Men's Work and Male Lives

Men and Work in Britain

First published in 1999, this volume took part in the emerging sociological debate on gender in the workplace by studying men’s work, lives, gender roles and psychological health through the gender lens. Recent changes in the labour market, not least the marked increase of women at work, have been argued to have led to a crisis of masculinity and a re-evaluation of men’s roles. This book has four main aims: to establish that there is a real absence of an empirical understanding of men in British gender-based sociological research; to explore men’s recent experiences of the British labour market; to explore how masculinity and work are linked and maintained by critically examining existing accounts of gender theory and feminism; and finally to provide an empirical account of men's work and male lives via an analysis of existing data. The male workers were identified in the National Child Development Study 1991 and compared with male full-time workers and similar groups of women in the same study. Five areas of these men's lives were explored empirically: characteristics of male workers in NCDS5; men’s attitudes to work; men and training experiences; men and household work; and finally men and mental ill health. The book concludes that the nature of men’s work needs to be reconsidered and that the nature of gender research, particularly that relating to men, needs to be expanded and made more explicit.