Handbook on Gender and Social Policy

Reviews / Votes

'This superb and comprehensive Handbook should be in the collection of every student of social policy - those who have specialized in gender issues and everyone else - for a key strength of the collection is the engagement across the multiple theoretical and empirical traditions of comparative welfare state research. The authors, a mix of leading scholars and emerging researchers, offer incisive and well-written analyses of classic and cutting-edge topics. Feminist theory and analysis come alive in their investigations of freedom, equality and the welfare state, care, intersectionality, transnational policy influences, the transformations of family policy, and more, across the globe. The Handbook is an excellent text for advanced undergraduate and graduate social policy courses, and an outstanding reference work for established analysts.'
--Ann Shola Orloff, Northwestern University, US'Bringing together some of the most renowned scholars in the field, this Handbook provides a multi-dimensional lens for understanding the developments and challenges posed by heterogeneity across regions, gender diversities and growing social inequalities for conceptualizing gender and social policy and the potential for making change. It engages with conceptual terrains that have transformed gender and social policy research: intersectionality and multiple inequalities, men and masculinities, and transnationalisms. The prodigious scope and breadth of this volume encompasses the Global North and South and transnational institutions and actors in an array of rich empirical chapters, both comparative and in-depth case studies, addressing themes from various theoretical perspectives, including employment, care, family, poverty, prostitution policies and LGBT rights.'
--Barbara Hobson, Institute for Advanced Study, Germany

'This is a sparkling and absorbing collection. The Handbook provides both case studies of specific countries and overviews of key policy areas, including employment, care, family policy, child protection, migration - and much more. The chapters and authors have been well selected to thoroughly cover the concepts and ideas that have informed feminist scholarship on social policy; to introduce cutting-edge current research across a wide range of countries; and to provide a springboard for the next generation of research.'
--Jane Millar, University of Bath, UK and Chair of the UK Social Policy Association