Work and life in the global economy: a gendered analysis of service work

This edited book has emerged from a CRESC (Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change) workshop that was held in Manchester in February 2008 which provided a forum to debate 'Gender, Service Work and the Cultural Economy'. The aim of this collection is to explore the social and cultural issues within the economic changes that have given rise to service work, which represents the largest occupational sector. This sector is often polarised between higher paid ICT-enabled 'knowledge work' and lower paid, catering, cleaning and care work. In order to gain a broad appreciation of working lives, this book adopts an inclusive approach with chapters covering a variety of types of service work. Written by specialists in their respective fields, this book draws together authors from interdisciplinary areas that are carrying out significant research into the totality of women's working lives and studying varying combinations of gender and service work within an international context.