Women's lives in Wales are changing dramatically. They are becoming increasingly important to the world of paid work, while retaining their roles and responsibilities in the home. The pattern of family life has shifted, to the much vaunted growth of single parents, and the increase of elderly women living alone. Many women are increasingly active in public life, but meet barriers to their success, whether the arena be returning to study as mature students, the church, business, the arts or literature: they are expected to fit into a male world. Women's lives are very diverse, and their changing identity as they manage the balance between private and public lives has been as yet realtively uncharted. This text brings together a collection of interdisciplinary research papers on the changing identity of women in Wales. Research findings are complemented by cameo "voices" - personal accounts by a variety of individual women living and working in Wales. The volume is illustrated with photographs especially commissioned from the photographer Mary Giles.

Women's lives in Wales are changing dramatically. They are becoming increasingly important to the world of paid work, while retaining their roles and responsibilities in the home. The pattern of family life has shifted, to the much vaunted growth of single parents, and the increase of elderly women living alone. Many women are increasingly active in public life, but meet barriers to their success, whether the arena be returning to study as mature students, the church, business, the arts or literature: they are expected to fit into a male world. Women's lives are very diverse, and their changing identity as they manage the balance between private and public lives has been as yet realtively uncharted. This text brings together a collection of interdisciplinary research papers on the changing identity of women in Wales. Research findings are complemented by cameo "voices" - personal accounts by a variety of individual women living and working in Wales. The volume is illustrated with photographs especially commissioned from the photographer Mary Giles.