This book provides new insights into household economic behaviour by exploring the frontier between economics and sociology. Drawing on data from the Social Change and Economic Life Initiative, it examines the variety of ways in which households organize their economic behaviour; how that behaviour varies between sections of the population; and how it changes over the household's life-time, as well as in the longer term. The book defines economic behaviour widely, including in its scope many vital activities which involve no direct cash transactions. At the centre of the analysis is the notion of choice. Individually and collectively, members of households make choices. In this book, economists and sociologists address their opportunities to do so, the circumstances in which they do so, and how and why their choices differ. The book illuminates the ways in which households sustain themselves over time by accumulating and maintaining both material and human resources, which are then deployed in pursuit of individual and collective ends. At the same time, it casts new light on the role of gender in modern society.

Frank Bechhofer, Professor of Social Research; and Director, Research Centre for Social Sciences, both at University of Edinburgh. Jonathan Gershuny, Professor of Sociology, and Director, ESRC Research Centre on Micro-Social Change, University of Essex.