Women and the Economy: Family, Work, and Pay (2nd Edition)

Women and the Economy uses the tools of contemporary economics to examine different aspects of women’s lives, from the labor market to family policy and structure. Economic theory is blended with empirical research and policy issues to explore the changes in the lives of American women in the twenty-first century.

Women and the Economy—Introduction; Economics Tools and Economic Thinking; Marriage and the Family—An Economic Approach; Marriage and the Family—Economic Issues and Applications; The Economics of Fertility; Nonmarital and Teen Fertility; Women at Work; Women’s Earnings, Occupation, and Education—An Overview; The Gender Gap in Earnings: Explanations; The Gender Gap in Earnings: Methods and Evidence; Women's Employment and Earnings: Policy; Poverty, Welfare, and Women; Women, Taxes, and Social Security; Family Policy; Women in Developing Countries.

For all readers interested in the effects of rising wages for women, the economic impacts of divorce, the child quantity-quality distinction, marriage subsidies, and the childcare market.

Saul Hoffman is Chair of the Department of Economics at the University of Delaware. He received a PhD and master’s degree in Economics from the University of Michigan, and received his undergraduate degree from the University of Pennsylvania. His research interests include labor economics, economic demography and economics of the family, microeconomic theory, and the economics of welfare and poverty. He is on the research advisory panel of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, is a research associate at the Population Studies Center at the University of Pennsylvania, and was a visiting professor at the Faculté de Sciences Economiques et de Gestion at the Université Lumière in Lyon, France, in 1998.

Susan Averett is the Charles A. Dana Professor of Economics and Business and head of the Department of Economics and Business at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania. She received her PhD from the University of Colorado. Her research interests include labor and childcare economics. She is the recipient of Student Government Superior Teaching Award, the Marquis Distinguished Teaching Award, the Lennertz Prize for teaching and mentoring, and the Jones Faculty Lecture Award, and she has appeared on the Today Show to discuss her research on birth order.