There is an enormous amount of interesting material in this book and many arguments that many readers of this journal would welcome and endorse. Just do not expect insightful commentary on the position of women, gender divisions, or policies to further gender equality. Esping-Andersen's preoccupations remain stratification by social class and making the case for the state against markets.

The main argument of the book runs as follows: there has been a revolution in women's work roles, by which Esping-Andersen means that above all the changes in women's paid work have provoked a fundamental change in how people make decisions about and behave in relation to education, marriage, parenting and employment. This revolution is incomplete, by which he means that it has been led by well-educated, middle-class women: ‘Put bluntly, the quest for gender equality tends to produce social inequality as long as it is a middle-class affair’ (p. 169). As a result, the ‘incomplete revolution’ of the title results in greater inequalities. In other words, the incomplete revolution matters for the ways in which it exacerbates social class inequality, most importantly in respect of the differential investments that high-paid/high-educated parents make in respect of children, compared with low-paid/low-educated parents

The welfare state and social policies are the only means of completing the revolution. In large measure, this means acting on the presupposition that family wellbeing and broader efficiency gains entail the defamilialisation of carework. The last chapter suggests a number of directions for future research, including the idea that sociologists should investigate why ‘a sometimes large segment of womanhood [is] so reluctant to climb on the revolutionary wagon. . .’ (p. 171). Within Esping-Andersen's rational actor model, such behaviour is very difficult to explain. Unequal structures, the politics of difference and of gendered power are absent from the analysis, and culture is only present as a key explanatory variable for differences in parenting behaviour.

In the three main substantive chapters, the first argues for work/motherhood reconciliation. Despite a strong statement regarding ‘the centrality of men's behaviour’ (p. 19), there is rather little on what might be done to change it. After a brief acknowledgment of the Scandinavian policy of ‘daddy leave’, the book suggests that ‘men are unlikely to substitute fully for the decline in female domestic work’ (p. 80). Indeed, ‘if fathers’ contribution to home production were, in a true sense, an effective solution to the reconciliation problems that women face, the case in favour of welfare state intervention would be seriously weakened’ (p. 90). However, given that this is not considered a ‘realistic’ scenario, the focus is placed firmly on the reconciliation of work and motherhood. This is of course problematic for those concerned about gender equality. But the main focus of the book is not really what it might take to ‘complete’ the ‘incomplete revolution’. Rather, it is what state intervention needs to do to address the outcomes of the incomplete revolution, in terms of investing in children's early learning (Chapter 4) and to counter the intra-generational inequality that arises from population ageing (Chapter 5), which is mainly due to low fertility and which brings us back to the need to reconcile work and motherhood. Notwithstanding this crucial link, Chapters 4 and 5 could stand alone without any reference to the ‘incomplete revolution’. It is remarkable that a chapter on population ageing that devotes a substantial section to pension reform neglects to mention the gendered divisions in access to pensions and in old age poverty.

The book does a great service in pulling together a wide range of research findings. However, the elephant in the room is the feminist critique of Esping-Andersen's work. The antagonist accorded the respect that accompanies recognition is the economist. The main concern of the book is to persuade economists that the widening gulf between ‘the top and the bottom’ (p. 171) is not just an issue for those concerned about inequalities, but for those concerned about inefficiency. The book's argument that efficiency reasons propel us towards reforms designed to enhance equality is important. But no attention is paid to any qualitative work, or to a huge body of literature, which is referred to only as an undifferentiated block of ‘feminist writing’ and which is never referenced. Given this last point, contributors to the literature on gender and welfare states may be interested to know that they have been: ‘narrowly concerned with equality issues related to ingrained patriarchy, gender discrimination and the dilemmas of reconciling work and family’ (p. 3) (nevertheless, the last of these issues is hailed on p. 54 as ‘one of the greatest tensions in modern society’); assuming that a ‘truly gender-egalitarian order will render marriage irrelevant’ (p. 12); putting forwards ‘often very ideologically based argumentation on behalf of women's causes. . .’ (p. 15); and either ignoring men entirely, or simply assigning ‘them to the status of stalwart patriarchy’ (p. 20). This is probably to protest too much. Even though Esping-Andersen has either not read or has merely chosen to ignore most of the research on gender divisions in the public and private spheres, it is hard to believe that it has had no impact on his work. In his 1990 book on welfare regimes, he purported to treat family, market and state, but largely confined his attention to the last two of these. One of the strongest criticisms of this book came from those interested in gender, family and welfare systems, and from 1999 Esping-Andersen has been intent on ‘bringing the family in’. But not gender. At the end of the day, the behaviour of men and women and the contributions they make to families is of interest for instrumental reasons.