"Elegantly written and timely, The Balance Gap highlights how family leave policies seeking 'work-life balance' often ignore the institutional rules, gendered norms, organizational status, and hierarchies that collide with heightened expectations of – and for – mothers in the workplace. A rigorous call to action in transforming how we view the ideal mother, and the ideal worker."—Renee Ann Cramer, Drake University "A valuable read for scholars and activists alike, The Balance Gap integrates empirical evidence and legal theory in an admirably readable manner. Hampson drives beyond policy to the reality of working mothers' lives, challenging the deep tension between the notion of work/life balance and the enduring fetishization of the 'ideal worker' as a human machine who produces regardless of the cost."—Anne-Marie Slaughter, Princeton University "The Balance Gap offers an important analysis of why all workplaces are not the same even if they follow the same family friendly policies. By contrasting the university with the military, we see how social and environmental context are having as much or more effect on a woman's likelihood to take advantage of their policy rights as the policies themselves."—Mary Ann Mason, UC Berkeley "Hampson has written a smart and thoughtful book, based on research in "understudied" environments."—Cynthia Harrison, Journal of Women, Politics, and Policy