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Cross‐class affiliation and unpaid work in and around the home are important in affecting the propensity of an individual to vote Conservative, as are elements of patterns of domestic interaction. Regardless of whether occupational status is a relatively transitory phenomenon in a woman's life it seems to influence her voting behaviour and that of her husband. Political consciousness as evidenced by the propensity to vote Conservative in the 1979 election is explored as to how women's occupational class “makes a difference”. Elements for determining political consciousness include the production relation of both men and women in the household, the relations to the means of consumption of household members and the social interaction of men and women engaged in a variety of other forms of work in and around the house. A very complex set of data is required to study these three spheres. The Sheppey survey explores the relative significance of households' relationships to production and consumption as well as the interactions of men and women inside the dwelling. In 1981 a survey of 526 household couples on the island gave detailed information about their social and economic behaviour inside and outside the house. No previous study of voting behaviour, or the determinants of political consciousness has had access to such material: 403 respondents actually voted — 52 per cent Conservative and 48 per cent for the other parties. Factors associated with voting Conservative are explored. The island was representative of the situation for Great Britain as a whole.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze data from the first-ever national-level study of informal work in the USA to test two prominent points of focus in the literature: how participation in informal work relates to social embeddedness and formal labor supply. This paper also provides a comparative test of the factors associated with exchange-based informal work (i.e. money/barter) vs self-provisioning activities.

The study draws on data from a national-level household telephone survey and uses descriptive statistics and logistic regression models.

The data show that participation in the informal economy is widespread in the USA. Consistent with theory, it is found that measures of social embeddedness and formal labor supply are much more salient for predicting participation in informal work for money/barter compared to self-provisioning.

Drawing on unique data from the first national-level household survey of informal work in the USA, this study provides generalizable support for the contention that the informal sector stands as a persistent structural feature in modern society. The results build on the wealth of information produced by qualitative case studies examining informal economic activity as well as a smaller number of regionally targeted surveys to provide important theoretical insights.

Poses the question: what are the consequences of employing a household help on the domestic division of labour? Researches this question by talking to ten couples who employ cleaners. Reports that employing some sort of domestic help has enabled middle‐class women to enter employment in greater numbers than ever before and that it is simply too costly to a family’s economy to have an educated female potential wage‐earner concentrating on unpaid domestic tasks. Refers to a “stalled revolution“, whereby men (theoretically) are carrying out a greater share of domestic tasks but (in actuality) women do not report any great difference. Notes also, that it is increasingly difficult to rely on assistance from relatives. Puts forward reasons for and against the employment of domestic help, as well as four perspectives – the individual perspective, the gender perspective, the general structure of society, and the labour market, and social policy – relating to the consequences of employing a cleaner. Explores “partner‐typology”, determined on a continuum stretching from traditional role‐held beliefs to symmetrical roles for men and women. Concludes that employing domestic help leads to a more equal relationship between the employing couple, that housework is perceived as an increasingly unattractive option, and that new inequalities creep into the gender relationship as it is usually women who perform low‐paid domestic work.

The cardinal point to note here is that the development (and unfortunately the likely potential) of area policy is intimately related to the actual character of British social policy. Whilst area policy has been strongly influenced by Pigou's welfare economics, by the rise of scientific management in the delivery of social services (cf Jaques 1976; Whittington and Bellamy 1979), by the accompanying development of operational analyses and by the creation of social economics (see Pigou 1938; Sandford 1977), social policy continues to be enmeshed with the flavours of Benthamite utilitatianism and Social Darwinism (see, above all, the Beveridge Report 1942; Booth 1889; Rowntree 1922, 1946; Webb 1926). Consequently, for their entire history area policies have been coloured by the principles of a national minimum for the many and giving poorer areas a hand up, rather than a hand out. The preceived need to save money (C.S.E. State Apparatus and Expenditure Group 1979; Klein 1974) and the (supposed) ennobling effects of self help have been the twin marching orders for area policy for decades. Private industry is inadvertently called upon to plug the resulting gaps in public provision. The conjunction of a reluctant state and a meandering private sector has fashioned the decaying urban areas of today. Whilst a large degree of party politics and commitment has characterised the general debate over the removal of poverty (Holman 1973; MacGregor 1981), this has for the most part bypassed the ‘marginal’ poorer areas (cf Green forthcoming). Their inhabitants are not usually numerically significant enough to sway general, party policies (cf Boulding 1967) and the problems of most notably the inner cities has been underplayed.

The subject of part‐time work is one which has become increasingly important in industrialised economies where it accounts for a substantial and growing proportion of total employment. It is estimated that in 1970, average annual hours worked per employee amounted to only 60% of those for 1870. Two major factors are attributed to explaining the underlying trend towards a reduction in working time: (a) the increase in the number of voluntary part‐time employees and (b) the decrease in average annual number of days worked per employee (Kok and de Neubourg, 1986). The authors noted that the growth rate of part‐time employment in many countries was greater than the corresponding rate of growth in full‐time employment.

To evaluate critically whether under a market system, monetary exchange is always and everywhere based on profit‐seeking behaviour, this article examines cash‐in‐hand work, a form of activity conventionally conceptualised as low paid employment heavily imbued with profit motivations on the part of both the consumer and supplier. Reporting data gathered through structured face‐to‐face interviews with 511 households in affluent and deprived neighbourhoods in two English cities, this article reveals that although most cash‐in‐hand work conducted by people living in affluent suburbs is conducted under social relations akin to employment for profit‐motivated purposes, the vast majority of cash‐in‐hand work in deprived neighbourhoods is undertaken by and for kin, neighbours and friends for a range of cooperative reasons under social relations more akin to unpaid community exchange. Given this heterogeneity of cash‐in‐hand work, this article questions whether seeking its eradication through more stringent regulations is the appropriate policy response, especially in deprived neighbourhoods.

Introduction Working in organisations not only provides a large section of the population with life‐sustaining income, but also exerts its own pressures and stresses on them, which can ultimately have negative consequences both for achieving the goals of organisations and meeting the needs of the individuals working within them. Before we examine the various sources of pressure and stress at work, it might be useful to define these two central concepts. “Pressure” is an external or internal force acting on an individual to perform in a particular way or achieve a particular end result. This can be a source of some discomfort and some anxiety, but it can be at the same time exciting, challenging, and growth‐producing. “Stress”, on the other hand, has only negative outcomes for the individual concerned because (1) the individual feels that he or she will not (in the long term) be able to cope, and therefore (2) will find it necessary to deal with it in a defensive and maladaptive way. Pressure is a tolerable, manageable condition, includes some positive attributes, and is characterised by activity and productive coping; stress is a regressive and counter‐productive condition, can produce extreme and usually undifferentiated anxiety, and is characterised by defensive coping.