Women, Work, and Family Balancing and Weaving is a fascinating examination of the extraordinary juggling skills of working mothers who balance their obligations to both work and family. Angela Hattery goes beyond a mere description of women′s conflicts of interest and seeks to understand the decision-making process through which they accomplish this balancing.

Through intensive interviews with 30 married women, all with children under 2 years of age, Hattery uncovers a remarkable range of ways in which these women weave together the complex strands of their lives. The data in the volume are examined from a number of theoretical standpoints, including structural theory, motherhood theory, and feminist theory. A key variable that runs through the data is economic need, which has an obvious effect on work patterns. Women, Work, and Family will make a major contribution to family studies and will illuminate the difficult choices that women make within the family/work context.