Pedigree Rivera, Lauren A
2016., 20160322, 2016, 2016-03-22
eBook
Americans are taught to believe that upward mobility is possible for anyone who is willing to work hard, regardless of their social status, yet it is often those from affluent backgrounds who land ...the best jobs.Pedigreetakes readers behind the closed doors of top-tier investment banks, consulting firms, and law firms to reveal the truth about who really gets hired for the nation's highest-paying entry-level jobs, who doesn't, and why.
Drawing on scores of in-depth interviews as well as firsthand observation of hiring practices at some of America's most prestigious firms, Lauren Rivera shows how, at every step of the hiring process, the ways that employers define and evaluate merit are strongly skewed to favor job applicants from economically privileged backgrounds. She reveals how decision makers draw from ideas about talent-what it is, what best signals it, and who does (and does not) have it-that are deeply rooted in social class. Displaying the "right stuff" that elite employers are looking for entails considerable amounts of economic, social, and cultural resources on the part of the applicants and their parents.
Challenging our most cherished beliefs about college as a great equalizer and the job market as a level playing field,Pedigreeexposes the class biases built into American notions about the best and the brightest, and shows how social status plays a significant role in determining who reaches the top of the economic ladder.
This book explores the precarious margins of contemporary labour markets. Over the last few decades, there has been much discussion of a shift from full-time permanent jobs to higher levels of ...part-time and temporary employment and self-employment. Despite such attention, regulatory approaches have not adapted accordingly. Instead, in the absence of genuine alternatives, old regulatory models are applied to new labour market realities, leaving the most precarious forms of employment intact. The book places this disjuncture in historical context and focuses on its implications for those most likely to be at the margins, particularly women and migrant workers. Managing the Margins provides a rigorous analysis drawing on original qualitative and quantitative material. It innovates by analyzing the historical and contemporary interplay of employment norms, gender relations, and citizenship boundaries. Available in OSO: http://www.oxfordscholarship.com/oso/public/content/management//toc.html
The rise of the gig economy is disrupting business models across the globe. Platforms’ digital work intermediation has had a profound impact on traditional conceptions of the employment relationship. ...The completion of ‘tasks’, ‘gigs’, or ‘rides’ in the (digital) crowd fundamentally challenges our understanding of work in modern labour markets: gone are the stable employment relationships between firms and workers, replaced by a world in which everybody can be ‘their own boss’ and enjoy the rewards—and face the risks—of independent businesses. Is this the future of work? What are the benefits and challenges of crowdsourced work? How can we protect consumers and workers without stifling innovation? Humans as a Service provides a detailed account of the growth and operation of gig-economy platforms, and develops a blueprint for solutions to the problems facing on-demand workers, platforms, and their customers. Following a brief introduction to the growth and operation of on-demand platforms across the world, the book scrutinizes competing narratives about ‘gig’ work. Drawing on a wide range of case studies, it explores how claims of ‘disruptive innovation’ and ‘micro-entrepreneurship’ often obscure the realities of precarious work under strict algorithmic surveillance, and the return to a business model that has existed for centuries. Humans as a Service shows how employment law can address many of these problems: gigs, tasks, and rides are work—and should be regulated as such. A concluding chapter demonstrates the broader benefits of a level playing field for consumers, taxpayers, and innovative entrepreneurs.
Contingent Work Barker, Kathleen; Christensen, Kathleen
06/2019
eBook
The successful 1997 strike by the Teamsters against UPS, and the overwhelming support the American public gave the strikers highlighted the impact of contingent work-an umbrella term for a variety of ...tenuous and insecure employment arrangements such as temping, independent contracting, employee leasing, and some self-employment and part-time or part-year work. This new book contends that contingent work represents a profound deviation from the employment relations model that dominated most of this century's labor relations. It delineates essential features of contingent work from both the worker's and the organization's point of view.
Articulating a variety of perspectives from various disciplines, the contributors examine the business forces driving contingent work and assess the consequences of working contingently for the individual, family, and community, taking into account issues of race, class, and gender. They ask how current labor and employment laws need to be rewritten to provide contingent workers with the same comprehensive protections offered to permanent employees. In the final chapter, the editors comment on the status of research on contingent work and chart future research directions.
The successful 1997 strike by the Teamsters against UPS, and the overwhelming support the American public gave the strikers highlighted the impact of contingent work-an umbrella term for a variety of tenuous and insecure employment arrangements such as temping, independent contracting, employee leasing, and some self-employment and part-time or part-year work. This new book contends that contingent work represents a profound deviation from the employment relations model that dominated most of this century's labor relations. It delineates essential features of contingent work from both the worker's and the organization's point of view. Articulating a variety of perspectives from various disciplines, the contributors examine the business forces driving contingent work and assess the consequences of working contingently for the individual, family, and community, taking into account issues of race, class, and gender. They ask how current labor and employment laws need to be rewritten to provide contingent workers with the same comprehensive protections offered to permanent employees. In the final chapter, the editors comment on the status of research on contingent work and chart future research directions.
Making Choices, Making Do is a comparative study of Black
and white working-class women's survival strategies during the
Great Depression. Based on analysis of employment histories and
Depression-era ...interviews of 1,340 women in Chicago, Cleveland,
Philadelphia, and South Bend and letters from domestic workers,
Lois Helmbold discovered that Black women lost work more rapidly
and in greater proportions. The benefits that white women accrued
because of structural racism meant they avoided the utter
destitution that more commonly swallowed their Black peers. When
let go from a job, a white woman was more successful in securing a
less desirable job, while Black women, especially older Black
women, were pushed out of the labor force entirely. Helmbold found
that working-class women practiced the same strategies, but
institutionalized racism in employment, housing, and relief assured
that Black women worked harder, but fared worse. Making
Choices, Making Do strives to fill the gap in the labor
history of women, both Black and white. The book will challenge the
limits of segregated histories and encourage more comparative
analyses.
