A Sociologist and Associate Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Jessica is an award-winning teacher, a leading expert on inequalities in family life and education, and the author of Holding it Together: How Women Became America’s Social Safety Net (Portfolio/Penguin, 2024).
Her previous books include Qualitative Literacy: A Guide to Evaluating Ethnographic and Interview Research (with Mario Small; University of California Press, 2022), Negotiating Opportunities: How the Middle Class Secures Advantages in School (Oxford University Press, 2018), and A Field Guide to Grad School: Uncovering the Hidden Curriculum (Princeton University Press, 2020).
Jessica has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Atlantic, and CNN. She also writes the Hidden Curriculum newsletter and is a mom of two young kids.
Holding It Together
How Women Became America’s Safety Net
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 excerpts of the book on how our DIY Society hurts women and how the Mars/Venus myth allows men to exploit women without guilt.
Read reviews of the book in The Atlantic, Kirkus Reviews, and Early Learning Nation.
books
featured writing
media appearances
upcoming events
June 18, 2024 (Virtual Event)
Join Better Life Lab and the CareForce to discuss Jessica Calarco’s new book, “Holding It Together: How Women Became America’s Safety Net.” Calarco, who works as an associate professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin, made headlines in November 2020 when her quote: “Other countries have social safety nets; the U.S. has women” went viral. It resonated with so many people while still getting to the heart of what makes being a caregiver in this country so incredibly frustrating - it’s hard, it’s time-consuming, and we’re expected to do it while being given no support, financial or otherwise.
This conversation will delve into the reasons that caretakers in this country feel that so much pressure rests on their shoulders and too many expectations are heaped onto them. The United States does not have a robust social safety net the way many other industrialized countries do. We have no federal child care infrastructure and no federal paid family leave plan. In our conversation, we will explore why that is, how the lack of such systems hurts families, and what we can do about it.
This online fireside chat will be introduced by Eve Rodsky, author and founder of the Fair Play Policy Institute and Calarco will be interviewed by Rebecca Gale of Better Life Lab.
Date and Time: June 18, 2024, 3-4pm EDT
Location: register here for the free virtual event
June 20, 2024 (Milwaukee, Wisconsin)
Boswell Book Company presents an evening with Jessica Calarco, author of Holding It Together: How Women Became America's Safety net. In conversation with Sally Haldorson, Managing Director of Porchlight Book Company, our cosponsor for this event.
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. 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.
Jessica Calarco is a professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin, an expert on families, schools, and inequalities, and a mom of two. She is the author of Negotiating Opportunities and A Field Guide to Grad School, the coauthor of Qualitative Literacy, and a contributor to The New York Times, The Atlantic, and The Washington Post.
Click here to order your copy of Holding It Together from Boswell. Signed copies and personalization available on pre-orders. Please note that signed copies will not be shipped until after the event.
Date and Time: Thursday, June 20th, 6:30pm CST
Location: Boswell Books Company, 2559 N. Downer Ave, Milwaukee WI 53211
Register: the event is free, but RSVPs are encouraged
June 27, 2024 (Virtual Event)
How Women Became America’s Safety Net: A Conversation With Jess Calarco and guests
In her new book Holding It Together: How Women Became America's Safety Net, sociologist Jess Calarco (University of Wisconsin-Madison) draws on five years of research to show how U.S. society and policy disproportionately burden women with caregiving responsibilities and risk. On Thursday, June 27, 2024, join us as we talk with Calarco about her key findings and their implications for reproductive health care policy. An expert panel featuring Tiffany Green (University of Wisconsin-Madison), and Karen Benjamin Guzzo (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) will share insights from their own research on abortion, contraception, fertility, gender, and motherhood, and Jocelyn Foye (The Womxn Project) will provide perspective on supporting evidence-based policy change.
Date and Time: Thursday, June 27th, 12-1pm EDT
July 23, 2024 (Madison, WI)
Mystery to Me presents an evening with Jessica Calarco, author of Holding It Together: How Women Became America's Safety net. In conversation with Doug Moe, author of The Right Thing to Do: Kit Saunders-Nordeen and the Rise of Women’s Intercollegiate Athletics at the University of Wisconsin and Beyond.
If you can’t attend in-person, you can also watch the livestream of the event.
Date and Time: Tuesday, July 23rd, 6:00pm CST
Location: Mystery to Me, 1863 Monroe Street, Madison, WI 53711
Register: the event is free, but RSVPs are encouraged.