soc of work 2 Flashcards
reproductive labor
The work it takes (both daily and through
multiple generations) to keep reproducing life at some socially-determined
level of acceptability
types of repro. labor
○ Child rearing
○ Education
○ Domestic work (mopping the floors)
○ Social maintenance (friending the friends)
○ Health care
○ Elder care
who does THIS repro labor work
Primarily women, minority, & low income groups
gender in repro labor
Gender-specific norms of whose “responsibility” it is to
complete reproductive labor
care crisis
Current inadequate levels of care - childcare,
healthcare, eldercare
why is care crisis occurring
CHANGING DEMOGRAPHICS
■ Aging populations (lower fertility rates means fewer
young people to take care of older people)
■ Increased workforce participation of women
ECONOMIC PRESSURES
■ Care work is not paid highly, so in the face of rising
living costs, not as many are entering the industry
as workers
POLICY
■ Insufficient government policies and funding
who does care crisis affect
○ Women: Traditional gender roles often place the burden of
care disproportionately on women, causing the care crisis
to disproportionately impact their participation in the
workforce and contribute to lingering inequality
○ Low income families: costs are prohibitive
○ Elderly individuals in need of care
○ Children in need of care
the state in care crisis
○ Public policy addresses care in different ways in different countries
○ The political left: more state spending on these issues
○ The political right: family to take more responsibility for care work (more stay at home mothers to look after children and elders)
social citizenship (care crisis)
○ Nakano Glenn Reading proposes that care should be part
of social citizenship.
■ More valorization of work, ensuring the men and
women are both doing it, and empowering
individuals that they have a right to decent care
formal vs informal work
FORMAL WORK
○ Receiving a wage
○ Employment protections
○ State regulation
INFORMAL WORK
○ No set wages
○ No or fewer employment protections
○ Paid “under the table” or in goods
○ “precarious,” but not always
○ Hard to accumulate capital
○ Not “Doubly free”
■ Not free to enter into a labor contract
○ Sometimes within families
informality and econ dev
The traditional perspective was that work in developing
economies would become consistently more formalized over time. But….
TODAY: Informality is not incompatible with developing economies
■ I.e. more informality in the global North (and yet it is
growing) and economic growth in the global South
despite persistent informality
trends in formality of work GLOBAL NORTH
● informalization (increasing)
● union representation (decreasing)
● platformization
trends in formality of work GLOBAL SOUTH
● dispossession (increasing)
● Rapid economic growth w/o formalization
● Non-agricultural labor remains mostly informal
relative formality of work
exploitation: higher for informal workers, can lead to self-exploitation by taking adv. of informal labor of fam members
accumulation of wealth: harder for INF. W
benefits: (e.g. healthcare) not present for INF. W
risk/precarity: higher for INF. W
labor movements
size: very small or very large or in between
formality: Impromptu and without legal standing, all the way to nationally organized groups lasting decades, with elected
officials
geography: region-specific, industry-specific, sector-specific
(food, retail, etc).
in/out of orgs: May be associated with just one company, or one occupation, or exist outside of organizations
lifespan: May be short lived, may be long lived
