Table Of ContentWorking and Caring over
the Twentieth Century
Change and Continuity in Four-Generation
Families
Julia Brannen, Peter Moss and Ann
Mooney
Working and Caring over the Twentieth Century
The Future of Work Series
Series Editor: Peter Nolan, Director of the ESRC Future of Work Programme and
the Montague Burton Professor of Industrial Relations at Leeds University Business
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than the prospects for work and employment. The Future of Work series provides the
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Titles include:
Julia Brannen, Peter Moss and Ann Mooney
WORKING AND CARING OVER THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
Change and Continuity in Four-Generation Families
Michael White, Stephen Hill, Colin Mills and Deborah Smeaton
MANAGING TO CHANGE?
British Workplaces and the Future of Work
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Working and Caring over
the Twentieth Century
Change and Continuity in Four-Generation
Families
Julia Brannen, Peter Moss and Ann Mooney
© Julia Brannen, Peter Moss and Ann Mooney 2004
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2004 978-1-4039-2059-1
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Brannen, Julia.
Working and caring over the twentieth century:change and continuity in
four generation families/Julia Brannen, Peter Moss, Ann Mooney.
p. cm. — (The future of work)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Family—Great Britain. 2. Intergenerational relations—Great
Britain. 3. Work and family—Great Britain. I. Moss, Peter, 1945–
II. Mooney, Ann, 1950– III. Title. IV. Future of work (Series)
HQ613.B7 2004
306.874—dc22
2004050433
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 04
For our parents whose lives spanned most of the 20th century,
two of whom were also grandparents and great-grandparents
Contents
List of Tables and Figures viii
Acknowledgements ix
1 Setting the Scene 1
2 Changing Childhoods across Three Generations of Women 27
3 Mothers’ and Fathers’ Work and Care Practices
over the Generations 47
4 Motherhood: Intergenerational Transmission
and Negotiation 76
5 Timetabling, Talk and Transmission:
Fatherhood across the Generations 115
6 Intergenerational Transfers and Cultures of Transmission 150
7 Towards a Typology of Intergenerational Relations:
Processes of Reproduction and Innovation 177
8 Concluding Reflections 202
Bibliography 217
Index 228
vii
List of Tables and Figures
Tables
1.1 Summary of key characteristics for each family
at the time of interview 9
1.2 Key life course characteristics of women in 12 case families 18
1.3 Key life course characteristics of men in 12 case families 19
3.1 Women’s work histories and childcare arrangements 56
5.1 Fathers’ breadwinning practices in the childrearing phase 127
6.1 Reported instances of intergenerational resource
transfers in sample families 154
7.1 Men’s occupational mobility over three generations
(12 families) 181
Figures
5.1 Models of fatherhood (breadwinner contribution
and fatherhood involvement) 128
7.1 Matrix of case-study families: occupational by
geographical mobility 184
viii
Acknowledgements
We wish to acknowledge the work and support of a number of people.
First, we were very fortunate in having Emily Gilbert as a member of our
research team. We are only sorry that she had to leave us before the
writing began in earnest. She contributed so much to the project and
would have contributed a great deal more had this been possible. Second,
we want to recognise the inspirational teaching and generous support
which Tom Wengraf and Prue Chamberlayne provided when we attended
their course in biographical methods. We are additionally indebted to
Tom for his detailed and insightful comments on our manuscript and
hope we have sufficiently addressed them. We wish also to thank Ann
Nilsen for the many ideas which she has shared with one of us (Julia) and
for her collaboration in writing part of Chapter 5 (originally written as a
conference paper for the British Sociological Association Conference, April
2003). Thanks are due also to Peter Nolan, Director of the ESRC Future
of Work Programme, who was always encouraging about our project
and to ESRC who provided the funding (project award L212252027).
We want as well to acknowledge the support of the many people in
Thomas Coram Research Unit who have helped us in this research,
especially Tamara Boake with the references, those who did the tran-
scribing of the interviews, and those who provided computer support.
Last and most important, suffice it to say that this book could not have
been written without the research participants. That this has been a
most rewarding project for us to work on is due to them. We hope we
have begun to do justice to their stories although there is still a great
deal left to write about.
All the names of research participants and their families have been
changed.
ix
