Precarious Work, Insecure Workers: Employment Relations in Transition

TLDR

Since the 1970s, precarious work has risen, contrasting with post‑WWII job security, and poses a global sociological challenge that is best understood through employment‑relations theories of institutional and individual factors. The study aims to analyze new workplace arrangements that create precarious work and worker insecurity, leveraging sociologists’ expertise to inform public policy and contemporary employment‑relations theory.

Abstract

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.