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CHAPTER Eleven

CHAPTER Eleven. The Changing Structure of Work. The income people receive from work affects their life chances Work: any activity that produces something of value for another Work is more than paid labor, a lot of value creation goes unpaid. Work is central to everyday lives of people.

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CHAPTER Eleven

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  1. CHAPTER Eleven The Changing Structure of Work

  2. The income people receive from work affects their life chances • Work: any activity that produces something of value for another • Work is more than paid labor, a lot of value creation goes unpaid. • Work is central to everyday lives of people

  3. Emile Durkheim: division of labor in society makes people dependent on one another: and determines type of soilidarity and integration. • Karl Marx suggested that work was the means through which the human species fulfilled its potential: a way to realize species being. Work was degrading in capitalist societies.

  4. The pay you receive determines your standard of living • The jobs people hold determine the overall class structure. • Work also has a personal meaning to people, it determines their self esteem because it is located to structural location

  5. Millions of people cannot find jobs, they are unemployed • Millions of others are underemployed, in that they are working in temporary or part time jobs- contingency work

  6. The changing structure of work • Shift from an agricultural society to an industrial society • Shift from an industrial society to a deindustrializing society • A rise in bureaucratization of the workplace • A rise in contingency work • A decline in self employment among workers

  7. A society’s work activity is divided into three sectors: • 1. Primary (agriculture) • 2. Secondary (manufacturiing) • 3. Tertiary (services) • 1850: 65% of the labor force was employed in agriculture • 2002: 2% of the labor force is in agriculture • End of the 1800s (end of 19th century), 31% employed in manufacturing • Now around 21% employed in that sector

  8. Dedindustrialization has not resulted in a net loss of jobs, however: • The quality of new jobs being created make them incomparable to the old jobs. These types of low paying jobs result in underemployment • Wages in the new sectors are $12000/year lower than manufacturing job sectors.

  9. Men and women work in a gendered dual labor market, since news jobs are being created in the service sector, more women are employed but still suffer from poverty. Jobs in “men’s” sectors pay much higher.

  10. At the time of the American Revolution 80% of the labor force was self employed, by 1880 the self employed made up only 1/3rdof the labor force. Today under 10% of the labor force is self employed. • The slight increase in self employment is due to deindustrialization where people having lost their jobs are now starting to work as contingency type “private contractors”.

  11. An individual’s economic status is based on wealth and income as a result of which they are job dependent • A state of dependency exists: • Remember dependent development of “Third World” nations, same concept.

  12. Bureaucracy and the workplace • The rise of formal organization or bureaucracy- the master trend of post industrial societies: • Bureaucracy and bureaucratic organization and bureaucratized social structure means that rules dominate the workplace, society and thereby the lives of individuals

  13. Bureaucratic organizations are characterized by: • 1. Clear-cut division of labor • 2. A hierarchy of authority • 3. Organizational rules and regulations • 4. Rationality and efficiency- i.e impersonality • 5. material and symbolic rewards and status handed out based on adherence to formal rules.

  14. Bureaucratic organizations allow employers to control employees • However informal organizations might arise within a bureaucratic workplace

  15. Decline of Unions • Only 13.3% of wage and salary workers in the U.S. are unionized, a 50% drop since the 1950s • Unionization offers greater bargaining power to workers as they struggle to attain a living wage.

  16. Concentration of employers • By the 1980s 20% of the industrial workforce was employed by just 16 large corporations • The federal government employs over 3 million civilians

  17. Contingency work: • Any job without an explicit or implicit contract for long term employment. • Any job in which minimum hours worked vary irregularly • Most employers of contingency type work are temp agencies. As a result of this structural shift in employment, type of jobs, the nation’s largest private employer is not Manpower Inc.

  18. Unemployment: • Percentage of the labor force that is not employed at the time of the monthly Labor Department survey and has not been seeking employment actively for the past 4 weeks. • The labor force is also defined as consisting of people who are 16 years of age or higher. • The official rate under represents the actual unemployment rate

  19. It does not count those that are not seeking employment because they were discouraged in the previous period. This does not mean that they do not want to be employed. • It does not count the involuntary part time workers. Why involuntary? • It does not count people below 16 • The statistics are politically neutral: the quality of the jobs is not accessed.

  20. Causes of Unemployment • Structural • Demand deficit • Seasonal • Automation and technological change • Job export and goods import • Government spending trends • discrimination

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