Catherine Hakim, Key Issues in Women's Work: Female Heterogeneity and the Polarisation of Women's Employment, London: Athlone Press, 1996, ix + 257 pp., £14.95.

Abstract

In terms of form and subject content, this is a finely organised, carefully balanced, and well-presented book. The eight chapters vary from 11 to 55 pages in length – reflecting, presumably, both the author's estimate of a topic's relative value and the quality of information on it that was known to her. Each chapter, too, is carefully sub-divided into up to twelve sub-sections. There is a excellent bibliography (over 400 items). Though the subject index could have been more detailed in a book with so much internal density as this, it passes muster. If there is any economically literate guide to research and debate on trends in patterns of paid employment amongst women that is more clearly written than this, it could hardly offer more condensed yet comprehensive coverage than that offered here. As a populariser, Dr Hakim has formidable skills, which she perhaps undervalues. However, this is a guide and think-piece for fellow professionals, not for the undergraduate readership duly invoked in accompanying publicity material.