Working and Caring over the Twentieth Century

Change and Continuity in Four-Generation Families

J. Brannen, P. Moss, A. Mooney

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2004
• Print ISBN: 9781403920591
• eBook ISBN: 9780230005716
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Human Resource Management
• Index: Business

Increased longevity and better health are changing the nature of family life. In the context of changes in the world of work, increased divorce and a declining welfare state, multi-generation or 'beanpole families' are a potential resource for family support. Focusing on four-generation families and the two central careers of the life course - employment and care - Working and Caring Over the Twentieth Century explores this question. Based upon new research that employed biographical methods, it maps in detail from 1910 to the late 1990s the lives of men and women as great-grandparents, grandparents and parents. The book provides unique insights into processes of change and continuity in family lives and the ways in which different generations of men and women make sense of their lives.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• List of Tables and Figures
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Setting the Scene
• 2 Changing Childhoods across Three Generations of Women
• 3 Mothers’ and Fathers’ Work and Care Practices over the Generations
• 4 Motherhood: Intergenerational Transmission and Negotiation
• 5 Timetabling, Talk and Transmission: Fatherhood across the Generations
• 6 Intergenerational Transfers and Cultures of Transmission
• 7 Towards a Typology of Intergenerational Relations: Processes of Reproduction and Innovation
• 8 Concluding Reflections
• Bibliography
• Index