Book excerpt: This book examines a central issue in understanding recent changes in demographic patterns and the labour market - the increased participation of women in the workforce, and how the nature of this participation has developed. In the context of such economic and labour phenomena as globalization, increasing flexibilty in work patterns, intermittent and part-time employment, and in many countries high underemployment or unemployment, the role of women workers has transformed dramatically. This book explores a number of demographic issues associated with these developments, such as migration in the developed world and transition economies, family formation and dissolution, the autonomy of women migrants, household composition, the evolution of gender systems, and contraceptive behaviour, both as factors that determine the labour market conditions for women and their income levels, and as demographic outcomes. The studies cover a wide-range of situations, from societies with a strong patriarchal ideology and residential female seclusion, to industrialized countries with policies designed to assist women manage both a work and a family role, and makes use of extensive data sets collected at country level. The Editors have sought to maintain an interdisciplinary outlook in the book, and to draw policy implications from the various socio-economic situations examined.