"Gender and the Welfare State" offers a comparative picture of the welfare state and gender relations. It explores how care, work and welfare are constituted in eight countries (France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, the UK and the USA). The book examines the impact of the welfare state on women and men's access to resources, roles and power relations. Casting a critical eye over feminist and comparative literatures on the welfare state, Daly and Rake elaborate a new theoretical framework for understanding how gender relations are shaped by national welfare states. They argue that the welfare state reaches deep into women and men's lives and that its effect is to be seen not just in how it shapes relations among different classes but in how it affects women and men's relative resource and power relations. The book presents a comprehensive picture of the welfare state, examining care needs and care provision, the division of paid from unpaid work, the conditions of women and men's participation in the labour market and gender differentials in access to the resources of money. Written in an accessible style, the book brings together wide ranging information from the major European Union countries as well as the USA, providing the reader with essential reference material. It should be welcomed by all students interested in gender, social policies and the comparative study of welfare states.