The Second Shift: Working Parents and the Revolution in the Home - Softcover

Anne Hochschild, Arlie Russell; Machung

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0749910186 ISBN 13: 9780749910181

Publisher: Piatkus Books, 1990

Synopsis

In this landmark study, sociologist Arlie Hochschild takes us into the homes of two-career parents to observe what really goes on at the end of the "work day." Overwhelmingly, she discovers, it's the working mother who takes on the second shift.

Hochschild finds that men share housework equally with their wives in only twenty percent of dual-career families. While many women accept this inequity in order to keep peace, they tend to suffer from chronic exhaustion, low sex drive, and more frequent illness as a result. The ultimate cost is the forfeited health and happiness of both partners, and often the survival of the marriage itself.

With a new afterword by the author, this groundbreaking study is as relevant today as when it was first published.

About this title

From 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.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

A sociological study of the two-career family. Hochschild conducted detailed interviews and home observations of 50 working couples raising children under six years of age to see how they balanced careers, household, and child-rearing tasks. The results yield no surprises. As we already know, women do the bulk of the housework and child care in addition to their outside jobs. Men contribute in varying degrees, but, in general help out less in the home. Couples are either traditional, transitional, or egalitarian, based on the way they divide these responsibilities and balance the power in their relationships. Phillip Blumstein and Pepper Schwartz's American Couples: Money, Work, Sex (LJ 10/15/83), as well as numerous articles, have told us these things already, but social science, women's studies, and public library collections may want to add this book. The extensive bibliography is quite useful.
- Barbara M. Bibel, Oakland P.L., Cal.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Piatkus Books
• Publication date: 1990
• ISBN 10: 0749910186
• ISBN 13: 9780749910181
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 336