Women's Work in Britain and France is a ground-breaking retheorization of what constitutes 'progress' in gender relations. The book shows that French women, although having more full-time and continuous careers and greater social policy support, retain as great a responsibility for unpaid domestic and caring work as their British counterparts. It replaces the conventional focus upon encouraging women's increased insertion into employment as the principal strategy for achieving progress in gender relations with a new focus on changing men's work patterns.

This title was first published in 2000: One of the most significant features to emerge in the world of work during the past decade has been the change from long-term employment, often with one employer, to a pattern of short-term, flexible working arrangements involving short-term contracts, frequent spells of unemployment, rapid movement into and out of employment and greater labour mobility. This text examines the social and economic consequences of this employment flexibility. The book derives from the 2nd Anglo-French Conference on the Transferability of Social Policy held in 1998, which focused on the problems created by employment flexibility and the appropriate policy responses, it also presents commentaries on the consequences of flexibility in Britain and France. It brings together British and French perspectives on such policy questions as the impact on families and their ability to plan in an atmosphere of economic insecurity, the manner in which French and British welfare systems are adapting, the impact on citizens' rights, the need, in both countries, to make pension arrangements more adaptable, and the potential for a "European citizenship" approach to the problem.

Women, Work and Family is a classic of women's history and is still the only text on the history of women's work in England and France, providing an excellent introduction to the changing status of women from 1750 to the present.

This volume brings together well-known scholars from a wide range of disciplines to provide a superb analytical and historical overview of how state policy has affected established economic and labour market systems in France and Britain. The contributors to this book explore some crucial questions: * how 'dirigiste' was the French state in reality * why was state intervention more acceptable in France than in Britain * how do the differences in state intervention help to explain the respective economic performances of the two countries since the second world war? The book draws on hitherto unpublished primary research by scholars in economic and social history, industrial relations, economics, law, political science, sociology and social policy. As such, it is a timely and welcome intervention into debates concerning the politics of modern labour markets specifically and the role of the state in economic modernization more widely. It will have strong appeal to researchers and students in several discplines.

Examines the role of women and men in the economy of the future. The diverse chapters share a common concern for the effect of public policies on women's work both in the market place and in the home. Empirical studies offer models for further research in the field of women in the economy.

A comparative analysis of social policies in Britain and France between 1914 and 1945.

The work patterns of European women from 1700 onwards fluctuate in relation to ideological, demographic, economic and familial changes. In A History of European Women's Work, Deborah Simonton draws together recent research and methodological developments to take an overview of trends in women's work across Europe from the so-called pre-industrial period to the present. Taking the role of gender and class in defining women's labour as a central theme, Deborah Simonton compares and contrasts the pace of change between European countries, distinguishing between Europe-wide issues and local developments.

Introduction : gender and the reconstruction of European working-class history / Laura L. Frader and Sonya O. Rose -- Gender and uneven working-class formation in the Irish linen industry / Jane Gray -- What price a weaver's dignity? Gender inequality and the survival of home-based production in industrial France / Tessie P. Liu -- The gendering of skill as historical process : the case of French knitters in industrial Troyes, 1880-1939 / Helen Harden Chenut -- Consumption, production, and gender : the sewing machine in nineteenth-century France / Judith G. Coffin -- Engendering work and wages : the French labor movement and the family wage / Laura L. Frader -- Women "of a very low type" : crossing racial boundaries in imperial Britain / Laura Tabili -- Protective labor legislation in nineteenth-century Britain : gender, class, and the liberal state / Sonya O. Rose -- Social policy, body politics : recasting the social question in Germany, 1875-1900 / Kathleen Canning -- Republican ideology, gender, and class : France, 1860s-1914 / Judith F. Stone -- Manhood, womanhood, and the politics of class in Britain, 1790-1845 / Anna Clark -- Rational and respectable men : gender, the working class, and citizenship in Britain, 1850-1867 / Keith McClelland -- Class and gender at loggerheads in the early Soviet state : who should organize the female proletariat and how? / Elizabeth A. Wood -- The heroic man and the ever-changing woman : gender and politics in European communism, 1917-1950 / Eric D. Weitz.

Europe's work force is subject to a dual convergence process: from the transnational spread of new management practices and from the political force of European union. Trade union rights, hours of work, working practices and training provisions are all being subjected to these twin pressures. Work and Employment in Europe assesses both the convergent and divergent developments taking place at both pan-European and cross-national levels. Comparisons of British and French retailing, German and Italian manufacturing jobs, German and British youth training schemes, and small business strategies of Britain, France and Italy show simultaneous elements of convergence and national specifity.

This bibliographical guide contains 10,000 references to the economic and social history of 30 European countries during the period 1700-1939. More than 3000 periodicals have been consulted to obtain references, as well as books, edited collections and conference proceedings. The information is listed in categories such as industry, agriculture, finance, migration, labour conditions, urban communities and organizations. Full publication details are included, so that references may be located easily.