Employment mobility or turnover? An analysis of child welfare and protection employee retention

This article challenges the commonly held assumption that there is a high level of occupational turnover of social workers in all child protection and welfare agencies. By analysing occupational mobility patterns (turnover, retention and attrition) in five child protection social work teams, the article demonstrates how occupational mobility is a complex phenomenon and needs to be understood within wider shifts in employment patterns and the gendering of professions. In this paper we argue that it is important to distinguish between employee turnover and employee mobility, and that an examination of the posts taken up after leaving, at least in Ireland, may provide a different perspective on the narrative of high turnover of workers in this sector. Within the five teams, it is estimated that there was a turnover rate of 8 percent in 2006 and 11 percent in 2010, with 72 percent of child protection workers in post at the end of 2005 being retained and still in post at the end of 2010. While this should not lead to complacency, or a failure to recognise and respond to the stressful nature of child protection, it does raise questions for employers about how they might plan for occupational mobility within a stable workforce made up of largely women, aged between 25 and 35, frequently newly-qualified, who are often the main carers for children and adults outside the workplace.     

Gendered Work Meets Gendered Goods: Selling and Service in Clothing Retail

This article explores the way retail work entails a complex form of gendering. Three distinct, but related, forms of gendering interweave in this sector of the service economy. These are the gendering of the work tasks, the gendered structure of the occupation and the gender of the retail environment. Using insights from the sociology of consumption and expanding the notion of aesthetic labour to incorporate insights from Bourdieu's sociology, the article explores how retail workers manifest particular forms of gendered embodiment, enacting a different sort of feminine performance according to the brand strategies of the organization they are employed in. The gendered objects of consumption are thus shown to be critical to understanding the nature of retail service work.     

Becoming ‘Real’ Entrepreneurs: Women and the Gendered Normalization of ‘Work’

This article focuses on the way in which women entrepreneurs legitimate their place in a gendered economy by reifying a divide between ‘real work’ and ‘not‐real work’. Using ethnographic approaches to follow the everyday lives of several women who own and operate small businesses in the USA, our article documents three gendering practices the women use for ‘becoming real workers:’ embodied, spatial and temporal. The study shows that women entrepreneurs become ‘productive workers’ by recasting reproductive work as non‐productive or not‐real work. At the end, we explore two possible alternative conceptualizations of ‘work’ that could contribute to dissolving this gendered divide.     

The impact of health care reform on the workforce caring for older adults

This article summarizes the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) provisions that have a direct or indirect impact on the workforce caring for the elder population, explores the challenges to developing the workforce, and critiques the adequacy of the ACA provisions in meeting those challenges. The ACA is the first comprehensive federal legislation to acknowledge gaps in the workforce caring for the elder population. However, its provisions are inadequate given insufficient supply in the number and types of workers necessary both to meet the caregiving demand of the growing elder population and to implement the delivery system reforms instituted by the ACA. One of the challenges is that the workforce is not prepared for the new service delivery models specified in the legislation. They are not trained, supported, or held accountable for effective care coordination and service integration, and they lack the requisite skills, knowledge, and competencies. Moreover, it is likely to remain difficult to recruit and retain competent direct care workers, who represent the largest component of the long-term care workforce, because of the negative industry image, noncompetitive wages and benefits, a challenging work environment, and inadequate education and training. Several of the ACA provisions for developing the workforce have not received appropriations. Most are also demonstration projects of limited scope and duration.     

Non‐job work/unpaid caring: Gendered industrial relations in long‐term care

This article explores the operation of gender and industrial relations in long‐term care work or nursing home work, ‘from within’ the experience of the predominantly female workforce in seven unionized facilities in Canada. Drawing on qualitative case study data in non‐profit facilities, the article argues that the main industrial relations challenges facing long‐term care workers are that their workplace priorities do not fit within existing, gendered, industrial relations processes and institutions. This article starts from the experience of women and threads this experience through other layers of social organization such as: global and local policy directions including austerity, New Public Management, and social and healthcare funding; industrial relations mechanisms and policy; and workers’ formal [union] and informal efforts to represent their interests in the workplace. The strongest themes in the reported experience of the women include: manufacturing conditions for unpaid work; increasing management and state dependence on unpaid care work; fostering loose boundaries; and limiting respect and autonomy as aspects of care work. The article extends the feminist political economy by analysing the links between the policies noted above and frontline care work. Building on gendered organizational theory the article also introduces the concept of non‐job work and suggests a fourth industrial relations institution, namely the needs and gendered expectations of residents, families and workers themselves, operating within the liminal spaces in care work.     

Between Endless Needs and Limited Resources: The Gendered Construction of a Greedy Organization

One of the strategies of the modernization of public services is the decentralization of responsibilities and organizing work in autonomous co‐ operative teams with varied tasks. The empowerment of the public service workers in the front line is therefore a strategy in local government in Norway today. Under the assumption that women have ‘natural’ skills in caring, workers on the lowest levels are given responsibility for care and nursing. A study of the decentralization of public care for the elderly in their homes showed that being given interesting tasks and increased responsibility mobilized the efforts of the care workers. However, since the power of resources has been centralized, this has led to an intensification of work. In gendering the relevant discourses by explaining women's experiences of an over‐heavy workload as a result of their ‘mothering’ and their inability to set limits, women care workers were constructed by their managers as unprofessional and not to be taken seriously. This has made the public care organization a greedy organization for the women care workers.     

In Search of a Better Life: The Experiences of Working Poor Immigrants in Vancouver,Canada

We utilized data from 72 in‐depth interviews with immigrant hotel and hospital support workers employed in the service sector of Vancouver, Canada to analyse migration decisions and subsequent experiences after arrival. We found that migrant social networks were centrally important, both as a stimulus for migration and in shaping post‐arrival experiences. At the same time, the working conditions faced by immigrants after arrival, such as low pay and long work hours, resulted in serious challenges. While some struggled with multiple jobs to make ends meet, others felt their economic circumstances prevented them from even bringing their children to Canada. In some cases, children were returned to their country of origin. Features of low‐wage service sector jobs also limited the time available for participation in community life. The findings both support and advance recent theoretical contributions about the incorporation of immigrants in the United States and Canada. As immigrants frequently face occupational downgrading and are channelled into low‐wage service sector jobs, the conditions of work and social policies are important for their post‐arrival experiences and incorporation. Going beyond traditional conceptions of citizenship in the immigration literature, some respondents acted through their union and community organizations to attempt to change society and improve their fortunes. While some sought social justice through political activism, others used their limited family and community life time to reterritorialize values from their countries of origin. Part of their activism was transnational, such as sending remittances to help loved ones back home, but other involvement included participation in organizations with the aim of promoting social justice or improving life in their new country. The experiences of immigrant service sector workers in Vancouver suggest a need for greater emphasis on the role of both immigrant and non‐immigrant specific social and labour policies for understanding immigrant incorporation in North America.     

Labour Migration in the Global Division of Labour: Migrant workers in Mauritius1

Workers who temporarily leave their country to perform semi‐ and unskilled work under contract in another country are a distinct category of labour migrants in the global division of labour (GDL). The small island of Mauritius is a relatively new destination for contractual international labour migrants. The Mauritian state is intimately involved in the labour migration system, playing a mediating role in positioning the island within the GDL and trying to optimise the routing of global production chains through Mauritius. The migrants originate mainly in China and India and are overwhelmingly concentrated in the island’s clothing and textile factories where they now comprise one‐fifth of the export processing zone workforce. The migrant space occupied by expatriate workers in Mauritius is tightly circumscribed, with little social interaction between them and Mauritian society. A chronicle of their collective protest between 2002 and 2005 highlights grievances that arise from the conditions they face as migrants. Pointing largely to the failure of industrial relations institutions, and having stirred xenophobic sentiments, these protests represent a catalyst for reform. While the numerical incidence and scale of labour migration to small islands may be small, their significance for GDL analysis and for the politics of migration demands attention.     

A thirst for the authentic: craft drinks producers and the narration of authenticity

There is a long academic tradition which positions the desire for authenticity as emerging as a symptom of dissatisfactions with modernity. Most recently, this has involved consumption of products that are valued for being authentic in contrast to mass produced commodities which are seen as being homogeneous, standardized and therefore inauthentic. A recent resurgence in interest in the idea of craft and craftwork has brought to the fore concerns about re‐establishing connections between products, consumers and producers beyond rational market exchange. This research draws on interviews with 40 craft brewery and distillery workers to explore the ways in which authenticity is narrated as part of an ongoing effort to add value to their products and the contexts of their production. The article identifies six modes of authenticity which are drawn on in combination by participants to establish a narrative of authenticity. This is understood to be a clear illustration of the ‘enrichment process’ by which post‐industrial economies manufacture value. A central element of craft drink producers’ work is the marshalling of cultural value and engaging in communicative and performative acts that ascribe that value to products and the people involved in making them.     

‘It's Just Acting’: Sex Workers’ Strategies for Capitalizing on Sexuality

This article reports on an ethnographic study of female sex workers in Britain who work in the indoor prostitution markets. The empirical findings contribute to the sex‐as‐labour debate and add to the sociological literature regarding the gendered and sexualized nature of employment, particularly the aesthetic and emotional labour of service work. Grounding the empirical findings in the theory of identity management and emotional labour and work, the article reviews some of the existing examples of how sex workers create emotion management strategies and describes an additional strategy, that of the ‘manufactured identity’. I argue that sex workers create a manufactured identity specifically for the workplace as a self‐protection mechanism to manage the stresses of selling sex as well as crafting the work image as a business strategy to attract and maintain clientele. Drawing on comparisons between sex work and other feminized service occupations, I argue that sex workers who are involved in prostitution under certain conditions are able to capitalize on their own sexuality through the construction of a manufactured identity. The process of conforming to heterosexualized images in prostitution is conceptualized as not simply accepting dominant discourses but as a calculated response made by sex workers to manipulate the erotic expectations and the cultural ideals of the male client.     

Local Produce,Foreign Labor: Labor Mobility Programs and Global Trade Competitiveness in Canada*

Abstract Temporary visa workers are increasingly taking on a heightened profile in Canada, entering the workforce each year in greater numbers than immigrant workers with labor mobility rights (Sharma 2006). This paper examines the incorporation of foreign workers in Canadian horticulture under the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP). I argue that foreign labor supplied under the SAWP secures a flexible workforce for employers and thus improves Canada's trade competitiveness in the global agrifood market. Using multiple research strategies, I track the evolution of Canadian horticulture in the global market and the transformation of labor in this industry. I outline the steady growth in the employment of temporary visa workers in the horticultural industry and show how they have become the preferred and, in some cases, core workforce for horticulture operations. The benefits of SAWP workers to employers include the provision of a workforce with limited rights relative to domestic workers and considerable administrative support in selecting, dispatching, and disciplining workers provided at no cost by labor supply countries. I conclude that the SAWP is a noteworthy example of the role of immigration policy in regulating the labor markets of high‐income economies and thus ensuring the position of labor‐receiving states within the global political economy.     

Cranky Old Women? Irritation,Resistance and Gendering Practices in Work Organizations

This article discusses midlife women's irritation and resistance in waged work. Old age is stereotypically conceptualized as a time of tranquility and wisdom, but whether women are included in this stereotype is a matter of question. This article concentrates on instances in which women are regarded instead as cranky and difficult when they age. The article is based on interviews of 56 to 64‐year‐old women and men employees, personnel managers, and trade union representatives employed in 10 work organizations. Of these, the gendering practices of three organizations, a hospital, and food and metal industry organizations, are analyzed in detail. The article asks what irritates midlife women, and suggests that gendering practices in the organizations can be seen to produce that which is perceived as ‘cranky old women’.     

Restructuring Flexibility: Case Studies of Part‐Time Female Workers in Six Workplaces

The article is based on six workplace case studies within a local economy and investigates the reasons behind the different utilization of part‐time workers within these workplaces. The research examines the content and nature of part‐time work in these organizations and the experiences of the part‐time workforce. The findings suggest that we need to distinguish between three types of part‐time workers; core, peak and ancillary. It is argued that such distinctions capture the variegated utilization of part‐time workers and contribute to the debate concerning the integration or marginalization of part‐time staff within workplaces. Furthermore, workplace cultures are an important arena for contextualizing these discussions. It is contended that the different uses of part‐time workers can be explained by different sectoral and organizational contexts but that the nature of part‐time work is also influenced by existing social relations within the workplace, notably with respect to gender, class and age.     

The Politics of Seasonal Labour Migration in Switzerland,France and Spain

This article analyses the effects of the politics of seasonal foreign worker admissions on migrant legality in the context of the post‐1945 and the post‐1990 seasonal foreign worker policy in Switzerland, France and Spain respectively. It seeks historical evidence attesting to the ability of seasonal admissions to restrict workers to their non‐resident status. It presents implications for circular migration, the dernier cri in European migration policy aimed to strike a compromise between a perceived post‐crisis demand for the admission of foreign workers and the reluctance to make them prospective citizens.

Policy Implications

• Migration policy stakeholders have shaped foreign worker admissions according to their interests.
• Under some conditions, low‐skilled seasonal foreign worker admissions have contributed to irregular migration, either through workers' overstays or through parallel irregular entries
• There are both differences and similarities between the seasonal admissions advocated under the post‐2007 circular migration schemes, and those of the 1950s–1960s, as well as those of 1990s to early 2000s. The similarities could, under some conditions, trigger the repetition of some of the unexpected outcomes revealed by historical seasonal foreign worker admissions under the post 2007 schemes.

     

Reviews

This article seeks to stimulate debate around the relationship between Post‐Qualifying Social Work education and social work practice. Whilst initially welcomed as a positive development for the continuous professional development of qualified social workers, the author questions if in a work climate increasingly dominated by concerns about meeting global market forces PQSW education has the potential to support discriminatory and oppressive practice and undermine social work values?Higher education in England has been given the task by the General Social Care Council to develop Post‐Qualifying Social Work (PQSW) education that delivers both academic and vocational learning as national occupational standards, workforce planning and concerns around globalisation drive professional development. Indeed, a positive selling point for the PQSW framework is its apparent ability to bring together practitioners' career choices with professional development, employers' workforce planning strategies and the government's modernisation agenda for public service provision. However, could a system of education designed to meet such a variety of agendas undermine social work practice and reduce higher education to primarily providing programmes designed to meet regulatory requirements rather than professional social work that promotes an anti‐discriminatory and anti‐oppressive approach to practice? The article concludes that whilst evidence suggests PQSW education does make a positive difference to practitioners and their organisations, debate is still required to ensure it supports agreed social work values and a commitment to anti‐oppressive and anti‐discriminatory practice.     

Irregular Migration and Informal Economy in Southern and Central‐Eastern Europe: Breaking the Vicious Cycle?

The flexible and cheap labour that European “post‐industrial” economies are in need of is often facilitated by undeclared labour. The undocumented migrant, from his/her part, relatively easily finds work that suits his ‐‐ at least initial ‐‐ plans. What lies behind this nexus between irregular migration and informal economy? To what extent can this nexus be attributed to the structural features of the so‐called “secondary”, as opposed to “primary”, labour market? And how does migration policy correlate with this economic context and lead to the entrapment of migrants in irregularity? Finally, can this vicious cycle of interests and life‐strategies be broken and what does the experience of the migrants indicate in this respect? This paper addresses these questions via an exploration of the grounds upon which irregular migration and the shadow economy complement each other in southern Europe (SE) and central and Eastern Europe (CEE) (two regions at different points in the migration cycle). In doing so, the dynamic character of the nexus between informal economy and irregular migration will come to the fore, and the abstract identity of the “average” undocumented migrant will be deconstructed.     

Emotions in a Rational Profession: The Gendering of Skills in ICT Work

Information communication technology (ICT) work is rarely seen as a work environment where emotional and social skills are key. However, the ideal ICT worker is increasingly said to possess a range of emotional and social skills that are often associated with femininity. This raises the question of how skills are discursively gendered in ICT work. This article firstly shows which skills ICT workers identify as those needed by the ideal ICT worker. Secondly, it highlights how ICT workers construct their own skills. Thirdly, some light is shed on how the gendering of emotional and social skills shifts with different discursive contexts and it is shown what the implications of this are. It is suggested that there is a dynamic at work through which men can appear as a new ideal ICT worker with more ease than women, despite the fact that women are more often associated with social and emotional skills.     

‘It's not acceptable for the husband to stay at home': Taking a discourse analytical approach to capture the gendering of work

This article illustrates some of the ways in which the notion of (paid) work is actively being gendered, and how these gendering processes take place not only through organizational practices but also in discourses that circulate outside an organization in the private domain. Drawing on 15 in‐depth interviews with women who opted out of their own professional career in order to accompany their husbands on their overseas work assignment to Hong Kong, we demonstrate some of the benefits of using a discourse analytical approach to capturing and identifying the processes through which these women actively (although not necessarily consciously) gender the notion of work, thereby reinforcing the gender order and its male bias. We argue that identifying and making visible these gendered and gendering practices is an important component of, and a potential trigger for, change both in organizations as well as private contexts.     

The Business of Caring: Women's Self‐Employment and the Marketization of Care

Our goal in this article is to contribute to a differentiated analysis of paid caring work by considering whether and how women's experiences of such work is shaped by their employment status (for example, self‐employed versus employee) and the nature of care provided (direct or indirect). Self‐employed care workers have not been widely studied compared with other types of care workers, such as employees providing domestic or childcare in private firms or private homes. Yet their experiences may be quite distinct. Existing research suggests that self‐employed workers earn less than employees and are often excluded from employment protection. Nonetheless, they often report greater autonomy and job satisfaction in their day‐to‐day work. Understanding more about the experiences of self‐employed caregivers is thus important for enriching existing theory, research and policy on the marketization of care. Addressing this gap, our article explores the working conditions, pay and levels of satisfaction of care workers who are self‐employed. We draw on interviews from a small‐scale study of Canadian women engaged in providing direct care (for example, childcare) and indirect care (for example, cleaning).