical and discusses the variety of conceptual approaches utilised within the constructionist paradigm. The second part provides a number of empirically based case studies from the UK and Australia to illustrate the different methodologies that form the social constructionist corpus. The book also evaluates both the criticisms that have been made against the social constructionist perspective and the strengths and weaknesses of constructionist methods. It therefore contributes to the development of a future research agenda for social constructionist research in housing and urban policy.

EU expansion has stoked fears that criminals from the East may abuse freedom of movement to exploit the benefit systems of richer states. This book examines the way in which physical state borders are increasingly being replaced by internal border controls in the form of state bureaucracies as a means of regulating westward migration. The work examines the postmodern effect of globalisation and how ontological anxieties contribute to securitisation and social sorting in Western countries. It discusses the changes in control societies and how targeted surveillance as a geopolitical tool leads to new digitalised mechanisms of population selection. The book presents a casestudy of Roma migrants in the UK to examine the coping strategies adopted by those targeted. The book also critically evaluates the limitations of digitalised bureaucratic systems and the dangers of reliance on virtual data and selection methods.

Since the enactment of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, it has become clear that the issues associated with welfare are now inextricably woven into the problems of low-wage work. In this volume leading commentators on the labor scene analyze poverty and welfare reform within a context of low-wage work and the contours of the labor market that welfare recipients are entering. Given the new welfare reform regime of time limits and work requirements, problems of welfare cannot be separated from problems of work, politics, organizing, and other questions of social and economic policy. Although there have been many volumes on welfare reform, the unique contribution of this work is that it brings labor into the discussio and creates a bridge between the domains of labor and welfare.

Featuring a wide geographical scope, this collection of essays surveys enterprise and welfare reforms in all the remaining four Asian communist states: China, Vietnam, Laos and North Korea. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union they can no longer place major reliance upon assistance from other "fraternal" states and have to devise their own strategies for survival. All have shown a trend towards greater reliance on market forces, though in different ways and to varying degrees.
Enterprise management has to adapt to this. In some of them entrepreneurs have become politically and socially acceptable. They may even begin to set trends for social evolution. Yet since state entreprises used to be responsible for all welfare payments to employees and their families, management reforms cannot be separated from those of welfare arrangements. Reducing an enterprise's non-commerical obligations for the sake of greater market efficiency is bound to affect welfare provision. It also reopens the role of official trade unions. How these regimes cope with these conflicting pressures are vital factors in their long-term viability.

Time is not money! If anything, it is MORE important than money. The time we have to care for one another, especially for our children and our elderly, is more precious to us than anything else in the world. Yet we have more experience accounting for money than we do for time.
In this volume, leading experts in analysis of time use from across the globe explore the interface between time use and family policy. They show how social institutions limit the choices that individuals can make about how to divide their time between paid and unpaid work. They challenge conventional surveys that offer simplistic measure of time spent in childcare or elder care. They summarize empirical evidence concerning trends in time devoted to the care of family members and debate ways of assigning a monetary value to this time.
This important book is well researched, well thought through, and well written. It will be highly regarded amongst those interested in the sociology and economics of the family, as well as those with a general interest in gender studies.

Since the enactment of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, it has become clear that the issues associated with welfare are now inextricably woven into the problems of low-wage work. This volume analyzes poverty and welfare reform within a context of low-wage work and the contours of the labor market that welfare recipients are entering. Given the new welfare regime of time limits and work requirements, problems of welfare cannot be separated from problems of work, politics, organizing, and other questions of social and economic policy. Although there have been many volumes on welfare reform, the unique contribution of this volume is that it brings labor into the discussion and creates a bridge between the domains of labor and welfare.