Homeworking Women: Gender, Racism and Class at Work

Homeworking has been given an attractive, even glamorous, image by the spread of information technology into the home. The traditional portrayal of the manufacturing homeworker sweating over an ancient sewing machine for a pittance is, we are told, a thing of the past. In this book, Annie Phizacklea and Carol Wolkowitz question this assumption, and reveal what conditions are really like for women who do paid work at home.

Homeworking Women provides an up-to-date overview of all types of home-based work, arguing that homeworking replicates wider divisions in the labour force. Consequently, its potential for improving women's employment opportunities is limited. Using original research, the book outlines the advantages and disadvantages, the pay and conditions, and the family situations for contemporary women homeworkers. Gender, class, racism and ethnicity are shown to be key factors in constructing the homeworking labour force. The authors acknowledge the shared position that homeworkers occupy as women, as well as the differences experienced by clerical, manufacturing and professional homeworkers, and question whether new technology in itself can be the way forward to a better paid, less onerous form of homeworking.

This book makes an important contribution to sociological and policy debates on home-based work, and will be essential reading for academics and students of the sociology of work, industrial relations, women's studies, race and ethnic studies, organization studies and human resource management.