Overview
- Compares the disadvantages experienced by one specific category of atypical workers, namely temporary agency (TA) workers, one of the most rapidly increasing types of atypical employment in the past two decades
- Considers two countries which have been regarded as very different in terms of employment-related institutional divides
- Draws heavily upon original primary data collected through 50 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with full-time TA workers and other relevant stakeholders in comparable British and Italian cities
Part of the book series: Work and Welfare in Europe (RECOWE)
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Table of contents (6 chapters)
Keywords
About this book
This book offers a comparative exploration of the various disadvantages experienced by a category of atypical workers compared to standard employees, in the UK and Italy, and considers whether and how the differences can be attributed to contrasting institutional settings and political economies.
Bertolini explores the lived experience of these workers, and demonstrates how institutional variables interact in complex ways with individual socio-demographic characteristics as well as the broader socio-economic context to shape individual disadvantages and engender different experiences of precariousness.
Temporary Agency Workers in Italy and the UK will be of interest to students and scholars of political economy, sociology of work, welfare studies, labour market policy, and industrial relations.
Reviews
“Alessio Bertolini’s timely book provides a detailed, clear-sighted analysis of the disadvantage experienced by atypical workers. The rich insights gleaned from research with temporary agency workers in the UK and Italy highlight how institutional and workplace contexts shape individual experiences of disadvantage and precariousness. This book should be essential reading for researchers and students interested in how increasing insecurity in the workplace produces new forms of social risk and inequality that disadvantage vulnerable workers.” —Colin Lindsay, University of Strathclyde, UK
“What shapes atypical workers’ precariousness? This volume addresses the puzzle, providing an original and analytically sound investigation into the world of temporary agency workers’ perceived disadvantages related to employment, work and income conditions. A key contribution, which enriches both the institutional literature on labour market dualisation and studies on individual precariousness, relying on carefully conducted qualitative comparative research.”—Matteo Jessoula, University of Milan, Italy
Authors and Affiliations
About the author
Alessio Bertolini is Research Associate in the School of Law at the University of Glasgow, UK.
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Temporary Agency Workers in Italy and the UK
Book Subtitle: The Comparative Experience of Labour Market Disadvantage
Authors: Alessio Bertolini
Series Title: Work and Welfare in Europe
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40192-4
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 2020
Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-030-40191-7Published: 14 May 2020
Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-40194-8Published: 14 May 2021
eBook ISBN: 978-3-030-40192-4Published: 13 May 2020
Series ISSN: 2947-4124
Series E-ISSN: 2947-4132
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XIII, 243
Number of Illustrations: 6 b/w illustrations, 1 illustrations in colour
Topics: Comparative Social Policy, Sociology of Work, Labor Economics, International Political Economy