Cut Adrift
Families in Insecure Times
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- $20.99
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- $20.99
Publisher Description
Cut Adrift makes an important and original contribution to the national conversation about inequality and risk in American society. Set against the backdrop of rising economic insecurity and rolled-up safety nets, Marianne Cooper’s probing analysis explores what keeps Americans up at night. Through poignant case studies, she reveals what families are concerned about, how they manage their anxiety, whose job it is to worry, and how social class shapes all of these dynamics, including what is even worth worrying about in the first place. This powerful study is packed with intriguing discoveries ranging from the surprising anxieties of the rich to the critical role of women in keeping struggling families afloat. Through tales of stalwart stoicism, heart-wrenching worry, marital angst, and religious conviction, Cut Adrift deepens our understanding of how families are coping in a go-it-alone age—and how the different strategies on which affluent, middle-class, and poor families rely upon not only reflect inequality, but fuel it.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
With this well-researched book, Cooper, a sociologist at Stanford University's Clayman Institute, leads a grand return to a publicly committed sociology that is accessible, elucidating, and grounded in real stories. The book charts how individual American families at all income levels have dealt with the anxiety induced by the recent recession. Though each story is sensitively told and rich with personal details, the research focuses on the author's core finding the variation of "security strategies" among families. Though conventional wisdom dictates that wealthier families feel more secure, Cooper finds the opposite is true: they experience a mixture of status anxiety and the sense that everything they have isn't enough. Parents fret about having enough money to send their children to elite schools, even if they have more than enough to pay for state universities. For the poorer and middle-tier families contrary to popular stereotypes of the grasping, entitled modern American many are figuring out how to survive with less, and even valorizing that. Cooper offers a robust analysis of gender dynamics, with sharp insights about the heavy burden on women to manage the family's anxiety. Cooper's necessary and timely study is a discomfiting reminder of the human cost of the recession.
