ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we bring together academic debates in two large areas – employment and the family. It will be argued that insights into the nature and direction of contemporary social change may be gained by addressing these debates simultaneously, rather than, as is more often the case, as separate topic areas. We begin by examining two contemporary themes. First, we will briefly address arguments relating to the significance of growing individualism in ‘late modernity’. This trend is associated with economic liberalism or ‘marketization’ – and its consequences. The second theme is concerned with the consequences of changes in women’s employment and gender relations following the impact of ‘second wave’ feminism.1 We will examine arguments (from rather different quarters) to the effect that despite apparent shifts there has been ‘no real change’ in the gender division of labour. That is, that as women’s entry into the labour market has been concentrated in lower-level occupations, and as women still retain the major responsibility for domestic and caring work, there has been a modification rather than a fundamental change.
