The Declining Significance of Gender? ‐ Edited by Francine D. Blau, Mary Brinton, & David B. Grunsky

Abstract

The Declining Significance of Gender? Francine D. Blau, Mary Brinton, & David B. Grunsky (Eds.). New York: The Russell Sage Foundation. 2006. 296 pp. ISBN 0-87154092-4. $39.95 (hardback). This new collection assesses the degree to which the United States has experienced changes in the ideas and experience of gender inequality. Drawing on original work by scholars in a range of social science disciplines (primarily economists and sociologists), the book is intended to explore the overall status and prospects for gender equity. It is organized into three sections: an introduction in which the editors provide a theoretical and conceptual overview that frames the remainder of the book, a set of five substantive chapters addressing change and persistence in dimensions of gender inequality, and three concluding chapters in which alternate visions of the future of gender inequality are proposed. In introducing the book (which began as a lecture series at Cornell University), the editors propose the ambitious goal of moving beyond narrow disciplinary foci to a comprehensive assessment of what we know to be trends in gender inequality and where scholarship suggests significant inequality still remains. Conceptually, the editors offer a matrix for assessing these changes across what they identify as proximate and distal mechanisms that generate and sustain gender inequality. Four macrolevel forces are identified as the context within which more proximate causes of gender inequality operate. These macrolevel forces are economics; organizational logics around hiring, promotion, and bureaucracy; political movements and activities; and culture. The more proximate causes of persistent inequality, they argue, include discrimination, intemalization of preferences and identity, labor force commitment, cultural devaluation of women, and expectations of discrimination or sanctions. Their concern with much previous research is that scholars tend to focus on a narrow range of proximate causes, without addressing either the interplay of these domains or their relationship to four theoretical narratives emphasizing economic, organizational, political, and cultural explanations for inequality. Part II consists of a set of chapters in which rigorous statistical analyses demonstrate the contours of the history and status of gender inequality. Most rely on rational choice or economic models of behavior (or both) based on self-interest and market efficiency as the explanatory narrative around which gender inequality is understood having declined, yet not disappeared. …