Work and Life Integration: Organizational,Cultural, and Individual Perspectives – Edited by Ellen Ernst Kossek and Susan J. Lambert Work‐Life Balance in the 21st Century – Edited by Diane M. Houston

Books reviewed: Work and Life Integration: Organizational, Cultural, and Individual Perspectives edited by Ellen Ernst Kossek and Susan J. Lambert. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, NJ and London, 2005, xxviii + 570 pp., ISBN 0 8058 4616 6, $42.50, paper. Work‐Life Balance in the 21st Century edited by Diane M. Houston. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, UK, 2005, xv + 271 pp., ISBN 1 4039 2062 1, £50.00.     

Gender matters in the global outsourcing of service work

This paper provides a gendered analysis of the outsourcing of service work to developing economies taking, as illustration, call centres, shared service centres and the general ICT sector. The paper challenges the suggestion that changes in global capitalism, facilitated by ICT-enabled employment, offer new opportunities that benefit women, and suggests a degree of caution is needed before assuming a reduction of gender inequalities.