Sociopolitical occurrences in recent years have, if anything, brought to the fore the close relationship between developments in the labour market and progress on the socio-econo-political terrain. The ideological divides in South Africa are especially apparent in the labour market, and these compound the basic conflict between the objectives of protecting basic worker rights on the one hand, and increasing economic growth on the other. The South African labour market contains an abundance of information about labour markets in general and the South African labour market in particular. The South African labour market has a down-to-earth and practical approach. It considers the evidence and identifies some urgent discussion points about the sensitivity of employment to economic growth. Three appendix chapters deal extensively with the impact of globalisation on the labour market, how other countries have managed the challenges of globalisation, and consensus-seeking institutions such as Nedlac. Questions and study suggestions are included at the end of each chapter. The South African labour market is aimed at economics students as well as general readers wanting an overview of the South African labour market. The late Dr Frans Barker was a senior executive at the Chamber of Mines. During his career, he was also vice-president of the Economic Society of South Africa and president of the Industrial Relations Association of South Africa. He served on governing structures of Business Unity South Africa (BUSA), was a commissioner for the Commission for Employment Equity and was also involved in Nedlac in various roles. Dr Barker lectured at a number of universities and was the author of several publications related to labour issues. Derek Yu is an associate professor at the Department of Economics at the University of the Western Cape. He has a decade of teaching experience in undergraduate and postgraduate Labour Economics, and has published comprehensively in this area. He is also the author of the first edition of Basic mathematics for economics students: theory and applications. Pietman Roos has a decade's experience in different civil society organisations including national government, news media and organised business. He has worked on economic policy formulation, commentary, negotiation and advocacy, and has lectured undergraduate economics and jurisprudence.

How does the insecurity of work affect us? We know what job insecurity does to workers at work, the depressive effect it has on morale, productivity, and pay. We know less about the impact of job insecurity beyond the workplace, upon people's intimate relationships, their community life, their vision of the good self and a good life. This volume of essays explores the broader impacts of job precariousness on different groups in different contexts. From unemployed tech workers in Texas to single mothers in Russia, Japanese heirs to the iconic salaryman to relocating couples in the U.S. Midwest, these richly textured accounts depict the pain, defiance, and joy of charting a new, unscripted life when the scripts have been shredded. Across varied backgrounds and experiences, the new organization of work has its largest impact in three areas: in our emotional cultures, in the interplay of social inequalities like race, class and gender, and in the ascendance of a contemporary radical individualism. In Beyond the Cubicle, job insecurity matters, and it matters for more than how much work can be squeezed out of workers: it shapes their intimate lives, their relationships with others, and their shifting sense of self. Much more than mere numbers and figures, these essays offer a unique and holistic vision of the true impact of job insecurity.

What do people do all day? What did women and men do to make a living in early modern Europe, and what did their work mean? As this book shows, the meanings depended both on the worker and on the context. With an innovative analytic method that is yoked to a specially-built database of source materials, this book revises many received opinions about the history of gender and work in Europe. The applied verb-oriented method finds the 'work verbs' that appear incidentally in a wide variety of early modern sources and then analyzes the context in which they appear. By tying information technologies and computer-assisted analysis to the analytic powers - both quantitative and qualitative - of professional historians, the method gets much closer to a participatory observation of the micro-patterns of early modern life than was once believed possible. It directly addresses a number of broad problems often debated by historians of gender and early modern Europe. First, it discusses the problem of assessing more accurately the incidence, character and division of work. Second, it analyzes the configurations of work and human difference. Third, it deals with the extent to which work practices created notions of difference - gender difference but also other forms of difference - and, conversely, to what extent work practices contributed to notions of sameness and gender convergence. Finally, it studies the impact of processes of change. Drawing on sources from Sweden, the authors show the importance of multiple employment, the openness of early modern households, the significance of marriage and marital status, the gendered nature of specific tasks, and the ways in which state formation and commercialization were entangled in people's everyday lives.

Although Tijuana has historically been one of the primary crossing points between Mexico and the United States for undocumented migrants, representations of the city primarily focus on its reputation for sex, drugs, and crime, excluding its significance in the international migration dynamic. In Border Lives, Sergio Chavez moves beyond Tijuana's infamous image to tell the story of a diverse group of individuals who live in Tijuana and use both sides of the border as a resource to construct their livelihoods. Based on ethnographic fieldwork and in-depth interviews, Chavez explores the complex and often contradictory ways in which the border shapes the lives of border crossers. Due to the precarious nature of access to the border, some were only able to use the border as a resource in the past, while others continue to seek ways to access the border in the future. Yet for all of these border crossers-past, present, and future-the border itself plays a significant role not only in their livelihood strategies, but also their lifestyles. The border shapes respondents' knowledge and relationships, controls their time, and allows them to convert U.S. wages into a Mexican standard of living without losing the social and cultural comforts of Tijuana as their home. Beyond mere ethnography, this book provides empirical grounding to theories of how the border shapes human action, offering a substantial contribution to migration and labor theory.

This book examines pressures for convergence and divergence in contemporary societies focusing on the rapidly changing relationship betwen work and welfare. The countries selected for in-depth comparative analysis are Germany, Spain, Sweden and the UK, each representative of different labour market and welfare regimes. Beginning with an overview of those departmenst in the post-second world war period which shed light on the different social and institutional structures, economic directions and policy orientations of the countries concerned, the book goes on to explore changing patterns of work and employment in particular in relation to labour market reforms, new forms of production and women's participation in paid work. In its last section, it looks at current issues of social policy in Europe, including gender and poverty. Integrating material from sociological perspectives on work and employment with comparative welfare analysis, feminist critiques and recent debates on social exclusion, the book will be of particular relevance and usefulness to students of European Studies, Sociology and Social Policy.

An examination of the ways that digital technologies play an increasingly important role in the lives of precarious workers, far beyond the gig economy apps like Uber and Lyft. Over the past three decades, digital technologies like smartphones and laptops have transformed the way we work in the US. At the same time, workers at both ends of the income ladder have experienced rising levels of job insecurity and anxiety about their economic futures. In Left to Our Own Devices, Julia Ticona explores the ways that workers use their digital technologies to navigate insecure and flexible labor markets. Through 100 interviews with high and low-wage precarious workers across the US, she explores the surprisingly similar "digital hustles" they use to find work and maintain a sense of dignity and identity. Ticona then reveals how the digital hustle ultimately reproduces inequalities between workers at either end of polarized labor markets. A moving and accessible look at the intimate consequences of contemporary capitalism, Left to Our Own Devices will be of interest to sociologists, communication and media studies scholars, as well as a general audience of readers interested in digital technologies, inequality, and the future of work in the US.

Copywriter: include this in European/French History rather than British This is a comparative study of national labour movements in France and Britain during the First World War. Historians of labour in this period have concentrated on pacifism, and on the post-war radicalism and emergent communism to which that contributed. John N. Horne focuses instead on the majorities in both the French and the British labour movements which continued to support the war to its end. He examines the terms of their support, and the broader working-class experience which this reflected, showing how a critical programme of socialist reforms was gradually developed. Labour at War is a genuinely comparative analysis, based on intensive primary research in both countries. It is an important contribution both to labour history, and to the social and political history of the First World War.

The Baby Boomer generation is facing a time of heightened uncertainty. Blessed with unprecedented levels of education, health, and life expectancy, many hope to contribute to society after their retirement. Yet they must also navigate ambiguous career exits and retirement paths, as established scripts for schooling, parenting, and careers continue to unravel. In Encore Adulthood, Phyllis Moen presents the realities of the "encore" life stage - the years between traditional careers and childraising and old age. Drawing on large-scale data sets and interviews with Boomers, HR personnel, and policymakers, this book illuminates the challenges that Boomers encounter as they transition from traditional careers into retirement. Beyond data analysis, Moen discusses the personal impact for Boomers' wellbeing, happiness, and health when they are unable to engage in meaningful work during their encore years, as well as the potential economic loss that would occur when a large, qualified group of people prematurely exit the workforce. Moen concludes with proposals for a range of encore jobs that could galvanize Boomers to take on desirable and sought-after second acts, emphasizing meaningful work over high-paying jobs and flexibility over long hours. An important analysis of an understudied and new life stage, Encore Adulthood makes an important contribution to the existing scholarship on careers, work, and retirement.

This book is an ethnography of labor mobility and its challenges to the idea of the nation. Using the example of francophone Canada, it examines how social difference-race, ethnicity, language, gender-has been used to sort out who must (or can) be mobile and who must (or can) remain in place in the organization of global circulation of human and natural resources. It argues that "francophone Canada" can best be understood as an ethnoclass category that has embedded francophones into specific forms of labor mobility since the beginnings of European colonization, even as their social difference has been constructed as national in the interests of gaining political power. The result has been an erasure both of francophone mobilities and of their contribution to the rooted community that lies at the heart of the idea of the nation, and of francophone capacity to resist economic marginalization and exploitation. By following French Canadian workers back and forth between eastern and central Canada and the frontiers of the Canadian northwest, Sustaining the Nation explores how contemporary forms of labor mobility make it increasingly difficult for national structures and discourses to produce the francophone nation. By following the ideological tensions between language as a skill and language as a marker of belonging, the authors present grounded evidence of how the globalized new economy challenges the nation-state, and how mobilities and immobilities are co-constructed.

Much is stated and written about the new world of work but how much do we know about the contemporary workplace? What influence have Japanese management techniques (Just-in-Time Production and Total Quality Management, for example) had on the way work is organized in `transplants', and more broadly in other firms and sectors? Have the systems and mechanisms of control changed radically in recent years, or are they much the same as they have always been? Rick Delbridge sought an answer to these questions at first hand by working on the shopfloor in a Japanese consumer electronics transplant and a European automotive components supplier in order to witness and experience life on the line in contemporary manufacturing. His book is in a long tradition of ethnographic research in industrial sociology and management/labour studies. Not only does he offer rich empirical data on the lived reality of work and a management practice that may share little in common with that found in the textbooks; he also raises a number of important issues about the best ways to understand the complex and changing nature of work. The book will be essential reading for those wishing to understand the reality of the contemporary workplace, the diffusion of Japanese management practices, and the various influences brought to bear on the organization of work.

Arguably sociology's first classic and one of Durkheim's major works, The Division of Labour in Society studies the nature of social solidarity, exploring the ties that bind one person to the next so as to hold society together in conditions of modernity. In this revised and updated second edition, leading Durkheim scholar Steven Lukes' new introduction builds upon Lewis Coser's original - which places the work in its intellectual and historical context and pinpoints its central ideas and arguments - by focusing on the text's significance for how we ought to think sociologically about some central problems that face us today. For example: What does this text have to tell us about modernity and individualism? In what ways does it offer a distinctive critique of the ills of capitalism? With helpful introductions and learning features this remains an indispensable companion for students of sociology. A refreshed translation of one of the key works in the sociological canon, this new edition carefully guides students through the text, critically engaging with Durkheim's writing while clearly explaining his original argument. Additional material and a new introduction by Steven Lukes make this essential reading for scholars and students alike.

The idea of ''vocation'' has fallen out of fashion in twenty-first-century America, replaced with careerism and credentialism. Neither go far in answering the weighty questions of meaning and morality that have always been integral to a vocational pursuit. Kaethe Schwehn and L. DeAne Lagerquist offer perspectives from fourteen professors at St. Olaf College on the value of vocation, showing how a focus on one's calling rather than on success or credentials paves the way for the civic good sought by defenders of liberal arts education. Moving beyond abstract generalities, the essays in Claiming Our Callings exemplify the reflective practices at the heart of liberal arts, for faculty and students alike. Martin E. Marty once said that "The vocation of St. Olaf is vocation,'' and the contributors to this volume draw on their experiences teaching in a range of departments at the College-from biology and economics to history and religion-to reflect on both their calling as professors and their practices for fostering students' ability to identify their own vocations. All are convinced of the continuing value of the liberal arts, particularly in generating exploration of the meaning and purpose of life. These scholars' varied notions of how vocation is best understood and cultivated reveal the differing religious commitments and pedagogical practices present within their college community. Together they demonstrate how the purposes of their own lives intersect creatively with the purposes of higher education and the needs of their students and the world.

Who were the women who fought back at Grunwick and Gate Gourmet? Striking Women gives a voice to the women involved as they discuss their lives, their work and their trade unions. Striking Women is centred on two industrial disputes, the famous Grunwick strike (1976-78) and the Gate Gourmet dispute that erupted in 2005. Focusing on these two events, the book explores the nature of South Asian women's contribution to the struggles for workers' rights in the UK labour market. The authors examine histories of migration and settlement of two different groups of women of South Asian origin, and how this history, their gendered, classed and racialised inclusion in the labour market, the context of industrial relations in the UK in the two periods and the nature of the trade union movement shaped the trajectories and the outcomes of the two disputes. This is the first account based on the voices of the women involved. Drawing on life/work history interviews with thirty-two women who participated in the two disputes, as well as interviews with trade union officials, archival material and employment tribunal proceedings, the authors explore the motivations, experiences and implications of these events for their political and social identities.

This book provides a novel approach to the understanding and realization of the values of art. It argues that art has often been instrumentalized for state-building, to promote social inclusion of diversity, or for economic purposes such as growth or innovation. To counteract that, the authors study the values that artists and audiences seek to realize in the social practices around the arts. They develop the concept of cultural civil society to analyze how art is practiced and values are realized in creative circles and co-creative communities of spectators, illustrated with case-studies about hip-hop, Venetian art collectives, dance festivals, science-fiction fandom, and a queer museum. The authors provide a four-stage scheme that illustrates how values are realized in a process of value orientation, imagination, realization, and evaluation. The book relies on an interdisciplinary approach rooted in economics and sociology of the arts, with an appreciation for broader social theories. It integrates these disciplines in a pragmatic approach based on the work of John Dewey and more recent neo-pragmatist work to recover the critical and constructive role that cultural civil society plays in a plural and democratic society. The authors conclude with a new perspective on cultural policy, centered around state neutrality towards the arts and aimed at creating a legal and social framework in which social practices around the arts can flourish and co-exist peacefully.

Persistent unemployment and rising wage differences at the expense of low-skilled workers has characterized the labor market in most developed countries. Since the last economic crisis, unemployment rates and pay inequalities have increased among workers under 25 years of age, thus creating an ever-widening financial gap for an entire generation. Those who do not have a qualification or post-secondary diploma often find themselves in precarious jobs at minimum wage. Countries are now working to adopt reforms to improve the situation of young people in the labor market. International Perspectives on the Youth Labor Market: Emerging Research and Opportunities provides emerging research exploring the theoretical and practical aspects of financial inequality and applications within global economics. Unlike literature that focuses only on developed countries, this book also addresses emerging economies whose labor market is often characterized by a dualism that makes the situation of young workers worse. Featuring coverage on a broad range of topics such as unemployment rate, labor reform, and job insecurity, this book is ideally designed for economists, government officials, policymakers, executives, managers, business professionals, researchers, academicians, and students.

Immigrant laborers who came to the New South in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries found themselves poised uncomfortably between white employers and the Black working class, a liminal and often precarious position. Campaigns to recruit immigrants primarily aimed to suppress Black agency and mobility. If that failed, both planters and industrialists imagined that immigrants might replace Blacks entirely. Thus, white officials, citizens, and employers embraced immigrants when they acted in ways that sustained Jim Crow. However, when they directly challenged established political and economic power structures, immigrant laborers found themselves ostracized, jailed, or worse, by the New South order. Both industrial employers and union officials lauded immigrants' hardworking and noble character when it suited their purposes, and both denigrated and racialized them when immigrant laborers acted independently. Jennifer E. Brooks's Resident Strangers restores immigrant laborers to their place in the history of the New South, considering especially how various immigrant groups and individuals experienced their time in New South Alabama. Brooks utilizes convict records, censuses, regional and national newspapers, government documents, and oral histories to construct the story of immigrants in New South Alabama. The immigrant groups she focuses on appeared most often as laborers in the records, including the Chinese, southern Italians, and the diverse nationals of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, along with a sprinkling of others. Although recruitment crusades by Alabama's employers and New South boosters typically failed to bring in the vast numbers of immigrants they had envisioned, significant populations from around the world arrived in industries and communities across the state, especially in the coal- and ore-mining district of Birmingham. Resident Strangers reveals that immigrant laborers' presence and individual agency complicated racial categorization, disrupted labor relations, and diversified southern communities. It also presents a New South that was far from isolated from the forces at work across the nation or in the rest of the world. Immigrant laborers brought home to New South Alabama the turbulent world of empire building, deeply embedding the region in national and global networks of finance, trade, and labor migration.

'A powerful, salient and gracefully written study of the corrosive dynamics of race in Britain from a trusted voice on the subject. We can all benefit from reading it' Diana Evans In this transformative book, Nicola Rollock, one of our pre-eminent experts on racial justice, offers a vital exploration of the lived experience of racism Miles, a successful lawyer, is mistaken for the waiter at a networking event. Femi is on the verge of breakdown having been consistently overlooked for promotion at her university. Nigel's emails, repeatedly expressing concern about his employer's forthcoming slavery exhibition, are ignored. Carol knows she can't let herself relax at the work Christmas party... This is racism. It is not about the overt acts of random people at the fringes of society. It's about the everyday. It's the loaded silence, the throwaway remark, the casual comment or a 'joke' in the workplace. It's everything. The Racial Code is an unprecedented examination of the hidden rules of race and racism that govern our lives and how they maintain the status quo. Interweaving narrative with research and theory, acclaimed expert Nicola Rollock uniquely lays bare the pain and cost of navigating everyday racism -- and compels us to reconsider how to truly achieve racial justice.

Addresses current legal and psychological issues involved in campus and workplace violence, specifically sexual misconduct, and offers best practices for organizations seeking to prevent and respond to sexual misconduct. Based on an idea conceived at a conference for the International Coalition of Sexual Harassment, this book offers up-to-date information about sexual harassment and other forms of sexual misconduct in academic and workplace settings, as well as legal and guidance updates and best practices that discuss prevention methods. The chapters are written by noted attorneys, campus and workplace consultants, and other scholars who have assisted in collecting incident data and have thought leadership to offer. Chapters address how workplaces and campuses respond to forms of violence as well as the impact of sexual harassment on individuals, bystanders, and organizations. Readers will learn about topics such as the "Not Alone" initiative-a result of President Obama's Task Force to Protect Students from Sexual Assault-and the history of Titles VII and IX legislation the United States. The editors have compiled resources that address the cultural and social views of sexual harassment, the history of sexual misconduct on campuses and in organizations, and sample organizations at the national level that deal with prevention, advocacy, and legal guidance for students and employees. Provides an overview of current legislation surrounding sexual misconduct Examines the impact of sexual misconduct on individuals, bystanders, and organizations Offers recommendations for investigating complaints of sexual harassment and other forms of sexual misconduct in organizations and universities Presents invaluable insights into cultural views regarding sexual harassment Contains essays by campus and workplace consultants, lawyers, and other subject experts

Skill formation in Central and Eastern Europe. A search for patterns and directions of development offers holistic analytical insight into skill formation processes and institutions in Central and Eastern European countries by referring to the timeframe of historical development of skill formation from the fall of communism to the present time and future development trends. Leading researchers of skill formation from Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Romania and Ukraine refer to critical junctures and the findings are compared and discussed in five concluding chapters focused on important cross-cutting topics: development of social dialogue over skill formation, qualifications policy and development of qualifications systems, implications of European integration and EU policies for governance and institutional reform of skill formation, features and implications of policy borrowing and policy learning from the Anglo-Saxon and German speaking countries, respectively.

Sustainable Work in Europe brings together a strong core of Swedish working life research, with additional contributions from across Europe, and discussion of current issues such as digitalisation, climate change and the Covid pandemic. It bridges gaps between social science and medicine, and adds emphasis on age and gender. The book links workplace practice, theory and policy, and is intended to provide the basis for ongoing debate and dialogue.

What types of jobs are growing: well-paid managerial jobs or low-paid auxiliary jobs, high-end professional jobs or bottom-end service jobs? Can occupational change transform affluent countries into enlarged middle-class societies? Or, on the contrary, are we heading towards a future of increasingly divided class societies? Do changes in the employment structure allow forthcoming generations to move towards more rewarding jobs than those held by their parents - or is downward mobility the more likely outcome? This book throws new light on these timely questions by drawing on extensive evidence of employment data on the pattern of occupational change in Britain, Denmark, Germany, Spain, and Switzerland since 1990. It documents the change in the employment structure, and examines the five underlying driving forces: technology, globalization, education, migration, and institutions. The book discusses whether governments really have no other choice than either occupational upgrading with soaring unemployment or full employment with expanding low-end jobs. The book gives a clear picture of the future of work, skills, and employment in today's Europe, contributing to the debate in economic sociology and labour economics.

Our jobs are often a big part of our identities, and when we are fired, we can feel confused, hurt, and powerless - at sea in terms of who we are. Drawing on extensive, real-life interviews, Job Loss, Identity, and Mental Health shines a light on the experiences of unemployed, middle-class professional men and women, showing how job loss can affect both identity and mental health. Sociologist Dawn R. Norris uses in-depth interviews to offer insight into the experience of losing a job - what it means for daily life, how the unemployed feel about it, and the process they go through as they try to deal with job loss and their new identities as unemployed people. Norris highlights several specific challenges to identity that can occur. For instance, the way other people interact with the unemployed either helps them feel sure about who they are, or leads them to question their identities. Another identity threat happens when the unemployed no longer feel they are the same person they used to be. Norris also examines the importance of the subjective meaning people give to statuses, along with the strong influence of society's expectations. For example, men in Norris's study often used the stereotype of the ""male breadwinner"" to define who they were. Job Loss, Identity, and Mental Health describes various strategies to cope with identity loss, including ""shifting"" away from a work-related identity and instead emphasizing a nonwork identity (such as ""a parent""), or conversely ""sustaining"" a work-related identity even though he or she is actually unemployed. Finally, Norris explores the social factors - often out of the control of unemployed people - that make these strategies possible or impossible. A compelling portrait of a little-studied aspect of the Great Recession, Job Loss, Identity, and Mental Health is filled with insight into the identity crises that unemployment can trigger, as well as strategies to help the unemployed maintain their mental strength.