Will we work in twenty-first century capitalism? A critique of the fourth industrial revolution literature

an article by Jamie Morgan (Leeds Beckett University, UK) published in Economy and Society Volume 48 Issue 3 (2019)

Abstract

The fourth industrial revolution has become a prominent concept and imminent technological change a major issue.

Facets are everyone’s concern but currently no one’s ultimate responsibility (perhaps a little like financial stability before the global financial crisis).

In this paper, we argue that the future is being shaped now by the way the fourth industrial revolution is being positioned. Whilst no one has set out to argue for or defend technological determinism, anxiety combined with passivity and complacency are being produced in the context of a quasi-determinism. The contingent quantification of the future with regard to the potential for job displacement provides an influential source of authority for this position.

A background narrative of ‘the future is coming, so you better get used to it’ is being disseminated. This favours a capitalism that may ‘deny work to the many’ perspective rather than a more fundamental rethink that encompasses change that may liberate the many from work. This, in turn, positions workers and responsibility for future employment, reducing the urgency of calls for wider societal preparation. Public understanding and policy are thus affected and along with them the future of work.

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Work of the past, work of the future

a column by David Autor for VOX: CEPR’s Policy Portal

Labour markets in US cities today are vastly more educated and skill-intensive than they were 50 years ago, but urban non-college workers now perform much less skilled work than they did.

This column shows that automation and international trade have eliminated many of the mid-skilled non-college jobs that were disproportionately based in cities.

This has contributed to a secular fall in real non-college wages.

Continue reading

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Work conditions and financial difficulties in post-crisis Europe: Utility versus quality of working life

an article by Helena Lopes and Sérgio Lagoa (University Institute of Lisbon, Portugal) and Ana C Santos (University of Coimbra, Portugal) published in The Economic and Labour Relations Review Volume 30 Issue 1 (March 2019)

Abstract

This article critically examines the relation between work and utility and challenges the mainstream economic view of well-being as a hedonic state for which work is a less pleasurable trade-off.

It proposes a conception of work as a potential source of eudaimonic well-being, providing meaning and contributing to human flourishing and self-realisation.

Based on micro-level data, the article shows the relevance of distinguishing between hedonic and eudaimonic well-being by way of comparing the effects of increased financial difficulties and deteriorated work conditions on these two types of well-being in five European Union countries – Germany, Poland, Portugal, Sweden and the UK – in the post global financial crisis years between 2009 and 2014.

The article concludes by underlining the political importance of addressing aspects pertaining to the quality of working life and of creating jobs that serve to improve the eudaimonic well-being of citizens.

JEL Classification: I31, J28, J81

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Attitudes and the Stalled Gender Revolution: Egalitarianism, Traditionalism, and Ambivalence from 1977 through 2016

William J. Scarborough and Barbara Risman (University of Illinois at Chicago, USA) and Ray Sin (Morningstar Inc., USA) published in Gender & Society Volume 33 Issue 2 (April 2019)

Abstract

Empirical studies show that though there is more room for improvement, much progress has been made toward gender equality since the second wave of feminism. Evidence also suggests that women’s advancements have been more dramatic in the public sphere of work and politics than in the private sphere of family life.

We argue that this lopsided gender progress may be traced to uneven changes in gender attitudes. Using data from more than 27,000 respondents who participated in the General Social Survey from 1977 through 2016, we show that gender attitudes have more than one underlying dimension and that these dimensions have changed at different rates over time.

Using latent class analysis, we find that the distribution of respondents’ attitudes toward gender equality has changed over the past 40 years.

There has been an increase in the number of egalitarians who support equality in public and private spheres, while the traditionals who historically opposed equality in both domains have been replaced by ambivalents who feel differently about gender equality in the public and private spheres.

Meanwhile, successive birth cohorts are becoming more egalitarian, with Generation-Xers and Millennials being the most likely to hold strong egalitarian views. The feminist revolution has succeeded in promoting egalitarian views and decreasing the influence of gender traditionalism, but has yet to convince a substantial minority that gender equality should extend to both public and private spheres of social life

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Does manual labor boost happiness?

a post by Derek Beres for the Big Think blog

The neurochemistry of working with your hands.

• Working with your hands affects brain chemistry in a positive way.
• Automation technologies can strip away a sense of agency and meaning in our lives.
• Using your hands connects you with your environment in a way that most technologies cannot.

Violence has become such a part of the fabric of American society that many stories pass without much commentary. Mass shootings need to be bigger and grander than ever to stay in the headlines; solo homicides rarely receive a glance. We pass over news about increasing suicide rates as if it is to be expected.

Continue reading

There’s some interesting links and a video to watch!

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Digital “women’s work?”: Job recruitment ads and the feminization of social media employment

an article by Brooke Erin Duffy (Cornell University, USA) and Becca Schwartz (University of Oxford, UK) published in New Media & Society Volume 20 Issue 8 (August 2018)

Abstract

In the wake of profound transformations in digital media markets and economies, the structures and conditions of cultural production are being radically reconfigured. This study explores the nascent field of social media work through an analysis of job recruitment ads—texts, we contend, that provide insight into a key discursive site of imagining the ideal digital laborer.

Drawing upon a qualitative textual analysis of 150 adverts, we show how employers construct workers through a patterned set of features, including sociability, deft emotional management, and flexibility. Such industrial imaginings incite workers to remain ever available, juggle various roles and responsibilities, and engage in persistent emotional labor—both online and off.

These expectations, we argue, allude to the increasingly feminized nature of social media employment, with its characteristic invisibility, lower pay, and marginal status within the technology field.

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Does Happiness Promote Career Success? Revisiting the Evidence

an article by Lisa C. Walsh and Sonja Lyubomirsky (University of California, Riverside, USA) and Julia K. Boehm (Chapman University, Orange, CA, USA) published in Journal of Career Assessment Volume 26 Issue 2 (May 2018)

Abstract

Empirical research demonstrates a relationship between happiness and career success.

For example, happy people receive higher earnings, exhibit better performance, and obtain more favorable supervisor evaluations than their less happy peers.

Researchers have posited that success leads to happiness, but Boehm and Lyubomirsky reviewed the relevant research in 2008 and argued that the alternative hypothesis – that happiness causes success – may be equally plausible.

A decade later, we return to the literature to supplement studies we previously cited with new research and to determine whether the results of cross-sectional, longitudinal, and experimental investigations provide additional support for this hypothesis.

We conclude that the evidence continues to persuasively suggest that happiness is correlated with and often precedes career success and that experimentally enhancing positive emotions leads to improved outcomes in the workplace.

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Cognitive performance and labour market outcomes

an article by Dajun Lin (University of Virginia, USA), Randall Lutter (University of Virginia and Resources for the Future, USA) and Christopher J. Ruhm (University of Virginia and National Bureau of Economic Research, USA) published in Labour Economics Volume 51 (April 2018)

Highlights

• Cognitive performance is associated with future labour market outcomes at all ages.
• The estimated return to cognitive performance rises with age.
• Associations with incomes reflect associations with wage rates and hours worked.
• Relative returns to cognitive performance vary with race, ethnicity and sex.

Abstract

We use the U.S. National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 and other sources to examine how cognitive performance near the end of secondary schooling relates to labour market outcomes through age fifty.

Our preferred estimates control for individual and family backgrounds, non-cognitive attributes, and survey years. We find that returns to cognitive skills rise with age.

Although estimated gains in lifetime incomes are close to those reported earlier, our preferred estimates make multiple offsetting improvements.

Returns to cognitive skill are greater for blacks and Hispanics than for non-Hispanic whites, both in relative and absolute terms, with gains in work hours being more important than in hourly wages.

JEL Classification: J08, J31

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A discipline at the crossroads? Using a gender-inspired paradigm to reposition the sociology of work and employment

an article by Kate Huppatz (University of Western Sydney, Australia) and Anne Ross-Smith (Macquarie University, Australia) published in Journal of Sociology Volume 53 Issue 4 (December 2017)

Abstract

The future of work and employment sociology has been a subject of concern for a number of authors in recent years. Halford and Strangleman, among others, have suggested that work and employment sociology is on the decline, in that it has been disconnected from wider sociology and co-opted by management and business schools.

In this article we unpack the debate and look at how it relates to gender and work scholarship. In doing so, we propose that the decline thesis might be overstated.

While gender and work sociology has been implicated in the demise of labour process theory, it has also embraced change and strengthened and diversified work and employment sociology.

Nevertheless, in this article, we treat the perceived threat as an opportunity to rethink work and employment sociology. We propose a four-themed, interdisciplinary, gender-inspired research paradigm.

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Cycling, car, or public transit: a study of stress and mood upon arrival at work

an article by Stéphane Brutus, Roshan Javadian and Alexandra Joelle Panaccio, (Concordia University, Montreal, Canada) published in International Journal of Workplace Health Management Volume 10 Issue 1 (2017)

Abstract

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of various commuting modes on stress and mood upon arrival at work.

Design/methodology/approach
Data on stress and mood were collected after 123 employees arrived at work by bike, car, or public transit. In order to account for the natural fluctuation of stress and mood throughout the day, the assessment of the dependent variables was made within the first 45 minutes of arrival at work.

Findings
As hypothesized, those who cycled to work were less stressed than their counterparts who arrived by car. However, there was no difference in mood among the different mode users.

Practical implications
A lower level of early stress among cyclists offers further evidence for the promotion of active commute modes.

Originality/value
This study underscores the importance of being sensitive to time-based variations in stress and mood levels when investigating the impact of commute modes.

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A Conjecture on the Nature of Information, with a “Simple” Example

an essay by Stanley N. Salthe (Binghamton University, NY, USA) published in Information Volume 8 Article 1 (2017)

Abstract

Here, I take the position that information is a result of interactions between observers. In order to proceed with this, I construct a simple physical example, with forces standing in for observers. That example leads me to consider the relation between investigative work and energy constraints, which in turn leads toward a surprising suggestion concerning the most general motivation for work.

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Skills anticipation—The future of work and education

an article by Rob Wilson (University of Warwick, UK) published in International Journal of Educational Research Volume 61 (2013)

Highlights

• Skills are key to improving economic performance at individual and macro levels.
• Education and training is the key to improving skills.
• Projections can help ensure education and training delivers the right skills.
• Systematic anticipation of the future can help inform career choices and decisions.
• But education is not just about preparing people for work.

Abstract

Skills are frequently advocated as a panacea for economic and social ills, and anticipation of changing skill needs is seen as playing a key role in ensuring education and training delivers the right skills. Although mechanistic “manpower planning” of education and training systems from the top down is not a practical possibility in free market economies systematic efforts to peer into the future can help both policy makers and individuals to make better informed choices.

There are huge uncertainties, but many trends and patterns are robust. Education is not just about preparing people for work but also about changing the path of economic development.

Decisions about education by both policy makers and individuals will influence how the future will unfold.

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Increases in salience of ethnic identity at work: The roles of ethnic assignation and ethnic identification

an article by Etlyn J Kenny (Birkbeck, University of London, UK) and Rob B Briner (University of Bath, UK) published in human relations Volume 66 Number 5 (May 2013)

Abstract

To better understand how ethnicity is actually experienced within organisations, we examined reported increases in ethnic identity salience at work and responses to such increases.

Thirty British black Caribbean graduate employees were interviewed about how and when they experienced their ethnic identity at work.

The findings demonstrated that increased salience in ethnic identity was experienced in two key ways: through ‘ethnic assignation’ (a ‘push’ towards ethnic identity) and ‘ethnic identification’ (a ‘pull’ towards ethnic identity).

We explore how and when ethnic assignation and ethnic identification occur at work, and their relevance to how workplaces are experienced by this group of minority ethnic employees.

The findings suggest the need for further research attention to the dynamic and episodic nature of social identity – including ethnic identity – within organizations, and to the impact of such increases in salience of social identities on behaviour at work.

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Work as dance

an article by John Chandler (University of East London, UK)published in Organization Volume 19 Number 6 (November 2012)

Abstract

This article argues that use of the dance analogy has potential as an heuristic device in ethnographies of work.

The nature and variety of dance is explored as a way of studying movement, gendered embodiment, audience, emotion and rhythm at work. It can thus serve to provide a richly multi-dimensional view of work, while also having the potential to draw attention to the unfolding of patterns of work over time.

While such an approach has much in common with classic studies of work, as well as some more recent work that emphasises work as embodied practice, it may also open up new avenues or at least unsettle some of the dominant ways of researching work and its organisation.

As such it is offered as a stimulus to debate on the nature of work and its organization and how it might be understood. There are, however, limitations to the dance analogy and these mean that the approach might be best seen as a useful complement to approaches which focus on the verbal, rather than sufficient in itself.

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The new ‘hidden abode’: reflections on value and labour in the new economy

an article by Steffen Böhm and Chris Land (University of Essex) published in The Sociological Review Volume 60 Issue 2 (May 2012)

Abstract

In a pivotal section of Capital, volume 1, Marx (1976: 279) notes that, in order to understand the capitalist production of value, we must descend into the ‘hidden abode of production’: the site of the labour process conducted within an employment relationship.

In this paper we argue that by remaining wedded to an analysis of labour that is confined to the employment relationship, Labour Process Theory (LPT) has missed a fundamental shift in the location of value production in contemporary capitalism.

We examine this shift through the work of Autonomist Marxists like Hardt and Negri, Lazaratto and Arvidsson, who offer theoretical leverage to prise open a new ‘hidden abode’ outside employment, for example in the ‘production of organization’ and in consumption.

Although they can open up this new ‘hidden abode’, without LPT’s fine-grained analysis of control/resistance, indeterminacy and structured antagonism, these theorists risk succumbing to empirically naive claims about the ‘new economy’. Through developing an expanded conception of a ‘new hidden abode’ of production, the paper demarcates an analytical space in which both LPT and Autonomist Marxism can expand and develop their understanding of labour and value production in today’s economy.

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