Overview
- Shows how claims of increased destruction of stable employment are not universally supported by the data
- Brings Marxist theory together with empirical analysis of the Labour Force and other related surveys
- Distinguishes between the 'destandardisation' of work and work tenure as objective indicators of labour market change and insecurity as a subjective indicator
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Table of contents (8 chapters)
Keywords
About this book
Precarity is a key theme in political discourse, in media and academic discussions of employment, and within the labour movement. Often, the prevailing idea is of an endless march of precarity, rendering work ever more contingent and workers ever more disposable. However, this detailed study of the UK labour force challenges the picture of rising precarity and widespread use of temporary employment, suggesting instead that employment tenure and the extent of temporary work have proved stubbornly stable over the past four decades.
Choonara offers a new approach to labour markets, drawing on the theoretical underpinnings of Marxist political economy to interrogate research data from the UK. This book examines why, despite the deteriorating conditions in work, employment relations have remained stable, and offers insight into the extent of subjective insecurity among workers. Insecurity, Precarious Work and Labour Markets will be of use to students and scholarsacross the sociology of work, labour economics, industrial relations and political economy.
Reviews
“This book is long overdue, and turns upside-down the widely held 'common-sense' view that job insecurity has been increasing over the past 30+ years. Choonara’s careful and scholarly research shows that the mountain of popular and academic literature either claiming or assuming that job insecurity in the UK has been on an upward trajectory is plain wrong. This leads to a fascinating reconsideration of the nature of the neoliberal era and of the balance of power between labour and capital: a must-read for all labour market students and researchers.” (Brendan Burchell, Director of Graduate Education, Department of Sociology and Fellow, Magdalene College, University of Cambridge, UK)
“In his excellent investigation of insecurity and precarious work, Joseph Choonara lays down a challenge to conventional wisdom. Widely held views about the ‘end of jobs for life’, atypical employment and the new temporalities of working time are exposed to sustained empirical examination and are left with little support. But this is more than a debunking of the orthodoxy, this work offers an explanation for the gap between public perception and statistical reality, and in this way he has taken the debate forward.” (Kevin Doogan, Jean Monnet Professor of European Policy Studies, University of Bristol, UK)
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Joseph Choonara is Lecturer in the School of Business, University of Leicester, UK.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Insecurity, Precarious Work and Labour Markets
Book Subtitle: Challenging the Orthodoxy
Authors: Joseph Choonara
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-13330-6
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham
eBook Packages: Social Sciences, Social Sciences (R0)
Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG, part of Springer Nature 2019
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-13329-0Published: 21 March 2019
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-13332-0Published: 02 October 2020
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-13330-6Published: 11 March 2019
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XII, 254
Number of Illustrations: 41 b/w illustrations
Topics: Sociology of Work, Labor Economics, International Political Economy