Labor's love lost : the rise and fall of the working-class family in America / Andrew J. Cherlin.

Labor's love lost : the rise and fall of the working-class family in America / Andrew J. Cherlin.

9780871540300 (paperback ; alkaline paper)
0871540304 (paperback ; alkaline paper)
9781610448444 (ebook)

New York : Russell Sage Foundation, [2014]

©2014

English

xiii, 258 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm

306.8508623 C521l 2014

(OCoLC)887186355
(OCoLC)887186355

Labor's Love Lost offers a historical assessment of the rise and fall of working-class families in America, demonstrating how momentous social and economic transformations have contributed to the collapse of this one-stable social class and what this seismic cultural shift means for the nation's future. Drawing from more than a hundred years of census data, noted sociologist Andrew Cherlin shows that the primary problem of the fall of the working-class family from its mid-twentieth century peak is not that the male-breadwinner family has declined, but that nothing stable has replaced it. The breakdown of a stable family structure has serious consequences for low-income families, particularly for children, many of whom underperform in school, thereby reducing their future employment prospects and perpetuating an intergenerational cycle of economic disadvantage. Cherlin's investigation of today's "would-be working class" shines a much-needed spotlight on the struggling middle of our society.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 225-243) and index.

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