Provides the first major effort to test the rules and regulations that underlie current practices in union elections and, at the same time, explores the role played by the National Labor Relations Board in regulating these elections. The book reports the findings of an empirical field study of thirty-one union representation elections involving over 1,000 employees to determine their pre-campaign attitudes, voting intent, actual vote, and the effect of the campaign on voting. It focuses on campaign issues, unlawful campaigning, working conditions, demographic factors, job-related variables, and other topics.

JULIUS G. GETMAN is professor of law at Stanford and Indiana Universities.

STEPHEN B. GOLDBERG is professor of law at Northwestern University.

JEANNE B. HERMAN is associate professor of organizational behavior at the Graduate School of Management, Northwestern University.

“Low-Wage Work in the Wealthy World is an exceptionally valuable book for scholars, policy makers, and general readers. An outstanding cross-country group of scholars use a powerful comparative methodology to examine the size, causes, and consequences of low-wage labor markets in the United States and five European countries. These analyses reveal the complexity of the subject, but make it very clear that the fact that the United States has a larger low-wage labor market than any of these countries is the result of policies and institutions, not, as many economists assume, an inevitable tradeoff between job quality and the number of jobs. After all, these analysts show, global competition affects all economies, but low-wage workers vary from 25 percent of the U.S. work force to 8.5 percent of Denmark’s.”
—Ray Marshall, former U.S. Secretary of Labor and Audre and Bernard Rapoport Centennial Chair in Economics and Public Affairs, University of Texas at Austin 

“Low-Wage Work in the Wealthy World is poised to become the definitive study of low-paid employment in rich countries. This first-rate team of researchers, assembled by the Russell Sage Foundation, pairs an innovative research design—the systematic comparison of five low-paying industries across six high-income countries—with meticulous empirical work. The study incorporates multiple dimensions of low-paid work, blending qualitative and quantitative indicators, to produce an often-surprising portrait of variation across six democracies. yet these researchers’ larger contribution is their assessment of the institutional underpinnings of the prevalence, nature, and effects of low-paying work. They persuasively establish that several institutions ‘matter,’ including industrial relations systems, minimum wages, employment and product market regulations, and diverse social policies targeted on workers. Labor market scholars and policymakers everywhere will be challenged to consider the ways in which country-specific institutional reforms could reduce the incidence of low-paid work, raise its quality, and lessen its problematic consequences.”
—Janet Gornick, director, Luxembourg Income Study, and professor of political science and sociology, Graduate Center, CUNY

As global flows of goods, capital, information, and people accelerate competitive pressure on businesses throughout the industrialized world, firms have responded by reorganizing work in a variety of efforts to improve efficiency and cut costs. In the United States, where minimum wages are low, unions are weak, and immigrants are numerous, this has often lead to declining wages, increased job insecurity, and deteriorating working conditions for workers with little bargaining power in the lower tiers of the labor market. Low-Wage Work in the Wealthy World builds on an earlier Russell Sage Foundation study (Low-Wage America) to compare the plight of low-wage workers in the United States to five European countries—Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom—where wage supports, worker protections, and social benefits have generally been stronger. By examining low-wage jobs in systematic case studies across five industries, this groundbreaking international study goes well beyond standard statistics to reveal national differences in the quality of low-wage work and the well being of low-wage workers.

The United States has a high percentage of low-wage workers—nearly three times more than Denmark and twice more than France. Since the early 1990s, however, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Germany have all seen substantial increases in low-wage jobs. While these jobs often entail much the same drudgery in Europe and the United States, quality of life for low-wage workers varies substantially across countries. The authors focus their analysis on the “inclusiveness” of each country’s industrial relations system, including national collective bargaining agreements and minimum-wage laws, and the generosity of social benefits such as health insurance, pensions, family leave, and paid vacation time—which together sustain a significantly higher quality of life for low-wage workers in some countries.

Investigating conditions in retail sales, hospitals, food processing, hotels, and call centers, the book’s industry case studies shed new light on how national institutions influence the way employers organize work and shape the quality of low-wage jobs. A telling example: in the United States and several European nations, wages and working conditions of front-line workers in meat processing plants are deteriorating as large retailers put severe pressure on prices, and firms respond by employing low-wage immigrant labor. But in Denmark, where unions are strong, and, to a lesser extent, in France, where the statutory minimum wage is high, the low-wage path is blocked, and firms have opted instead to invest more heavily in automation to raise productivity, improve product quality, and sustain higher wages. However, as Low-Wage Work in the Wealthy World also shows, the European nations’ higher level of inclusiveness is increasingly at risk. “Exit options,” both formal and informal, have emerged to give employers ways around national wage supports and collectively bargained agreements. For some jobs, such as room cleaners in hotels, stronger labor relations systems in Europe have not had much impact on the quality of work.

Low-Wage Work in the Wealthy World offers an analysis of low-wage work in Europe and the United States based on concrete, detailed, and systematic contrasts. Its revealing case studies not only provide a human context but also vividly remind us that the quality and incidence of low-wage work is more a matter of national choice than economic necessity and that government policies and business practices have inevitable consequences for the quality of workers’ lives.

JÉRÔME GAUTIÉ is professor of economics at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.

JOHN SCHMITT is senior economist with the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C.

CONTRIBUTORS: Eileen Appelbaum, Rosemary Batt, Peter Berg, Annette Bernhardt, Gerhard Bosch, Francoise Carre, Laura Dresser, Jacob Eskildsen, Damian Grimshaw, Klaus G. Grunert, Karen Jaehrling, Susan James, Caroline Lloyd, Geoff Mason, Ken Mayhew, Philippe Mehaut, Philip Moss,  Wiemer Salverda, Chris Tillly, Marc Van Der Meer, Maarten Van Klaveren, Achim Vanselow, Dorothea Voss-Dahm, Chris Warhurst, Claudia Weinkopf, Niels Westergaard-Nielsen.

A Volume in the RSF Case Studies of Job Quality in Advanced Economies

Age discrimination and its corollary, mandatory retirement, are modern legal issues, barely a generation old. In this concise and readable report, Lawrence Friedman explores the apparently sudden emergence of a field of law that pertains mainly to the elderly and middle-aged.

Friedman traces the brief but fascinating social, legislative, and judicial history of age discrimination law and of the laws addressing mandatory retirement. Both histories contain paradoxes and contradictions; both seem simultaneously to make an issue of "age" and to demand a kind of age neutrality, reflecting broad recent changes in American culture. Both histories are intricately bound up with other legal issues—age discrimination with race and sex discrimination; mandatory retirement with the development of pension plans and other social insurance systems. Friedman speculates on the impact of these new laws, illuminating through his analysis the complex phenomenon of "legalization," or the penetration of legal norms into ever more areas of life.

Finally, Friedman offers a provocative conclusion in which he suggests that laws on age discrimination and retirement—laws that appear to have a less extensive social background than one would expect—may in fact be "stand-in" laws for vague but powerful social norms not yet recognized in the legal system.

Your Time Will Come is the first new volume in a special paperback series entitled Social Research Perspectives: Occasional Reports on Current Topics. These Perspectives represent a revival of the Social Science Frontiers series published by the Foundation from 1969 to 1977 and will again offer short, timely, and accessible reports on various aspects of social science research.

LAWRENCE M. FRIEDMAN is Marion Rice Kirkwood Professor of Law at Stanford University.

A Volume in the the Russell Sage Foundation's Social Science Perspectives Series

"This rigorous but readable collection of essays offers penetrating analyses of the changes in earnings and working conditions over the past generation, along with diverse proposals for addressing the challenges of change. These essays are a valuable point of reference for policies designed to improve the well-being of American workers."
-WILLIAM A. GALSTON, University of Maryland

"Few people know more, care more, or think more practically about the struggles and aspirations of the working poor than David Ellwood and the authors of this volume. This book is a clear and eloquent call for a national commitment to a simple moral proposition: Americans who work ought not to be poor. The authors offer remedies that cut through the ideological barriers and political bickering that so often block the quest for solutions. May both parties, and all citizens, take this book to heart."
-E.J. DIONNE, Author of Why Americans Hate Politics

The nature of work in the United States is changing dramatically, as new technologies, a global economy, and more demanding investors combine to create a far more competitive marketplace. Corporate efforts to respond to these new challenges have yielded mixed results. Headlines about instant millionaires and innovative e-businesses mingle with coverage of increasing job insecurity and record wage gaps between upper management and hourly workers. A Working Nation tracks the profound implications the changing workplace has had for all workers and shows who the real economic winners and losers have been in the past twenty-five years.

A Working Nation sorts fact from fiction about the new relationship between workers and firms, and addresses several critical issues: Who are the real winners and losers in this new economy? Has the relationship between workers and firms really been transformed? How have employees become more integrated into or disconnected from corporate strategies and performance? Should government step into this new economic reality and how should it intervene?

Among the topics investigated, David T. Ellwood explores and explains the apparent paradox between the steady rise in per capita national income and the stagnant wages of middle- and working-class workers. Douglas Kruse and Joseph Blasi study relative changes in long-term vs. temporary work, and evaluate the introduction of profit-sharing schemes and high performance workplace programs. William A. Niskanen and Rebecca M. Blank, both former members of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, offer their perspectives on what direction government might take to make this a working nation for everyone. Though Niskanen and Blank take alternative approaches, they both conclude that the primary policy emphasis ought to be on the problems of the least skilled more than on inequality per se, and that a focus on childhood education and tax supports for low-income working families should be of primary concern.

A Working Nation paints a compelling and surprisingly consistent picture of today's workplace. While the booming economy has created millions of new jobs, it has also lead to an alarmingly unbalanced system of rewards that puts less-skilled, and many middle-class, workers at risk. This book is essential reading for those seeking the most efficient answers to the challenges and opportunities of the evolving economy.

DAVID T. ELLWOOD is Lucius N. Littauer Professor of Political Economy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. He is also director of the Aspen Domestic Strategy Group.

REBECCA M. BLANK was a member of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Clinton. She is Henry Carter Adams Collegiate Professor of Public Policy, dean of the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, and professor of economics at the University of Michigan.

JOSEPH BLASI is professor of sociology at the School of Management and Labor Relations, Rutgers University.

DOUGLAS KRUSE is professor of economics at the School of Management and Labor Relations, Rutgers University. He is also research associate  of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

WILLIAM A. NISKANEN was a member of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Reagan and is chairman of the Cato Institute.

KAREN LYNN-DYSON is associate director of the Aspen Institute’s Domestic Strategy Group.

Winner of the 2007 Richard A. Lester Prize for Outstanding Book in Labor Economics and Industrial Relations

"[Higher Ground] is valuable for what it tells us not only about strategies to fight poverty, but also about how to generate evidence on strategies to fight poverty."
-INDUSTRIAL & LABOR RELATIONS REVIEW

"Higher Ground describes the results from the New Hope demonstration project in Milwaukee, one of the most creative social experiments of the past twenty- five years. It tells how New Hope was designed to help participants move into jobs, retain health insurance, and find effective child care. While not all the results of the program were positive, they do show that good policies can make a difference in providing economic stability to low-income families. The les sons from New Hope, described in this book, should be part the current public discussion. This is a book that students, researchers, and policy analysts will all find useful."
-REBECCA M. BLANK, Joan and Sanford Weill Dean of Public Policy, Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan

"New Hope was an ambitious experiment in helping the poor and near-poor. Higher Ground brings out its full significance and potential, especially by showing the effects on families and children. Greg J. Duncan, Aletha C. Huston, and Thomas S. Weisner make visible what rebuilding the welfare state around employment might mean."
-LAWRENCE M. MEAD, professor of politics, New York University

"Higher Ground puts the word 'hope' back into the debate about poverty, offering compelling evidence that government can make a difference in the lives of the poor. While others sought to 'end welfare as we know it,' the architects of New Hope had a grander vision, to end poverty as we know it. New Hope restored dignity and rewarded work, and its impact extended to the next generation."
-KATHRYN EDIN, visiting professor of public policy, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

During the 1990s, growing demands to end chronic welfare dependency culminated in the 1996 federal “welfare-to-work” reforms. But regardless of welfare reform, the United States has always been home to a large population of working poor—people who remain poor even when they work and do not receive welfare. In a concentrated effort to address the problems of the working poor, a coalition of community activists and business leaders in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, launched New Hope, an experimental program that boosted employment among the city’s poor while reducing poverty and improving children’s lives. In Higher Ground, Greg Duncan, Aletha Huston, and Thomas Weisner provide a compelling look at how New Hope can serve as a model for national anti-poverty policies.

New Hope was a social contract—not a welfare program—in which participants were required to work a minimum of thirty hours a week in order to be eligible for earnings supplements and health and child care subsidies. All participants had access to career counseling and temporary community service jobs. Drawing on evidence from surveys, public records of employment and earnings, in-depth interviews, and ethnographic observation, Higher Ground tells the story of this ambitious three-year social experiment and evaluates how participants fared relative to a control group. The results were highly encouraging. Poverty rates declined among families that participated in the program. Employment and earnings increased among participants who were not initially working full-time, relative to their counterparts in a control group. For those who had faced just one significant barrier to employment (such as a lack of access to child care or a spotty employment history), these gains lasted years after the program ended. Increased income, combined with New Hope’s subsidies for child care and health care, brought marked improvements to the well-being and development of participants’ children. Enrollment in child care centers increased, and fewer medical needs went unmet. Children performed better in school and exhibited fewer behavioral problems, and gains were particularly dramatic for boys, who are at the greatest risk for poor academic performance and behavioral disorders.

As America takes stock of the successes and shortcomings of the Clinton-era welfare reforms, the authors convincingly demonstrate why New Hope could be a model for state and national policies to assist the working poor. Evidence based and insightfully written, Higher Ground illuminates how policymakers can make work pay for families struggling to escape poverty.

GREG J. DUNCAN is the Edwina S. Tarry Professor of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University and a faculty fellow at the Institute for Policy Research.

ALETHA C. HUSTON is the Priscilla Pond Flawn Regents Professor of Child Development in the department of human ecology at the University of Texas, Austin and associate director of the Population Research Center.

THOMAS S. WEISNER is professor of anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles.

"Company Doctor is a distressing cautionary tale that should be read by anyone professional or otherwise- employed by a large complex organization. On one hand, it alerts us to the ways in which the fundamental tenets of modern medicine, and by implication of other professions, can, in a corporate environment, mutate to serve employers' overridding interest in controlling workers and maximizing profits. On the other hand, the book also indirectly offers hope: if the social and legal context of professional work is responsible for the breakdown of professional ethical codes, then reform may be possible by changing that context."
-WILLIAM J. SONNENSTUHL, Industrial and Labor Relations Review

"Elaine Draper delivers a timely and probing examination of the conflicting interests of physicians who serve two masters: their patients and their employers. Her interviews reveal that fidelity, privacy, and trust are not just abstract principles, but deeply felt (though imperfectly realized) obligations. Draper's cross-disciplinary background lets her weave in-depth social science with careful legal analysis to provide an arresting picture of a topic-professional conflicts of interest-that has emerged as one of the most troubling issues of our time, not just for doctors but for all professionals ... and their clients."
-ALEXANDER M. CAPRON, University Professor, Henry W. Bruce Professor of Equity, and Professor of Law and Medicine, University of Southern California

"Given that today's world is one of increasing professionalization, but also of increasing corporate/bureaucratic conformity, there is much to be learned from the professional physicians who work for large corporations, or 'company doctors.' Professor Draper has done an impressive job of doing that learning and of sharing the relevant lessons with the rest of us. Her book provides insights not just into the doctors' own perceptions doing so in rich and well-written ways-but also into the deeper power of structural and organizational factors that the doctors often fail to recognize or acknowledge. As a result, the book is valuable not just for what it tells us about this important group of doctors but for what it tells us about the challenges of trust, expertise, and professional responsibility, and about the nature of the increasingly interdependent society we all seem destined to inhabit."
-WILLIAM R. FREUDENBURG, Dehlsen Professor of Environment and Society and Professor of Sociology, Environmental Studies Program, University of California, Santa Barbara

"Professor Draper has provided an in-depth, thoroughly researched and engaging look into a central issue of our times-can physicians maintain medical professionalism as employees of rich and powerful corporations? While this book specifically examines the field of contemporary U.S. occupational medicine in an increasingly corporatized overall American medical system, the book, through the example of this bellwether specialty, really applies to and informs the debates about the entire U.S. health care enterprise. If you are involved in that debate or affected by it-read this book."
-RICHARD A. LIPPIN, M.D., FACOEM, Former Corporate Medical Director, ARCO Chemical Company

To limit the skyrocketing costs of their employees' health insurance, companies such as Dow, Chevron, and IBM, as well as many large HMOs, have increasingly hired physicians to supervise the medical care they provide. As Elaine Draper argues in The Company Doctor, company doctors are bound by two conflicting ideals: serving the medical needs of their patients while protecting the company's bottom line. Draper analyzes the advent of the corporate physician both as an independent phenomenon, and as an index of contemporary culture, reaching startling conclusions about the intersection of corporate culture with professional autonomy.

Drawing on over 100 interviews with company physicians, scientists, and government and labor officials, as well as historical, legal, and statistical sources and medical trade association data, Draper presents an illuminating overview of the social context and meaning of professional work in corporations. Draper finds that while medical journals, speeches, and ethical codes proclaim the independent professional judgment of corporate physicians, the company doctors she interviewed often expressed anguish over the tightrope they must walk between their patients' health and the corporate oversight they face at every turn. Draper dissects the complex position occupied by company doctors to explore broad themes of doctor-patient trust, employee loyalty, privacy issues, and the future direction of medicine. She addresses such controversial topics as drug screening and the difficult position of company doctors when employees sue companies for health hazards in the workplace.

Company doctors are but one example of professionals who have at times ceded their autonomy to corporate management. Physicians provide the prototypical professional case for exploring this phenomenon, due to their traditional independence, extensive training, and high levels of prestige. But Draper expands the scope of the book—tracing parallel developments in the law, science, and technology—to draw insightful conclusions about changing conditions in the professional workplace, as corporate cultures everywhere adapt to the new realities of the global economy. The Company Doctor provides a compelling examination of the corporatization of American medicine with far-reaching implications for professionals in many other fields.

ELAINE DRAPER is a visiting scholar at the Institute for the Study of Social Change, University of California, Berkeley, and assistant professor of sociology at California State University, Los Angeles.

Inequality has been on the rise in America for more than two decades. This socially divisive trend began in the economic doldrums of the 1970s and continued through the booming 1980s, when surging economic tides clearly failed to lift all ships. Instead, escalating inequality in both individual earnings and family income widened the gulf between rich and poor and led to the much-publicized decline of the middle class. Uneven Tides brings together a distinguished group of economists to confront the crucial questions about this unprecedented rise in inequality. Just how large and pervasive was it? What were its principal causes? And why did it continue in the 1980s, when previous periods of national economic growth have generally reduced inequality?

Reviewing the best current evidence, the essays in Uneven Tides show that rising inequality is a complex phenomenon, the result of a web of circumstances inherent in the nation's current industrial, social, and political situation. Once attributed to the rising supply of inexperienced workers—as baby boomers, new immigrants, and women entered the labor market—the growing inequality in individual earnings is revealed in Uneven Tides to be the direct result of the economy's increasing demand for skilled workers. The authors explore many of the possible causes of this trend, including the employment shift from manufacturing to the service sector, the heightened importance of technology in the workplace, the decline of unionization, and the intensified efforts to compete in a global marketplace. Uneven Tides also examines the equally dramatic growth in the inequality of family income, and reviews the effects of family size, the age and education of household heads, and the transition to both two-earner and single-parent families. Although these demographic shifts played a role, what emerges most clearly is an understanding of the powerful influence of public policy, as increasingly regressive taxes, declining welfare benefits, and a stagnant minimum wage continue to amplify the effects of market forces on income.

With the rise in inequality now much in the headlines, it is clear that our nation's ability to reverse these shifting currents requires deeper understanding of their causes and consequences. Uneven Tides is the first book to get beyond the news stories to a clear analysis of the changing fortunes of America's families. It should be required reading for anyone with a serious interest in the economic underpinnings of the country's social problems.

SHELDON DANZIGER is professor of social work and public policy and faculty associate in population studies at the University of Michigan.

PETER GOTTSCHALK is professor of economics at Boston College, and research affiliate at the Institute for Research on Poverty at the University of Wisconsin.

The strike against the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, was a violent blow against the United States and a symbolic attack on capitalism and commerce. It shut down one of the world’s busiest commercial centers for weeks, destroyed or damaged billions of dollars worth of property, and forced many New York City employers to slash their payrolls or move jobs to other areas. The immediate economic effect was substantial, but how badly did 9/11 affect New York City’s economy in the longer term? In Resilient City, Howard Chernick and a team of economic experts examine the city’s economic recovery in the three years following the destruction of the Twin Towers.

Assessing multiple facets of the New York City economy in the years after 9/11, Resilient City discerns many hopeful signs among persistent troubles. Analysis by economist Sanders Korenman indicates that the value of New York–based companies did not fall relative to other firms, indicating that investors still believe that there are business advantages to operating in New York despite higher rates of terrorism insurance and concerns about future attacks. Cordelia Reimers separates the economic effect of 9/11 from the effects of the 2001 recession by comparing employment and wage trends for disadvantaged workers in New York with those in five major U.S. cities. She finds that New Yorkers fared at least as well as people in other cities, suggesting that the decline in earnings and employment for low-income New York workers in 2002 was due more to the recession than to the effects of 9/11. Still, troubles remain for New York City. Howard Chernick considers the substantial fiscal implications of the terrorist attacks on New York City, estimating that the attack cost the city about $3 billion in the first two years alone; a sum that the city now must make up through large tax increases, spending cuts, and substantial additional borrowing, which will inevitably be a burden on future budgets.

The terrorist attacks of September 11 dealt a severe blow to the economy of New York City, but it was far from a knock-out punch. Resilient City shows that New York’s dynamic, flexible economy has absorbed the hardships inflicted by the attacks, and provides a thorough, authoritative assessment of what, so far, has been a strong recovery.

HOWARD CHERNICK is professor of economics at Hunter College of the City University of New York.

CONTRIBUTORS:  Joshua Chang,  Oliver D. Cooke,  Franz Fuerst,  Andrew F. Haughwout,  Edward W. Hill,  Sanders Korenman,  Iryna Lendel,  James A. Parrott,  Cordelia W. Reimers,  Jonathan A. Schwabish. 

A September 11 Initiative Volume

Semi-Finalist for the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Book Award

"Putting Children First is must reading for anyone making decisions that affect low-income mothers as they struggle to balance work and family responsibilities-in fact, for anyone who cares about the future of children. Ajay Chaudry makes crystal clear the pitfalls of making social policy from an altitude of 50,000 feet. Knowing the facts on the ground is the first step to a sensible child-care system. We have a long way to go, but this book is a great step in the right direction."
-PETER B. EDELMAN, Professor of Law, Georgetown University Law Center

"Ajay Chaudry's Putting Children First is the most insightful and poignant study of the child-care problems of poor single mothers in urban areas that I have read. This book should be required reading not only for students of urban poverty, but also for national policy makers of welfare reform who have yet to address many of the unique challenges of single motherhood in low-income urban neighborhoods."
-WILLIAM JULIUS WILSON, Lewis P. and Linda L. Geyser University Professor, Harvard University

"An honest, poignant ethnography, Putting Children First provides an extraordinary window into the child care worries of poorly paid working mothers who find that good care for their children is unaffordable and scarce. Ajay Chaudry reminds us what it costs to drop the best interests of children from our national policy agenda. Sharp, focused, and wise."
-CAROL STACK, Professor of Social and Cultural Studies in Education, University of California, Berkeley

"Ajay Chaudry skillfully takes us into the reality of the child care struggles of low-income working parents, and the picture is both disturbing and illuminating. The findings will almost certainly alter the reader's thinking about the dilemmas mothers and policy makers face and the strategies for doing better. If one cares about welfare reform, or low-income workers, or most importantly the future of our children, this book is important reading."
-DAVID T. ELLWOOD, Dean and Scott M. Black Professor of Political Economy, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

In the five years following the passage of federal welfare reform law, the labor force participation of low-income, single mothers with young children climbed by more than 25 percent. With significantly more hours spent outside the home, single working mothers face a serious childcare crunch—how can they provide quality care for their children? In Putting Children First, Ajay Chaudry follows forty-two low-income families in New York City over three years to illuminate the plight of these mothers and the ways in which they respond to the difficult challenge of providing for their children’s material and developmental needs with limited resources.

Using the words of the women themselves, Chaudry tells a startling story. Scarce subsidies, complicated bureaucracies, inflexible work schedules, and limited choices force families to piece together care arrangements that are often unstable, unreliable, inconvenient, and of limited quality. Because their wages are so low, these women are forced to rely on inexpensive caregivers who are often under-qualified to serve the developmental needs of their children. Even when these mothers find good, affordable care, it rarely lasts long because their volatile employment situations throw their needs into constant flux. The average woman in Chaudry’s sample had to find five different primary caregivers in her child’s first four years, while over a quarter of them needed seven or more in that time.

This book lets single, low-income mothers describe the childcare arrangements they desire and the ways that options available to them fail to meet even their most basic needs. As Chaudry tracks these women through erratic childcare spells, he reveals the strategies they employ, the tremendous costs they incur and the anxiety they face when trying to ensure that their children are given proper care.

Honest, powerful, and alarming, Putting Children First gives a fresh perspective on work and family for the disadvantaged. It infuses a human voice into the ongoing debate about the effectiveness of welfare reform, showing the flaws of a social policy based solely on personal responsibility without concurrent societal responsibility, and suggesting a better path for the future.

AJAY CHAUDRY is a writer on social policy issues and a faculty and senior research fellow in urban policy and management at New School University.

The role of women in higher education, as in many other settings, has undergone dramatic changes during the past two decades. This significant period of progress and transition is definitively assessed in the landmark volume, Women in Academe.

Crowded out by returning veterans and pressed by social expectations to marry early and raise children, women in the 1940s and 1950s lost many of the educational gains they had made in previous decades. In the 1960s women began to catch up, and by the 1970s women were taking rapid strides in academic life. As documented in this comprehensive study, the combined impact of the women’s movement and increased legislative attention to issues of equality enabled women to make significant advances as students and, to a lesser extent, in teaching and academic administration. Women in Academe traces the phenomenal growth of women’s studies programs, the notable gains of women in non-traditional fields, the emergence of campus women’s centers and research institutes, and the increasing presence of minority and re-entry women. Also examined are the uncertain future of women’s colleges and the disappointingly slow movement of women into faculty and administrative positions.

This authoritative volume provides more current and extensive data on its subject than any other study now available. Clearly and objectively, it tells an impressive story of progress achieved—and of important work still to be done.

MARIAM K. CHAMBERLAIN is founding president of the National Council for Research on Women.

CONTRIBUTORS: Helen S. Astin,  Jean W. Campbell, Mary Ellen S. Capek,  Maren Lockwood Carden,  Mariam K. Chamberlain,  Carol Frances,  Jane Gould,  Lilli S. Hornig,  Florence Howe,  Marjorie Lightman,  Virginia Davis Nordin,  Patricia Ann Palmieri, Bernice R. Sandler,  Cynthia Secor,  Donna Shavlik,  Margaret C. Simms.