Nicole Meredith

This book answers the age-old question: When is the best time in life for a woman to have a baby? Finding an answer to that perennial puzzle may be harder than ever, as women today face a vast and often conflicting array of life and career choices. Seismic changes in the labour market, the lack of affordable child care, and, most recently, the economic upheaval caused by the COVID-19 pandemic have made balancing the demands of work and family even more challenging. Drawing on a wide range of cutting-edge social research, however, Nicole Meredith argues that there is in fact a best time in life to have a baby-a time that maximizes the likelihood of both family fulfillment and career success. The author considers not only the many roadblocks to picking the right time to have children, including societal and parental pressures as well as subtle (and not-so-subtle) media influences, but also how women can best resist those pressures to ensure that if they do choose to have children, it will indeed be at "the best of times."

A compelling look at the causes and costs of social inequality ... There are many different types of social inequality and academics offer many different opinions about it. But social inequality is also a "real life" problem familiar to ordinary people -- not just a topic for the ivory tower. Almost everyone, even the least academically inclined, has something to say about it. The aim of Outsights is to better understand inequality by considering some of these varied perspectives. In particular, Outsights examines the views of social outsiders. There are many kinds of outsiders. In fact, their shared defining feature is that they are not insiders -- not white, not male, not middle class, not middle-aged, not able-bodied, not born in North America. Outsiders are among society's most vulnerable members -- victims or potential victims of the way life is organized. They are frequently critical of people on the inside, and especially skeptical of insiders' views of life on the outside. Outsiders know a lot about life on the margins: they hold deep, often personal understandings of things like sexual harassment, racial discrimination, and unemployment. What's more, they're often concerned with aspects of inequality that don't even cross the minds of insiders: where to find their next meal, how to access medical care, and ways other than education to climb the social ladder. Outsights attempts to bridge the gap between the views of insiders and outsiders with the goal of better understanding the causes and costs of social inequality -- and what can be done about it.--From the Introduction