Hidden in the Home
The Role of Waged Homework in the Modern World-Economy
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Description
This book combines a case study of industrial homework in the electronics industry with a world-systems approach to understanding the role of home-based work in economic development. It spans the period from the nineteenth-century origins of industrial homework to the important role played by home-based work in current strategies of economic restructuring in manufacturing and service industries. The author draws a clear distinction between industrial homework and earlier forms of domestic labor, such as the putting-out system. She also clarifies the important differences between various forms of contemporary home-based work: waged homework in industrial and service occupations, professional telecommuting, home-based self-employment.
Moving from the lives of homeworkers themselves to macro-level analyses, Dangler's case study provides a vantage point from which to examine theories of world economic development, theories of labor market segmentation, and recent analyses of the importance of informal sector activities in the modern economy.
Jamie Faricellia Dangler is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the State University of New York College at Cortland.
Reviews
"What I liked about this book was the clear-sighted focus on the topic and the clear way the author located the problems of paid work in the home in a global economic and historical context. Dangler offers a strong understanding of theories of capitalist production as well as theories of gender construction. " — Susan Green, University of Oklahoma