Jacqueline O’Reilly is Senior Research Fellow at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung and also teaches at the Royal Holloway School of Management, London University. She is currently co-ordinating a comparative research programme on employment in Europe funded by the Targeted Socio[1]Economic Research Programme from DGXII of the European Commission. Colette Fagan is Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Liverpool and an Honorary Research Fellow at the European Work and Employment Centre, at UMIST. Her research focuses on gender relations in labour markets, working time and the organisation of domestic life, with a particular interest in international comparisons.