Women are almost invisible in the extensive literature on social mobility, a fact often raised in criticism of mobility studies. The recent upsurge of interest in gender and class, within the wider context of women's work and careers, has failed to produce a systematic treatment of female social mobility. Cetainly, there is no book which draws together the scattered evidence about trends, work in progress in one volume or which records the present state of knowledge. This volume sets out to fill that gap, providing a framework for understanding the mobility circumstances of women and for reconceptualizing social mobility as whole.