An updated edition of a standard in its field that remains relevant more than twenty years after its original publication.

More than twenty years ago, sociologist and University of California, Berkeley, professor Arlie Hochschild set off a tidal wave of conversation and controversy with his bestselling book, The Second Shift In it, she examined what really happens in dual-career households. Adding together time in paid work, child care, and housework, she found that working mothers put in a month of work a year more than their spouses. Updated for a workforce now half female, this edition cites a range of new studies and statistics and includes a new afterword in which Hochschild assesses how much-and how little-has changed for women today.

The Second Shift takes a good hard look at two-career marriages and at who’s doing the work around the house. In high readable fashion, Hochschild gives a realistic view of how couples try to preserve the myth of equality, while the burdens of childcare, cleaning and cooking overwhelmingly fall on the women.

Reviews

“A brilliant, urgently needed analysis of the new problems hidden behind the breezy image of the working woman who ‘has it all.”

—Betty Friedman

“The best discussion I have read on what must be the quintessential domestic bind of our time.”

—Robert Kuttner

About the Author

Arlie Hochschild is the author of The Time Bind and the coeditor, with Barbara Ehrenreich, of Global Woman. She lives in Berkeley, California.