Framing a Domain brings new sociological focus to the work of women realtors. The book provides fascinating insights into why women choose to sell real estate and why they have come to dominate the profession. Based on in-depth interviews with women realtors, carried out through the 1990s, Carol Wharton's work places this white-collar service occupation within the larger context of women's lives. It offers a unique case study of the gendered practices that infuse the workplace, and the ways women negotiate these practices to successfully "weave" work with family obligations. Framing a Domain not only provides an excellent occupational study of residential real estate salespeople but contributes much to our understanding of gender and work in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

"This timely study highlights how white-collar women in the service industry approach work and family objectives in a changing labor market in which contingent work is becoming more common. . . . Wharton's case study of women in real estate sales makes plain the connection between work-family issues and the larger social structure of employment, as she relates women's family experiences to specific occupational features. . . . Anyone interested in case study methods in occupational research will appreciate the broadness and carefulness of her work." - Growing Pains and Progess