Holding It Together by Jessica Calarco Summary

Holding It Together by Jessica Calarco exposes how systemic underinvestment in social safety nets forces American women to bear disproportionate caregiving and financial burdens. Through interviews with 400+ women and surveys of 4,000 parents, Calarco reveals how policies normalize reliance on women’s unpaid labor—from childcare to elder care—while masking the societal costs of this unsustainable model.

This book is essential for policymakers, gender studies scholars, and anyone seeking to understand systemic inequality. It also resonates with working parents, caregivers, and advocates for social reform, offering data-driven insights into how policy failures perpetuate gender inequities.

Calarco combines qualitative interviews (400+ hours with diverse women) and quantitative surveys (4,000+ parents) to document caregiving burdens. Her mixed-methods approach bridges personal narratives with broader societal patterns, highlighting how race, class, and policy shape women’s experiences.

• The U.S. systematically dismantled public safety nets, outsourcing care to women.
• Women’s unpaid labor sustains the myth that institutional support isn’t needed.
• Solutions require policy shifts like paid leave, subsidized childcare, and wage equity.

Calarco traces decades of policy decisions—from Reagan-era welfare cuts to stagnant minimum wages—that shifted caregiving costs to families. Unlike peer nations with robust safety nets, the U.S. relies on women’s sacrifices, exacerbating burnout and economic precarity.

A widowed mother working three jobs, a teen caring for opioid-affected relatives, and a professional couple outsourcing childcare dilemmas illustrate the universality of women’s burdens. These stories humanize statistical trends, showing how race and class amplify struggles.

As a sociology professor and award-winning researcher, Calarco leverages her expertise in inequality studies to dissect systemic failures. Her prior work on educational privilege and ethnographic methods grounds the book’s rigorous, accessible analysis.

The book challenges the neoliberal narrative that families should “pull themselves up by their bootstraps,” arguing this mindset ignores structural barriers. Calarco critiques means-tested programs that stigmatize recipients instead of providing universal support.

While similar to Anne-Marie Slaughter’s Unfinished Business or Arlie Hochschild’s The Second Shift, Calarco’s focus on policy dismantling distinguishes her work. She emphasizes collective action over individual solutions, rejecting “lean in” feminism.

• Federal paid family and medical leave
• Subsidized, high-quality childcare
• Living wage mandates for care workers
• Expanded tax credits for caregivers

With caregiving demands rising due to aging populations and automation-driven job losses, Calarco’s warning grows urgent. The book provides a framework for reimagining social contracts amid ongoing debates about AI’s impact on care economies.

Calarco urges voters to support candidates backing childcare subsidies and labor reforms. She also advises workplace campaigns for flexible schedules and shared caregiving duties, stressing that systemic change requires collective pressure.