The Social and political economy of the household

This book provides new insights into household economic behaviour by exploring the frontier between economics and sociology. Drawing on data from the ground-breaking Social Change and Economic Life Initiative, it examines the variety of ways in which households organize their economic behaviour; how that behaviour varies between sections of the population; and how it changes over the household's life-time, as well as in the longer term.

The book defines economic behaviour widely, including in its scope many vital activities which involve no direct cash transactions - for instance, housework, gardening, child-care, shopping. At the centre of the analysis is the notion of choice. Individually and collectively, members of households make choices. In this book, economists and sociologists address their opportunities to do so, the circumstances in which they do so, and how and why their choices differ.

The book illuminates the ways in which households sustain themselves over time by accumulating and maintaining both material and human resources, which are then deployed in pursuit of individual and collective ends. In so doing, it casts new light on the role of gender in modern society.

This volume is part of a series arising from the Social Change and Economic Life Initiative - a major interdisciplinary programme of research funded by the Economic and Social Research Council. The programme focused on the impact of the dramatic economic restructuring of the 1980s on employers' labour force strategies, workers' experiences of employment and unemployment, and the changing dynamics of household relations.