How do state policies and paid labour promote or prevent gender equality and which mechanisms are the driving forces behind exclusion or inclusion in society? These are important questions, especially in times of increasing inequities around the globe.

A thought-provoking and interesting contribution to this debate is afforded by Becky Pettit and Jennifer L. Hook in the book Gendered Tradeoffs, in which they provide an intriguing cross-national analysis of how gender (in)equalities in the labour market are institutionalised through state polices. It is above all an analysis of the economic consequences for women and men who depend and rely on various forms of social and family policies in different national settings over the life course. Their main argument is that labour market inclusion does not always guarantee gender equality by other measures such as equal pay, or that labour market exclusion necessarily contributes to other forms of inequalities. The outcome is various tradeoffs between different facets of gender inequalities, which in turn are shaped by individuals, markets and states.

Departing from four indicators of economic gender inequality – employment, hours worked, occupation and pay – the following assumptions are made: (a) availability to part-time work fosters inclusion in the labour market but may also reproduce inequality in other economic domains such as hours worked and pay; (b) access to publicly financed childcare fosters women's labour market inclusion, resulting in increasing equality in hours worked, pay and occupation; (c) unionisation contributes to a male-worker norm which fosters low female employment ratios, but gender neutral employment protection on the other hand may foster equality in hours worked, occupation and pay; and (d) lengthy parental leave affects women's involvement in the labour market negatively, while at the same time expectations of gender specialisation are reproduced which foster inequality in hours worked, occupation and pay.

In the next four chapters, these assumptions are tested. The analysis relies primarily on the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS), in which data from women and men in sixty-three micro-level data sets from twenty-one countries between 1969 and 2000 are investigated. In chapters 3 and 4, variations in women's and men's employment and involvement in part-time work are scrutinised. The analyses show, among other things, that gender differences in hours worked depend on women's educational level, if they have children, their access to childcare, and so on. Chapter 5 deals with occupational sex segregation, and provides further information on how inequalities are shaped by state policies, levels of full- and part-time work and occupational gender segregation. Again, education, the age of the children and access to childcare stand out as important factors in the making of inequality regimes. Chapter 6 engages in the gender wage gap, and reveals that women's position in the economy is structured by differential access to gainful employment, full- and part-time work and occupational structures, which in turn are related to child care and parental leave policies. Chapter 7 differs in structure and content from the other chapters. Here, the analyses depart from the heterogeneity among women – in contrast to differences between men and women – with the purpose to study inequalities in employment, hours worked, occupational segregation and wages between women of different races, ethnicities and nationalities in Germany and the US. This chapter is very interesting, especially given the effort to bring in other forms of structuring mechanisms of inequalities.

The book is replete with tables and figures, and it is sometimes difficult to keep track of the arguments, mainly because the data material are not consistent. The years analysed vary between the tables and so do the country comparisons depending on the analytical variables. These methodological shortcomings are acknowledged but its consequences are not further discussed. There is also a lack of contextual understanding. When for example part-time work, or various parental leave schemes, are discussed, the tables and figures present rich information on part-time employment patterns or uses of parental leave schemes, but there is a lack of explanation of why part-time work policies differ between countries or why there are such dramatic variations in parental leave policies between countries and across time. Neither are there any discussions on whether women's involvement in the labour market is connected to various forms of changes in the economy (such as agreements between labour and capital or financial crises), which would have enhanced the analysis of discrepancies in gender equality ambitions and outcomes. This is however acknowledged by the authors, who urge other scholars to continue to explore the relationship between policies and labour markets and how they structure inequities and tradeoffs between home and work. This is an important invitation, not least because the data in this book do not cover the last decade when many countries have witnessed severe and brutal changes in labour markets and in income levels, often with devastating consequences for families with children.

Despite these methodological and contextual queries, the intriguing and original analysis of the mechanisms involved in the making of gender inequalities through labour markets make this book a valuable resource for anyone interested in gender, work and social policy.