Content area
Full text
Gendering the Knowledge Economy: Comparative Perspectives, edited by Sylvia Walby, Heidl Gottfried, Karln Gottschall, and Mari Osawa. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007. 322pp. $90.00 cloth. ISBN: 1403994579.
Do current economic changes, to a global "knowledge" economy, benefit women? This edited book explores this question using data from four countries. It argues that the answer depends entirely on context. Economic, political, and gender arrangements all impact how women fare in the new economy. The book maps out the major forms of these three factors, and drawing on both quantitative and qualitative case study data, seeks to develop a comparative theory of gender and global work transformation.
The four countries chosen for comparison are the US, the UK, Germany, and Japan, the largest economies in the "developed" world. They were selected because, according to Sylvia Walby, they vary along the three key dimensions that are most crucial for understanding the impact of the new economy on women: types of capitalism (the US and the UK are "liberal" while Germany and Japan are "coordinated" economies); political systems (the US and the UK are liberal regimes,...