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Holding It Together: How Women Became America's Safety Net

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Other countries have social safety nets. The U.S. has women. Holding It Together chronicles the causes and dire consequences. America runs on women—women who are tasked with holding society together at the seams and fixing it when things fall apart. In this tour de force, acclaimed Sociologist Jessica Calarco lays bare the devastating consequences of our status quo. Holding It Together draws on five years of research in which Calarco surveyed over 4000 parents and conducted more than 400 hours of interviews with women who bear the brunt of our broken system. A widowed single mother struggles to patch together meager public benefits while working three jobs; an aunt is pushed into caring for her niece and nephew at age fifteen once their family is shattered by the opioid epidemic; a daughter becomes the backstop caregiver for her mother, her husband, and her child because of the perceived flexibility of her job; a well-to-do couple grapples with the moral dilemma of leaning on overworked, underpaid childcare providers to achieve their egalitarian ideals. Stories of grief and guilt abound. Yet, they are more than individual tragedies. Tracing present-day policies back to their roots, Calarco reveals a systematic agreement to dismantle our country’s social safety net and persuade citizens to accept precarity while women bear the brunt. She leads us to see women's labor as the reason we've gone so long without the support systems that our peer nations take for granted, and how women’s work maintains the illusion that we don't need a net. Weaving eye- opening original research with revelatory sociological narrative, Holding It Together is a bold call to demand the institutional change that each of us deserves, and a warning about the perils of living without it. Read more

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Portfolio


Publication date ‏ : ‎ June 4, 2024


Language ‏ : ‎ English


Print length ‏ : ‎ 336 pages


ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0593538129


ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 28


Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds


Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.34 x 1.18 x 9.3 inches


Best Sellers Rank: #240,608 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #769 in Women's Studies (Books) #2,371 in Behavioral Sciences (Books) #3,114 in Sociology Reference


#769 in Women's Studies (Books):


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Top Amazon Reviews

    • Essential reading for a challenging time
Format: Hardcover
This book is so much more than just a lament about American motherhood. It's a deeply researched and carefully theorized explanation of the state of American society, and its arguments help make sense of many of the apparent paradoxes in US culture, politics, and economic life. It also accurately predicts so much of what we're seeing in the US today, including the rise of casual sexism from public figures, the escalation of attacks on reproductive freedom, and the Republican Party's Project 2025. The book is beautifully and accessibly written, and although its stories are often heartbreaking, they are also necessary for bringing the arguments to life and showing us a potential path forward. Read it, share it, and start organizing a local union of care! ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on July 15, 2024 by Erin
    • Extensively Researched, Great Policy Proposals
Format: Hardcover
Unlike a lot of books that try to pass for scholarship, this one shines out. Calarco balances the larger picture of statistics and costs (including sourcing for reference) drawn from her extensive research with individual narratives to bring the picture into clarity. She also provides viable solutions (some of which demonstrated their viability during the pandemic) to the problem of care regardless of where one exists on the financial ladder and demonstrates how this would make our society more productive, more resilient, more tolerant and more fair. As we move into an uncertain future wherein social resiliency becomes a more urgent issue, this book should be a call to action. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on August 8, 2024 by senryu
    • Footnotes galore
Format: Kindle
This feels like a book that has a lot of valuable things to say, but it’s almost unreadable due to the number of footnotes. Maybe in the print version it’s less distracting, but on Kindle it means tapping to read footnotes on every other sentence, some of which could be parenthetical & some of which you need to know what she’s taking about. On page 7 we’re already at footnote #15. Not sure how far I can stand it. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on May 5, 2026 by Sprocket
    • Critical Research
Format: Hardcover
This is critical research for today. This book is well researched and excellently written. The author provides examples for the reader to understand exactly the roles women have had to play and the outcome. As a society we need to do better and take ideas from other countries where improved systems are in place. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on June 11, 2024 by Jacque
    • An important work for understanding what happens when government fails
Format: Hardcover
Learn about how Americans safety net is the unpaid labor of women
Reviewed in the United States on July 6, 2025 by magistra
    • Everyone should read this book
Format: Hardcover
Jessica Calarco does an excellent job working through the experience of women, care givers and their partners as she explores the American experience for all of them. She discusses the myths that help create the constructs that we have all lived by and accepted and methodically deconstructs them. It was eye opening and sometimes infuriating while also being comforting. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on January 24, 2025 by Elizabeth
    • Great takeaway, a lot of problems getting there
Format: Kindle
Jessica Calarco is not wrong that the US lacks a social safety net--and uses women as a substitute, especially for the care of young children. She vividly describes a serious social problem, in need of creative solutions. Also, the interviews and surveys that she ran as an academic sociologist provide a poignant glimpse into what it feels like for the women who are thrust into the role of caretakers without sufficient support or even the barest acknowledgment. Out society would not be thriving without the work of these women. However, Calarco simplifies the solutions to this very complex problem and implies almost a neoliberal conspiracy theory as the cause. The "engineers" and coporate overloards of our society are to blame; they rub their hands gleefully behind the scenes as they callously (and consciously) exploit vulnerable mothers. All we need to do as a society is to tax the h** out of them and repurpose the funds to their rightful cause--and all will be well. This simplistic solution, mentioned again and again in this book, ignores all the complexities of our tax system, for example the serious barriers to implementing the wealth taxes she seems to be recommending--not to mention the ways that government inefficiency and corruption across sectors contribute to persistent inequities. The book presents its argument as knowledgeable and supported by evidence. To wit, it is heavy on footnotes (in fact, there are two tiers of footnotes), but the sources in the notes are seriously cherry picked and don't acknowledge complexities and counterarguments. This book would have done better to stick to a dramatic presentation of the problem without wading into solutions that in many cases would make the problems described worse rather than better. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on June 22, 2024 by Wanda B. Red
    • Nice
Format: Hardcover
Haven't read yet but arrived on time and good condition.
Reviewed in the United States on September 11, 2025 by GMM

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