This paper is a critique of Hakim's theory of the gendered character of work with its key idea of the 'heterogeneity of women' centring on the distinction between those who are 'family oriented' and those who are 'career oriented'. Such patterns of work commitment are claimed to be developed by early adulthood and to steer women in one direction or the other.Our critique is based on interviews with two groups of young adult women generating rich data on their attitudes to employment, families and the relationship between the two. The first group ('single workers') when first interviewed were single, childless and employed full-time. The second ('early mothers') were partnered mothers with at most part-time employment.The substance of the critique is threefold:1. The single workers could not be clearly separated by 'career' or 'family' orientation. They wanted both, which then left them in Hakim's residual category as 'drifters', a wholly inappropriate characterization. 2. The early mothers were certainly homemakers but our data doubted that this was by choice and suggested that many were becoming more career oriented. Longitudinal data from the single workers show the importance of analysing 'orientation'or other aspects of agency in the context of social structure rather than as a prime mover in itself.

This paper is drawn from a study of the work and family experiences and aspirations of young adult women who were interviewed by either one or the other of the authors in 1992. A comparison can thus be drawn between interviews conducted by a man and those by a woman. This is attempted in a systematic and empirical way. The initial intention was to learn from the literature on gender and the interview to minimise the impact of the interviewer's gender on the data generated. In the first section this is reviewed and we put a case that this intention was achieved. This was, however, only to an extent, as we indicate with material on the revelation of abortion experience to the two interviewers. Whilst there was a similar pattern of response to our direct questions, there was a marked difference in the voluntary addition of further personal experience. The final evidence we deploy comes from re-interviews done in 1994 in which the interviewees were asked about their perception of the significance of the original interviewer's gender. This indicates the importance of interviewees' concepts of gender as well as the intentions of researchers.

This paper is concerned with the effects of participating in semistructured interviews on the interviewees. It is based on evidence supplied by young adult women who were interviewed a number of times and asked about their previous interviews. While most claimed to have little recall of these earlier events, they did remember them as interesting and/or enjoyable. This was because the interview focused on them with the guaranteed but detached interest of the interviewer. Informants' reflections on previous interviews showed that there was a range of impact on women's views from (a) recording information; (b) clarification of views; (c) review of position; and (d) discovery of something new. Beyond interviews interacting with the informant's views there is also evidence that some interviewees' actions outside the interview were influenced by their participation. The fact that interviews involve the interaction of participants is now recognized in a number of intellectual approaches but the variability of this has not been documented.

No abstract