Hi!
I did a study summary where i added the slides (including the graphs), together with the extra information that the professor said in class to make it as complete as possible!
SOCIOLOGY OF WORK AND
EMPLOYMENT
Christophe Vanroel 2021-2022
Elisa Breyne
, SOCIOLOGY OF WORK AND EMPLOYMENT
Contents
Reading assignment ...................................................................................................................................................... 1
Module 1- Introduction: The 3 arenas of the world of work ............................................................................................ 2
Module 2- Job quality in the contemporary workplace.................................................................................................. 14
Module 3- the story of industrialization and de-industrialisation .................................................................................. 30
Movie .............................................................................................................................................................................. 42
Guest lecture- Gender equality, the case of Academia – Evie Rangelova ...................................................................... 44
Module 4: Technology and changing work and employment conditions....................................................................... 51
Module 5- New models of work organization for a new economy ................................................................................ 65
Module 6: Transformation of employment relations and labour markets .................................................................... 76
Guest lecture: Work and employment in the platform economy -Brodersen ............................................................... 89
Module 7- A progressive agenda for the future of work? .............................................................................................. 97
• In-depth sociological analysis of work and employment in the epoch of ‘advanced capitalism’ (1990-2020):
Period of wide neoliberalism →interesting to see how that neoliberalism has an effect on employment
o Work-centered approach: “job quality”
o OECD/EU-focus
Reading assignment
Critical reflection with the guiding questions but you don’t have per se to follow these guidance questions
1- Making critical reflection
2- Participate on the discussion
Guiding questions will be used in the exam! Answers will be discussed in the discussion
1
,Module 1- Introduction: The 3 arenas of the world of work
1. What is work/labour/employment?
2. 3 arena’s: description of the conceptual space
3. Sociological traditions and the sociology of work
I- Conceptions of work and employment
A) What is work?
Legal? Unlegal (no taxes no social security?) Paid? Unpaid? Self-employment? Manual? High value?
• Andre Gorz
“… every paid activity for the account of a third party” (is self-employed then in or out?)
• Tony J. Watson
“… the executions of tasks allowing people to make a living, given the social and economical context they
are living in”
• Vallas
”… any expenditure of human effort aimed at producing a socially valued good or service"
• Grint
“… every activity that transforms nature and is usually performed in a social environment”
Work and non-work
Paid: labour and non-paid: general
• Depends of historical, geographical and cultural context
o Dominance of work as ‘employment’
o Form of appearance and organisation
– Waged-labour, self-employment, non-standard work,
– Platform work (labour negotiation by legal apps), bogus self-employment (have to act like a waged
employee but have the status of self-employed)
– Informal organisation (historically and worldwide rather standard)
– ‘unfree’, forced, dependent, …
o How it is appreciated → Prestige and identity
Money is not enough anymore, have to make a difference with treatment you get at work
eg school teacher: before they were seen as intellectuals and now less
o What is considered as work and non-work;
– Status of domestic and household work (many EU countries have a subsidized domestic work scheme)
– Civil engagement, ‘political’ work
– ‘Time and place-independent work: don’t require employers answering work mails outside working h
– Processes of commodification
• Mirror of strong cultural frames (MeTM) and power relations (e.g. earnings in male/female occupations)
B) The value of work
• Is only (paid) labour valuable work?
→Adam Smith: labour = most important source of value in the economy
• 2 types of value:
2
, o Use value ≈ Social value → For whom?
o Exchange value ≈ Market value →so: “work” and “paid labour” (15euros for 1h of work)
→no capitalist entrepreneur would hire someone by knowing that the use value would be higher than exchange
value
• 20th century: autistic view (=narrowed and defined work) on work as ‘paid labour’ → really focused on one
aspect that is considered as labour → work performed on the labour market that gives exchange value
o e.g. driving your own car, driving an Uber-car
o e.g. engaging in community work, politics
o e.g. working ‘for’ labour (updating cv’s, …)
C) Types of work
• ‘Labour power’ (vs ‘labour’):
Labour power= what we trade on the labour market and the management manages it to bring added value to labour
o The possibility to work
o A certain potential in each person
o Promise that is traded on the labour market
o Labour power gets exhausted
→job of management to make this potential of work to real added value
o Regeneration = ‘reproduction’ of labour power = ‘reproductive work’= preparing work for the future
o You do that bcs you want to re-vitalize your labour power
• Different from leisure? Different from non-paid work?
• Intra- and inter-generational
Paid labour Productive Example: fitness coach, lawyer, …
(use and exchange value)
“(Non-paid) work” Productive Example: voluntary work for youth club
(use value)
Reproductive Example: going to the gym to be fit the next
morning to work
Taking care of people
Leisure Certain extend of productivity: Example: going to the gym
(certain personal value)
D) The broader impact of work and production
Material: gives you income and from there on you have many changes BUT also immaterial/broader impact
• Individual level:
o Manifest, material value, … life chances
o Broader value – ‘latent functions’ (Jahoda, 1933): time structure, identity, status, social integration,
collective aims, (mental) health and longevity, …
• Societal level – The ‘primacy of production’ thesis:
Work defines us as human beings and as societies (the way we organize work)
o Nature of the human kind
3
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