SOCIOL Final Flashcards Chapter 12.1-12.2

Question 1

Division of labor

Answer 1

The specialization of individuals in any organization or group, or in society as a whole, particularly in relation to work.

Question 2

Labor market

Answer 2

Describes the process through which workers and employers find each other.

Question 3

Occupations

Answer 3

A job that has been formally established and has some requirements (often formalized) for training or knowledge to perform it.

Question 4

What is the difference between the division of labor and labor markets ?

Answer 4

Division of labor includes both paid and unpaid work

Question 5

Craftsman

Answer 5

A worker who develops detailed and specialized knowledge of how to make or fix things, began to appear.

Question 6

Industrial Revolution

Answer 6

The introduction of large-scale production of goods and products for mass markets—that dramatically changed the nature of work and the division of labor.

Question 7

Specialization

Answer 7

Knowledge or skills related to a narrow field of practice; a specialist typically knows a lot about one or a small number of things that a generalist is not likely to know. Most professions today have high (and increasing) forms of specialization.

Question 8

Caring work

Answer 8

Raising children or taking care of sick or aging family members or close friends has been performed within families and by women, not as paid work.

Question 9

White-collar jobs

Answer 9

Jobs that do not require physical labor, in which employees work in offices or at desks, as opposed to “blue collar jobs” that involve physical labor.

Question 10

Blue-collar jobs

Answer 10

Manufacturing or service jobs involving physical labor (the “blue collar” refers to the idea that these workers (originally mostly men) doing physical labor do not wear “white collar” shirts like those of professionals).

Question 11

Post-industrial society

Answer 11

A society characterized by a post-industrial economy, and in which education becomes a primary source or opportunity and inequality; value based on knowledge.

Question 12

Gig economy

Answer 12

The sector of the economy in which income is received from doing jobs on a short-term basis, with no commitment from either employer or worker beyond a single transaction (typically organized via the internet).

Question 13

Day laborers

Answer 13

Informal work for a day or a few hours in exchange for money; farm and construction workers, cleaners, and dockworkers.

Question 14

temp agencies

Answer 14

These firms specialized in placing workers in temporary jobs

Question 15

What are the two types of self-employment that are growing ?

Answer 15

1) Professional freelancers ( consultants, artists, designers, and writers, who value independence and flexible job hours)
2) low-income, marginal, informal forms of self-employment, such as in-home childcare or day labor

Question 16

Outsourcing

Answer 16

The contracting (or subcontracting) of elements of the production of goods or services to another organization.

Question 17

Freelancing

Answer 17

When individuals do not have a single employer, but rather take jobs as they arise. Many freelancers call themselves “consultants” while others may use the phrase “gig worker.”

Question 18

Bifurcation of the labor market

Answer 18

The best and worst jobs have been expanding.

Question 19

The labor process

Answer 19

The organization of work, in terms of the relationship between workers and employers, the way specific work tasks are structured and performed, and the technologies and organizational environments in which the work is performed.

Question 20

Scientific management (Taylor)

Answer 20

A movement that arose in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries that attempted to improve productivity by ensuring that managers controlled all aspects of the labor process and would utilize the best practices available given existing technology and knowledge.

Question 21

Hawthorne studies (Elton Mayo)

Answer 21

Studies aimed to identify what factors might induce workers to produce more output in the same amount of time.

Question 22

What did the Hawthorne studies find ?

Answer 22

Workers were more productive when their work was organized in such a way that they had to work together, not just follow orders.

Question 23

Labor and Monopoly Capital (Braverman)

Answer 23

This widely discussed and famous study argued that to maximize profits, capitalist firms and their managers were continually driven to reduce their employees’ ability to control what they do on the job; fed into the idea of deskilling.

Question 24

Deskilling

Answer 24

Jobs were made ever simpler, and workers became more interchangeable.

Question 25

Automation

Answer 25

a machine performs a task that once was completed by a worker

Question 26

The skill biased technological change

Answer 26

(SBTC) hypothesis argues that technological changes since the 1970s increased demand for high-skill workers and the wages they could command.

Question 27

Telecommuting

Answer 27

Working from home

Question 28

How do workers leverage power over their employers ?

Answer 28

1) They have skills in short supply
2) The formation of collective organizations of workers such as unions

Question 29

Collective bargaining agreements

Answer 29

Agreements between employers and unions representing workers.

Question 30

Are unions more common in the public or private sector ?

Answer 30

Public

Question 31

Why have unions declined ?

Answer 31

1)Employers opposing unions has led to legal regulations and consequent difficulty when it comes to establishing unions.
2) Employment has grown in historically nonunionized sectors of the government

Question 32

Effects of drop in unions

Answer 32

Decline in wages and rising income inequality