Working Hard and Making Do

Book excerpt: "A well crafted, carefully researched study that will add a new dimension to the ongoing discussion about the impact of economic restructuring on families and communities. This well written, carefully researched book challenges the conventional notion of the formal and informal economy as polarized alternatives. The working-class households Nelson and Smith studied rely simultaneously on both sectors, and inequality among these households is shaped not by dependence on one rather than the other but by access to desirable positions in both. Their gender analysis exposes the distinctive economic contributions of men and women to the working-class household and the ways in which gender inequality shapes survival strategies."—Ruth Milkman, author of Farewell to the Factory