Good Jobs, Bad Jobs provides an insightful analysis of how and why precarious employment is gaining ground in the labor market and the role these developments have played in the decline of the middle ...class. Kalleberg shows that by the 1970s, government deregulation, global competition, and the rise of the service sector gained traction, while institutional protections for workers—such as unions and minimum-wage legislation—weakened. Together, these forces marked the end of postwar security for American workers. The composition of the labor force also changed significantly; the number of dual-earner families increased, as did the share of the workforce comprised of women, non-white, and immigrant workers. Of these groups, blacks, Latinos, and immigrants remain concentrated in the most precarious and low-quality jobs, with educational attainment being the leading indicator of who will earn the highest wages and experience the most job security and highest levels of autonomy and control over their jobs and schedules. Kalleberg demonstrates, however, that building a better safety net—increasing government responsibility for worker health care and retirement, as well as strengthening unions—can go a long way toward redressing the effects of today’s volatile labor market. There is every reason to expect that the growth of precarious jobs—which already make up a significant share of the American job market—will continue. Good Jobs, Bad Jobs deftly shows that the decline in U.S. job quality is not the result of fluctuations in the business cycle, but rather the result of economic restructuring and the disappearance of institutional protections for workers. Only government, employers and labor working together on long-term strategies—including an expanded safety net, strengthened legal protections, and better training opportunities—can help reverse this trend.
The growth of precarious work since the 1970s has emerged as a core contemporary concern within politics, in the media, and among researchers. Uncertain and unpredictable work contrasts with the ...relative security that characterized the three decades following World War II. Precarious work constitutes a global challenge that has a wide range of consequences cutting across many areas of concern to sociologists. Hence, it is increasingly important to understand the new workplace arrangements that generate precarious work and worker insecurity. A focus on employment relations forms the foundation of theories of the institutions and structures that generate precarious work and the cultural and individual factors that influence people's responses to uncertainty. Sociologists are well-positioned to explain, offer insight, and provide input into public policy about such changes and the state of contemporary employment relations.
"Occupations are central to the stratification systems of industrial countries, but they have played little role in empirical attempts to explain the well-documented increase in wage inequality that ...occurred in the United States in the 1980s and 1990s. We address this deficiency by assessing occupation-level effects on wage inequality using data from the Current Population Survey for 1983 through 2008. We model the mean and variance of wages for each occupation, controlling for education and demographic factors at the individual level to test three competing explanations for the increase in wage inequality: (1) the growth of between-occupation polarization, (2) changes in education and labor force composition, and (3) residual inequality unaccounted for by occupations and demographic characteristics. After correcting for a problem with imputed data that biased Kim and Sakamoto's (2008) results, we find that between-occupation changes explain 66 percent of the increase in wage inequality from 1992 to 2008, although 23 percent of this is due to the switch to the 2000 occupation codes in 2003. Sensitivity analysis reveals that 18 percent of the increase in inequality from 1983 to 2002 is due to changes in just three occupations: managers 'not elsewhere classified,' secretaries, and computer systems analysts." Die Untersuchung enthält quantitative Daten. Forschungsmethode: empirisch-quantitativ; empirisch; Sekundäranalyse. Die Untersuchung bezieht sich auf den Zeitraum 1983 bis 2008. (Autorenreferat, IAB-Doku).
Precarious Work and the Challenge for Asia Kalleberg, Arne L.; Hewison, Kevin
The American behavioral scientist (Beverly Hills),
03/2013, Letnik:
57, Številka:
3
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
This article discusses the social, economic, and political factors that led to the rise and consolidation of precarious work in various countries in Asia. We first define what we mean by “precarious ...work” and its utility for describing the growth of work that is uncertain and insecure and in which risks are shifted from employers to workers. We then provide an overview of the factors that generated precarious work in industrial nations, notably the spread of neoliberalism as a political and economic perspective, the expansion of global competition, and technological development. These macro structural influences created an impetus for greater flexibility among both states and employers, which in turn led to more precarious work in both formal and informal sectors of the economies of many Asian countries. This, in turn, has provoked various types of resistance on the part of workers against the negative consequences of precarious work.
Intragenerational mobility-persistent or secular upward or downward changes in individuals' economic positions or occupational standing over their working lives-is intimately related both to ...intergenerational mobility and inequality as well as to labor market theories and behaviors. Careers are job sequences or patterns of mobility immobility within and between occupations and organizations, the two major work structures that shape the opportunities available in the labor market. This article reviews research that links occupations and organizations to careers and intragenerational mobility. We emphasize the multidisciplinary nature of contributions to this topic and focus on integrating research by sociologists and economists. We also highlight cross-national research and emphasize the literatures that address questions related to social stratification and labor markets. Finally, we suggest fruitful areas for future research.
The challenge of job quality Findlay, Patricia; Kalleberg, Arne L; Warhurst, Chris
Human relations (New York),
04/2013, Letnik:
66, Številka:
4
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Job quality is a timely issue because of its potential impact on individual, firm and national well-being. This renewed interest underscores the need for robust conceptualization of job quality. This ...article provides background to the renewed interest in job quality and, drawing on the contributions to the Special Issue, starts to map the dimensions of job quality, the factors that influence job quality, and the outcomes or impacts of job quality. We identify a number of emergent themes. First, job quality is a multidimensional phenomenon. Second, multiple factors and forces operating at multiple levels influence job quality. Third, the study of job quality is an inherently multi-disciplinary endeavour. Fourth, job quality is a contextual phenomenon, differing among persons, occupations and labour market segments, societies and historical periods. Our mapping of job quality, and the articles in the Special Issue, provide a foundation and springboard for understanding better the theoretically challenging and policy-relevant issue of job quality.
Precarious work (i.e., work that is insecure and uncertain, often low-paying, and in which the risks of work are shifted from employers and the government to workers) has emerged as a serious concern ...for individuals and families and underlies many of the insecurities that have fuelled recent populist political movements. The impacts of precarious work differ among countries depending on their labour market and welfare system institutions, laws and policies, and cultural factors. This article examines how people in six advanced industrial countries representing different welfare and employment regimes -- Denmark, Germany, Japan, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States -- differ both in their experience of precarious work and in outcomes of precarious work such as job and economic insecurity, entry into the labour force, and subjective well-being. It also suggests a new social and political contract needed to address precarious work and its consequences.
Labor market uncertainties have plagued all countries in recent years, but young workers have borne the brunt of these uncertainties. Liberalization of labor markets has transformed work, creating a ...variety of nonstandard employment relations as well as increasing the number of people who do not have traditional employers. Macro social, political, and economic forces have also made it harder for young adults to gain solid footholds in the labor market. The articles in this issue of The ANNALS present empirical evidence about labor market uncertainties and youth labor force experiences from diverse regions of the world, both in the Global North and Global South: Asia (China, South Korea, Hong Kong, Caucasus and Central Asia); Latin/South America (Mexico, Brazil); Eastern Europe (Lithuania); Western Europe; and the United States. In this epilogue, I summarize the main insights from the articles and draw some broader conclusions about the future of labor market policies to address concerns related to workers’ insecurities and uncertainties.
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