Customer Reviews

The Second Shift

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

As a college-age male, one might think that I would have little reason to read a study about the struggles of working women. That is wrong.
This insightful, modest study of family life (witnessed by the capable Arlie Hochschild as a fly-on-the-wall) gives perspective on a dillemma everyone should think about before marriage: how to reconcile economic and personal needs with having children. This problem affects women and men, mothers and fathers.
Unfortunately, it is rarely talked about. People are forced to muddle through using their parents as examples, or to try to construct new strategies from scratch. Hochschild provides a useful structure for discussing the problem and avoiding the emotional and marital cost of relying on "myths." Any serious couple should be able to talk about these subjects to avoid misunderstanding and conflict.
One problem with this book is the writing - the points do not always flow together, and sometimes the sentences are simply awkward. This study is also weighted toward middle class families, though it explores others as well. Despite being over a decade old, this book is still relevant.
Well worth reading, whether you are deciding on a career, getting married, or already trying to balance both.

Hochschild's book is a superb description of what so many of of us live but barely understand. She examines the demands of work in the home and outside, the gender identities that shape our feeling toward work, the goals that shape our chices and the intentions that define our commununication about responsiblity. The author validates the struggle of working women, without bashing men and talks about how to resolve the "stalled revolution" of shared responsibility both at home and in the workplace. Most importantly, Hochschild illuminates how our methods of dealing with the second shift, not the second shift itself per se, negatively impact our children.

This book, which voices something that has been long silent, explains how women have been overburdened as a result of living in a world which no longer accepts part-time work. Even though women have resulted in incredible gains in the latter half of the 20th century, and have gained enfranchisement into many careers that were formerly only the domain of men, there still lurks the job of being a mother, which is NOT a part-time job. This book is highly recommended, not for only the truth and candor that it tells, but for the questions that it poses.

Dexter Fabi

Originally published in 1989, this book is more relevant today than it was 20 years ago. The author, sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild from the University of California, compiled data about the working and household chore habits of modern two-career couples. In 17 chapters the author gives historical and individual context to what she calls "the stalled revolution" of women leaving the role of full-time housewives to become salaried workers outside the home, and compares it to the process of men leaving the family farm to look for salaried work in the factories during the height of the industrial age 200 years ago.

Opposite men who still had a wife back home to cushion the sudden change into industrialization, most women who have traded the apron for the briefcase (for professional women) or the uniform (for women working in the service industries) have not had the advantage of having someone back home to cushion their aggressive entrance into the marketplace. Somehow they have had to make ends meet, sacrificing their marriage, their children or their job. Usually the marriage goes and the sudden rise in the divorce rate since women entered the marketplace in droves is evidence of it.

The author discusses the inner workings of family life of eight particular working married couples with children, and how they cope with what has come to be known as the second shift, in which women are now expected to contribute to the financial life of the family by working outside the home. At the same time they are still expected to keep doing most or all of the household chores and taking primary responsibility of the day-to-day care of the children, which results in an extra month of work per year for women compared to men. On the other hand, men have not paralleled women's entry in the marketplace with an entry into the world of domestic responsibilities, which has led to a different kind of tension and conflict in modern marriage. Most married women with children who work outside the home will be able to find at least one woman here with whom to identify.

I love this book.

In THE SECOND SHIFT: WORKING PARENTS AND THE REVOLUTION AT HOME, Arlie Hochschild holds up to the light this and many other strategies by which women and men in two-career marriages juggle work pressures and family needs. Between 1980 and 1988, Hochschild and her research associates interviewed fifty couples at great length. Hochschild also observed family life in a dozen homes. At the heart of her book are the stories of eleven couples. All but two are members of the middle and upper-middle class; each couple has made decisions and developed justifying myths a bit differently. Each has its own "economy of gratitude."

Hochschild is very much interested in the interrelationships between power--perceived and actual--and bonds of human caring. Her phrase "economy of gratitude" makes reference to what is given and received as gifts between spouses and how those gifts are valued. For example, if a woman earns more money than her husband, his male pride may suffer. His willingness to bear the affront may be viewed by both as a sacrificial gift, and out of guilt and gratitude she may assume most of the household responsibilities. Hochschild found many such contorted notions of what merits gratitude among the couples she studied.

As a college-age adult, I thought I would have little reason to read a study about the struggles of working women. That is wrong. I learned so much from reading this book. Learn more about family in this book.

Great read. I would recommend it as a gift for girls beginning at age 14 (and every year after that, if they haven't read it). This book will scare you straight regarding the trap that American women are in. We've been bamboozled! This book is not for ladies who don't want to know the truth about what's really happening in (most) two-career American homes and families! Well written and straight to the point!

I read this book because I am working in a doctoral program and wanted to read a good example of qualitative research. However, I enjoyed this book so much that I am passing it along to friends who have no interest in academia. It is an excellent analysis of the negotiations that occur in many marriages regarding housework and childcare. The book was fascinatiing and depresssing - it made me wonder how we will ever find real equality in our homes when the majority of marriages do not have anything close to equality. I would recommend this book to anyone thinking of getting married - it is a great thing to start a discussion with a fiance.

This book has been reissued with a new introduction to an old and important message. "A man may work from sun to sun, but a woman's work is never done" is an adage older than any of us. Hochschild draws a bleak and accurate picture of the increasing number of women with two jobs. As the economy worsens, and as more women want to maintain their careers, this number grows. The number of men pitching in at home, Hochschild reminds us, has not grown. Women come home from work to a full set of responsibilities. Women take off for the sick child, the doctor's appointment, the school play.
Yes, some men stay home, and yes, some men do their fair share. But things cold get better. I'd like to see this as required reading in high school - let's see if we can create a new trend.

Probably a first of its kind study about families with two-working parents. However, the writing is poor, redundant and cliched. The cases she presents don't suggest much variability except income and ethnicity. Additionally, she skimps on a serious evaluation of what would make a successful household with two working parents and instead leaves us with the overwhelming feeling that success is almost impossible.

If you have kids, carreer, and a husband, you must read this enlightning social probe into the lives of families just like yours. You will feel 'comfort' knowing that you are not alone if you are feeling crazy, anxious, or overwhelmed. Before you quit your job, or think of having another child.....Read this!!!