This is a timely and well-edited collection of contributions from the perspective of feminist economics about the immediate, unfurling and potential longer-term impact of the crisis and austerity policies on gender equality in a range of ‘developed’ countries to 2012. Based on a shared analytical framework, and for most chapters also a common structure, Part II comprises nine case studies, including eight from Europe together with the USA. These are bookended by Part I, on the framework, and Part III, on the policy challenges and prospects for gender equality. The detailed list of contents and authors appears below.

The book stems from two international symposia about women, gender equality and economic crisis. Its focus is the labour market integration of women, which had been increasing in most countries examined before the 2007/08 crisis, and how this has been affected by the subsequent recession and austerity. In her chapter on the analytical framework, Rubery argues that integration involves not just a labour market presence that may ebb and flow but a continuity of commitment to employment that contributes to reconfigurations of both state and family. The editors have form in this area, with Rubery's classic text (Reference Rubery1988) on women and recession revised and republished in 2010. Their framework sees gender as both an input and an outcome, and stresses the relative autonomy of economic production and social reproduction. Developments will vary between countries depending on their previous gender regime, recent policy trends, the origins and shape of the crisis and the political context of the policy response. Thus, the recent convergence between countries does not dictate post-crisis outcomes.

The main findings are clearly expressed, and well supported by evidence from the case studies. First, in the immediate aftermath of the crisis, it was men's employment that suffered most, resulting in narrowing gender gaps in many countries. Ironically, this was in part due to employment segregation protecting women's sectors and occupations. Secondly, however, in particular as austerity policies were implemented, demand for female labour fell. Cuts to public sector jobs were particularly detrimental, as they are important for both women's job opportunities and generally higher quality conditions (and – perhaps under-emphasised here – in-work training and promotion possibilities for low/medium educated women in particular). Such policies also involve a stalling or even reversing of the long-term growth in state investments in support for care. There is less detailed analysis on changes to tax and social security, in part because of the timing of the studies (when austerity policies were still not fully rolled out in many countries), but probably also in part because of the book's focus on paid employment. This also results in the common problem of putting more emphasis on changes in women's working lives than in men's caring activities.

Along the way, relevant economic ideas such as the ‘added worker’, ‘discouraged worker’ and ‘buffer’ theories are debated intelligently, with the overall conclusion that women do not seem to be retreating from labour market integration, and young people and male migrants may now generally fulfil the ‘buffer’ role instead. A fascinating chapter by Villa and Smith analyses how and why the focus on gender equality in the European Employment Strategy of 1997 was lost in the run-up to Europe 2020 – though this also emphasises how the policy core of the book is primarily the EU, and perhaps especially the original member states. For this reason, it seems more difficult on occasions to integrate the chapters on the USA, and sometimes even Hungary, into the analysis.

The last section discusses whether changes resulting from austerity to date constitute a critical juncture in terms of progress towards gender equality. Although it is (was then) too early for a definitive judgement, there are indications that pay and conditions hitherto seen as applicable to women may be spreading to men too; that in general intra-gender differences are becoming more important; and that, as in the US, class and ethnicity may become the key determinants of outcomes. Conservative family ideologies may be being reasserted, but these developments undermine the male breadwinner model. Finally, it is argued that gender equality must in future involve more co-operation in pursuing interests increasingly common to both sexes. Gender equality should not, as previously, be seen merely instrumentally (for example, as part of a drive to increase overall employment to cope with an ageing population). But it must be an essential element of any alternative path towards a more progressive future, for its own sake as well as for the sake of that broader goal.