Gender and the Contours of Precarious Employment

Edited by: Leah F. Vosko, Martha MacDonald, Iain Campbell

Published by Routledge, 2009

Precarious employment presents a major challenge to the social, economic, and political stability of industrialised societies, and there is widespread consensus that its growth over the past two decades is contributing to increased social inequalities, especially along the lines of gender and citizenship. This book brings together essays from scholars with common expertise in the analysis of changing employment systems and gender relations, but with otherwise diverse views and disciplinary backgrounds. The introduction explores the concept of precariousness and the new literature that has emerged in recent years on this topic. The size, nature, and dynamics of precarious employment in countries such as Canada, Japan, the United States, and Australia and in the European Union are closely examined in the following eleven chapters. Finally, four chapters examine the conceptual and methodological challenges in the study of precarious employment. The collection aims to yield new ways of understanding, conceptualising, measuring, and responding, via public policy and other means - such as new forms of union organisation and community organising at multiple scales - to the forces driving labour market insecurity.

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