Holding it together: how women became America's safety net

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Calarco, Jessica, 1983-

Calarco, Jessica

Athens Drive Community
Cary Regional
Eva H. Perry Regional
Fuquay-Varina Community
Green Road Community
Leesville Community
Morrisville Community
Northeast Regional
Wendell Community

Adult Non-Fiction

Athens Drive Community - Adult Non-Fiction
Cary Regional - Adult Non-Fiction
Eva H. Perry Regional - Adult Non-Fiction
Fuquay-Varina Community - Adult Non-Fiction
Green Road Community - Adult Non-Fiction
Leesville Community - Adult Non-Fiction
Morrisville Community - Adult Non-Fiction
Northeast Regional - Adult Non-Fiction
Wendell Community - Adult Non-Fiction

"Other countries have social safety nets. The U.S. has women. Holding It Together chronicles the causes and dire consequences. America runs on women-women who are tasked with holding society together at the seams and fixing it when things fall apart. In this tour de force, acclaimed Sociologist Jessica Calarco lays bare the devastating consequences of our status quo. Holding It Together draws on five years of research in which Calarco surveyed over 4000 parents and conducted more than 400 hours of interviews with women who bear the brunt of our broken system. A widowed single mother struggles to patch together meager public benefits while working three jobs; an aunt is pushed into caring for her niece and nephew at age fifteen once their family is shattered by the opioid epidemic; a daughter becomes the backstop caregiver for her mother, her husband, and her child because of the perceived flexibility of her job; a well-to-do couple grapples with the moral dilemma of leaning on overworked, underpaid childcare providers to achieve their egalitarian ideals. Stories of grief and guilt abound. Yet, they are more than individual tragedies. Tracing present-day policies back to their roots, Calarco reveals a systematic agreement to dismantle our country's social safety net and persuade citizens to accept precarity while women bear the brunt. She leads us to see women's labor as the reason we've gone so long without the support systems that our peer nations take for granted, and how women's work maintains the illusion that we don't need a net. Weaving eye-opening original research with revelatory sociological narrative, Holding It Together is a bold call to demand the institutional change that each of us deserves, and a warning about the perils of living without it"--

Book

Books

f9284fed-b861-9af3-c015-b475a2d98785

9780593538128

BK

2025-09-21T09:18:02.128Z

-1

Non Fiction

Non Fiction

305.48 CALAR

Wake County Public Libraries

Athens Drive Community
Cary Regional
Eva H. Perry Regional
Fuquay-Varina Community
Green Road Community
Leesville Community
Morrisville Community
Northeast Regional
Wendell Community

9780593538128

2024

Portfolio/Penguin

grouped_work

Labor policy -- United States
Poor women -- Employment -- United States
Work and family -- United States
Working class women -- United States
Working poor -- United States

Holding it together : how women became America's safety net

Holding it together : how women became America's safety net / Jessica Calarco

Holding it together

how women became America's safety net

Employment
Labor policy
Poor women
Work and family
Working class women
Working poor