Gender, work, and labour markets /

Although Hatt does not break new ground in what is known about women's differential experience in labor markets when compared to men, she does contribute information from the UK and the European Union that is a useful addition to the immense quantity of data published on American women's experience. Hatt demonstrates that women's and men's experience in labor markets differ substantially; thus, a hard look at the facts of women's participation, contribution, and special difficulties with respect to work are indicated. This book is similar to, although less quantitative than, Claudia Goldin's Understanding the Gender Gap: An Economic History of American Women (1990). Hatt combines elementary (principles level) economic analysis with her argument in each chapter, and she explains the economics briefly. This feature makes the book very suitable for use in a course on women and economics at the undergraduate level. Collected here are short and simple discussions of most of the recent theories on the determinants of women's labor market experience; these are combined with statistics from the UK as illustrations. The material on women workers under the European Union is interesting and not often seen in books of this type. Lower-division undergraduate and up. A. Bunton; Cottey College