The consequences of job insecurity for employees: The moderator role of job dependence

With globalization and increased international competition have come more flexible forms of employment and increased job insecurity. The authors address the impact of perceived job insecurity on employees' work attitudes and intentions. After reviewing relevant research on stress theory and the relationship between job insecurity and its consequences, they test two hypotheses on 942 employees in Spain, namely: first, that job insecurity relates negatively to job satisfaction and organizational commitment and positively to intention to leave; and, second, that job insecurity, economic need and employability interact in the prediction of these outcomes.     

Predatory purchasing practices in global apparel supply chains and the employment relations squeeze in the Indian garment export industry

While the literature has long acknowledged worker rights abuses in global apparel supply chains, less attention has been paid to the recent worsening of certain decent work deficits and its causes, which this article links to predatory purchasing practices arising from growing power asymmetries. These practices, illustrated here by the garment export industry in India, exert downward pressure on wages and incite non‐standard forms of employment and greater verbal and physical abuse as productivity demands rise. They can be addressed through pricing mechanisms that cover the cost of decent work, appropriate State regulation and worker involvement.     

Permanent liminality: The impact of non‐standard forms of employment on workers' committees in Israel

Workers' committees in Israel are adapting to the neoliberal economy, and the resulting changes in the labour market, by increasingly accepting various non‐standard forms of employment. At the same time, however, they are resisting this reconfiguration of the capitalist economy, in an effort to safeguard workers' rights. Torn between the two positions, workers' committees find themselves in a state of permanent “liminality”, their role reduced to merely seeking compromises and ad hoc solutions. As a result, opposition to the adverse effects of non‐standard employment remains localized and fragmented, thereby consolidating such employment arrangements.     

Dads care too! Participation in paid employment and experiences of workplace flexibility for Australian fathers caring for children and young adults with disabilities

This study uses Australian survey data to explore whether caring for children and young people with disabilities affects paid employment participation of fathers who identify as the secondary caregiver. More fathers in the study were in full-time employment than those in the general Australian population, but they worked fewer hours, often in jobs they did not enjoy or roles with less responsibility. Over one third of fathers reported that caring had impacted on their job opportunities or career progression, particularly those whose children had more severe disabilities. The financial costs of raising a child with disabilities and their caring obligations informed many of the decisions fathers made in relation to employment. Fixed hours of work, lack of understanding from their employer, an income tied to hours worked and staff resources were cited as reasons why almost half of the fathers felt they were unable to access flexible working conditions to assist with their child’s care. Self-employment was seen by many fathers as desirable, but the perceived increase in flexibility may be accompanied by an increase in work hours. Implications for paternal well-being are discussed, along with the lifelong implications of caring on employment and financial security for families in the Australian context.     

Early activism and work arrangements of young feminists in Mexico City

The study investigates the relationship between the activism and later work life of young Mexican feminist activists in the context of social movements’ institutionalization and the precarious employment situation. Using the biographical narratives of fifteen feminists in Mexico City who were core activists during the period of high mobilization of the abortion rights movement from 2007 to 2009, this study aims to answer two questions: How does activism impact contemporary activists’ work life in an era of professionalized and institutionalized social movements? And how do their feminist identities and practices differ according to the workplace? The results reveal that (1) young feminists joined women's movement institutions through their activism, although those employment opportunities were unstable, and (2) they used reflexive strategies to manage their feminist identities amidst the uncertainty and to reconcile their work life conditions and their feminist activist identities.     

50 + among the 50+: who works long workweeks among older workers in Canada?

The focus of this short report is on workers who are 50+ years of age and who have a work schedule averaging 50+ hours per week (i.e. a ‘long workweek’), using Statistics Canada's linked Workplace and Employee Survey (WES) 2005 microdata, as well as selected qualitative study findings. The results show that the proportion having a long workweek is actually higher among older workers relative to others. Also, mean job satisfaction among older workers with a long workweek is at least as high as older workers without one, whether or not controlling for other factors. In terms of the characteristics of older workers with a long workweek, this is overwhelmingly a male-dominated group, and the majority are in a managerial/professional occupation. Thus, they do not exhibit the characteristics typically associated with those having poor quality schedules or employment. Since older workers represent a growing proportion of labour markets in industrialised nations, it is important that these workers access sufficiently attractive employment opportunities to keep them in the labour force. However, the findings provide yet another reminder that workers' scheduling realities and preferences are not homogeneous.     

Does higher education make a difference? The influence of educational attainment on women's and men's nonstandard employment outcomes

Some studies suggest that women and the less educated are more likely to be employed in nonstandard work. However, conflicting evidence has indicated that temporary, part-time, and nonstandard self-employment has diffused across different social groups and levels of education. Using pooled data from the 1997–2018 Canadian Labour Force Surveys, this study explores the changing relationship between higher education, gender, and employment outcomes. Taking a multiple logistic regression approach, this study accomplishes three objectives: (1) to examine the relationship between gender and education among different forms of nonstandard employment; (2) to investigate the changes of different forms of nonstandard employment between 1997 to 2018; (3) to analyze the association between men's and women's education and their likelihood of different forms of nonstandard employment are explored. The findings suggest the feminization of employment norms, in which men and women have had some convergence in certain types of nonstandard employment. This result holds across most levels of education, but is more pronounced for women and men with higher levels of education.     

The new ‘hidden abode’: reflections on value and labour in the new economy

In a pivotal section of Capital, volume 1, Marx (1976 : 279) notes that, in order to understand the capitalist production of value, we must descend into the ‘hidden abode of production’: the site of the labour process conducted within an employment relationship. In this paper we argue that by remaining wedded to an analysis of labour that is confined to the employment relationship, Labour Process Theory (LPT) has missed a fundamental shift in the location of value production in contemporary capitalism. We examine this shift through the work of Autonomist Marxists like Hardt and Negri, Lazaratto and Arvidsson, who offer theoretical leverage to prize open a new ‘hidden abode’ outside employment, for example in the ‘production of organization’ and in consumption. Although they can open up this new ‘hidden abode’, without LPT's fine‐grained analysis of control/resistance, indeterminacy and structured antagonism, these theorists risk succumbing to empirically naive claims about the ‘new economy’. Through developing an expanded conception of a ‘new hidden abode’ of production, the paper demarcates an analytical space in which both LPT and Autonomist Marxism can expand and develop their understanding of labour and value production in today's economy.     

Privileging work not sex: flexibility and employment in the sexual services industry

We present findings from a study of sex workers recruited in indoor licensed premises in Victoria. While the study addressed regulation, enforcement and working conditions, we focus on the value of flexible well‐paid work for two particular groups of female workers (parents and students). We link this issue of flexibility to broader gendered employment conditions in Australia, arguing the lack of comparable employment is crucial to understanding worker decisions about sex work. Debates and regulation focus on gendered inequalities related to heterosexuality much more than they recognize gendered inequalities related to labour market conditions. The focus on criminalization, harm, exploitation and stigma obscures the centrality of work flexibility and conditions to women's decision‐making. A more direct focus on the broader employment context may produce better recognition of why women do sex work.     

Young subjectivities and affective labour in the service economy

Post-Fordist employment is characterised by the demand for new forms of labour in which workers are expected to make personal investments in their work and to mobilise their embodied subjectivities in the practice of labour. Whilst employment insecurity is well documented in the sociology of youth, theoretical development in this area has yet to contend with the role of changes in the nature of labour itself in the production of youth. This paper draws on theories of labour under post-Fordism to explore the practice of ‘affective labour’ amongst young people performing ‘front of house’ bar work in a large metropolitan service economy. The paper theorises the role of youth subjectivities – including capacities for relationality and leisure, gendered embodiment, and tastes – in the practice of contemporary labour. The paper describes how young people doing bar work contribute to the production of affective atmospheres, or sensations of ease, pleasure and enjoyment that are offered to clientele of boutique bars. In this, we suggest that affective labour mobilises young subjectivities at work in ways that are currently unrecognised within youth studies. The paper concludes by suggesting a new research agenda that goes beyond the existing focus on youth transitions through employment to explore how youth is produced as part of the social dynamics of post-Fordist labour.     

Expectations and realisations: the employment story of a young man with cerebral palsy

Britain has laws and a range of policies which promote the employment of disabled people. The lack of progress to get disabled people into paid work has resulted in huge dissatisfaction for some. Evidence of disability and employment problems is often expressed as hard data, but what of the personal experiences of trying to find employment? This article is based on interviews with ‘Nick’, a young man with cerebral palsy who wanted to recount his preparation for work, including work experience, through school, the Connexions service and the local Employment Office. He explained how he felt his voluntary work and work experiences were not fully planned and ultimately unsatisfactory. Nick found paid employment, but soon discovered that there were too many problems for him to continue. He reflected on his experiences, including his own initial confidence, his despair at the ending of his paid employment and the realities of what employment means for him.     

‘I Can't Put a Smiley Face On’: Working‐Class Masculinity,Emotional Labour and Service Work in the ‘New Economy’

The growth of the ‘service economy’ has coincided with the large‐scale detachment from the labour market of low‐skilled men. Yet little research has explored exactly what it is about service work that is leading such men to drop out of the labour market during periods of sustained service sector employment growth. Based on interviews with 35 unemployed low‐skilled men, this article explores the men's attitudes to entry‐level service work and suggests that such work requires skills, dispositions and demeanours that are antithetical to the masculine working‐class habitus. This antipathy is manifest in a reluctance to engage in emotional labour and appear deferential in the service encounter and in the rejection of many forms of low‐skilled service work as a future source of employment.     

Better Off Jobless? Scarring Effects of Contingent Employment in Japan

Previous research fails to address whether contingent employment benefits individuals' careers more than the alternative they often face: being without a job. Using work history data from Japan, this study shows that accepting a contingent job delays individuals' transition to standard employment more than remaining jobless. Moreover, having a contingent job, rather than having no job, leads Japanese men to have lower occupational status after they transition back to standard employment. I argue that in a highly segmented labor market like Japan's, the strict separation of labor pools for standard and contingent jobs makes being labeled as a contingent worker particularly detrimental. Meanwhile, the legacy of Japan's welfare corporatism alleviates the stigma of unemployment, making individuals better off jobless than having a contingent job. This research thus demonstrates the importance of labor-market contexts in shaping the scarring effects of contingent work arrangements.     

To work or not to work: Variables affecting non‐financial employment commitment over time

The most common indicator of non‐financial employment commitment (NFEC) is the “lottery question” – whether a person would continue working if they won a lottery. This cross‐sectional research seeks to identify the demographic variables and the “meaning of work” dimensions that could predict individual NFEC, presenting the main international findings over time, with particular reference to data collected in Israel in 1981, 1994 and 2006. The authors' findings point to a marked decrease in NFEC in the new millennium and a change in its predictors over time. The findings and their implications for work and employment are examined in the light of social and economic changes in Israel.     

Correlates of Voluntary vs. Involuntary Part‐time Employment among US Women

This article presents a study of the extent to which type and duration of labour force attachment add to the explanatory power of psychological, demographic, and family household characteristics to predict voluntary (n=166) vs. involuntary part‐time (n=160) employment of women in the United States. We use the terms ‘voluntary’ and ‘involuntary’ to reflect the woman's choice in accepting to work in paid part‐time employment. In this context, voluntary part‐time work is not meant to be construed as charitable, non‐paid activities, but rather is construed as individuals who are working part‐time but who would prefer to be working full‐time, if a suitable job were available. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Labor Market Experience (NLSLME), we found that labour market attachment characteristics added little to predict part‐time employment status (involuntary vs. voluntary) and had virtually no effect on the odds of any other correlates on employment status. The major exception was number of years of unemployment. The longer working women were previously unemployed, the greater the likelihood they were involuntarily employed in part‐time jobs. In addition, we found that marriage and private sector employment decreased the likelihood of involuntary part‐time employment. Findings suggest that involuntarily part‐time employed women appear to be ‘settling’ for what they can get, namely, part‐time rather than full‐time jobs and that unmarried part‐timers may be viewed as a stigmatized or marginal group more likely to be employed in the public rather than private sector. Policy implications and future research are discussed.     

Citizenship Rights and Repatriation of Refugees

This article examines the relationship between access to or lack of access to citizenship rights in countries of asylum and the propensity of refugees to return. It hypothesizes that in situations where refugees enjoy civil, social and economic citizenship rights in the context of favorable structural factors ‐ relatively secure employment, self‐employment, social services such as housing, schools, health care and social security ‐ the importance of repatriation may diminish as a viable option. In North America, Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand, where refugees are able to enjoy rights of citizenship with definite prospects for becoming citizens (through naturalization) or denizens through acquisition of permanent status, and where favorable structural factors provide for the enjoyment of a decent standard of living, they tend to remain regardless of whether the conditions that prompted displacement are eliminated. The policy environments and the structural factors for refugees sheltering in Less Developed Countries (LDCs) are the antithesis of those refugees in Developed Countries (DCs). As a result, millions of refugees in the South have been ‘voting with their feet’ homewards to recoup citizenship rights which they lost in connection with displacement and which they have been unable to achieve in exile.     

Speaking up and stepping back: Examining the link between employee voice and job neglect

How does an employee attempts (or lack thereof) to improve or change work related circumstances influence one's ability to do one's job? This longitudinal study sought to examine this question by testing the relationship between employee voice and two distinct forms of job neglect (active and passive neglect) among child welfare workers at baseline (time 1: n = 359) and six month follow-up (time 2: n = 187). Path analysis results revealed significant yet unexpected relationships between employee voice and the forms of job neglect. At time one, results showed that as employees voiced, they engaged in active neglect; yet this relationship shifted over time. In that, employees who exercised voice at time 1 were less likely to engage in active job neglect at time 2. With respect to passive neglect and voice, employees who indirectly limited their work effort at baseline were more likely to speak up at time 2. This study examines this unique finding and the role that both employee voice and job neglect play as workers attempt to manage dissatisfying work conditions or promote positive organizational change.     

Work–family reconciliation policies without equal opportunities? The case of Austria

This paper explores the main public work–family policies in Austria (parental leave in connection with the Childcare Benefit, parents’ entitlement to part-time work, the extension of the childcare infrastructure) from the perspective of social justice using the normative concepts of gender equality, recognition, and choice. The main results show that for the most part, these policies offer affirmative recognition of maternal care and limited employment of mothers but offer little support for transformative recognition, particularly in terms of increasing the social status of working mothers and fathers as carers. Austrian work–family policies also do little to redistribute incomes and career opportunities from men to women and childcare from women to men; instead, they grant only limited freedom to choose between parental duties and employment, and the (financial) support they do offer is strongly concentrated on early childhood. All in all, the construction of the parental leave system (together with the Childcare Benefit), the entitlement to work part time, shortfalls in public childcare structures, and the lack of awareness of gendered (cultural and material) structures on the labour market and within families do not actively encourage gender equality. Some aspects of these policies even stabilise and deepen gendered structures on the labour market and in families.