Paid Work
- LAST REVIEWED: 07 January 2019
- LAST MODIFIED: 26 June 2019
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199756384-0199
- LAST REVIEWED: 07 January 2019
- LAST MODIFIED: 26 June 2019
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199756384-0199
Introduction
Ever since the emergence of sociology as a discipline, sociologists have shown an interest in paid work. Marx, Weber, and Durkheim’s interest in societal changes was inspired by the rise of market relations and paid work. The classical sociologists studied the growth and spread of paid work in relation to the development of inequality, rationalization, and social cohesion. Since then, the form and content of employment relationships has changed substantially and keeps on changing. The continued interest of sociologists in these developments has culminated in a well-established field of research. This article explores that field of research in three parts. The first part of the bibliography lists textbooks, reference manuals, journals, and national research traditions. The field shows substantial variety due to the constant development of the labor market and employment relations, and due to institutional differences in the architecture of employment relations. The second part of the article focuses on developments in paid work. The following themes are explored: the growth of paid work relationships, the increase in the number of paid work hours, the major changes in the architecture of employment relationships, the effects of paid work relationships on the well-being of workers, and the development of work values and work-hour preferences. The third part focuses on different labor market positions. This section starts with the standard employment relationship and then moves on to its counterpart: unemployment. It continues with workers in nonstandard positions, such as temporary jobs, part-time jobs, jobs with irregular and long work hours, and self-employed workers.
Journals, Textbooks, and Reference Manuals
In the sociology of work and employment relations, a central place is assigned to the sociology of paid hours. Research in this field focuses on societal developments that give shape to employment relationships and to the impact of employment relationships on society in terms of well-being, social inequality, and solidarity. In the study of employment relations, the sociological perspective has a place next to labor economics, psychology of work, industrial relations, and human resource management (HRM). Each discipline has its own perspective and research field. This article focuses on the field of sociology, but since contributions from adjacent fields have had their impact on the sociology of work, they will be referred to when appropriate. The research field of the sociology of work and employment relationships shows considerable variety for two reasons. Firstly, work and employment relationships have changed substantially since employment relations started to emerge. As a consequence, research interests are constantly shifting from one topic to another. Secondly, there always has been a considerable variety among countries in the institutional design of employment relations. Countries have developed their own institutions in and around paid work, and often also their own national research traditions, with own textbooks and journals. Since it is not possible to do justice to these national research traditions, the focus here will be on contributions in the English language. During the late 20th and early 21st centuries English-language journals, which often publish comparative research, have become the main publication outlets for researchers from other language domains as well. It is to be noted, however, that textbooks, which are directed toward other audiences such as students, still have a strong national flavor.
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Article
- Actor-Network Theory
- Adolescence
- African Americans
- African Societies
- Agent-Based Modeling
- Aging
- Analysis, Spatial
- Analysis, World-Systems
- Anarchism
- Anomie and Strain Theory
- Arab Spring, Mobilization, and Contentious Politics in the...
- Asian Americans
- Assimilation
- Authority and Work
- Bell, Daniel
- Biosociology
- Bourdieu, Pierre
- Careers
- Caste
- Catholicism
- Causal Inference
- Chicago School of Sociology
- Children
- Chinese Cultural Revolution
- Chinese Society
- Citizenship
- Civil Rights
- Civil Society
- Class
- Cognitive Sociology
- Cohort Analysis
- Collective Efficacy
- Collective Memory
- Community
- Comparative Historical Sociology
- Comte, Auguste
- Conflict Theory
- Conservatism
- Consumer Culture
- Consumption
- Contemporary Family Issues
- Contingent Work
- Conversation Analysis
- Corrections
- Cosmopolitanism
- Crime, Cities and
- Criminology
- Cultural Capital
- Cultural Classification and Codes
- Cultural Omnivorousness
- Cultural Production and Circulation
- Culture and Networks
- Culture, Sociology of
- Democracy
- Demography
- Development
- Deviance
- Discrimination
- Doing Gender
- Du Bois, W.E.B.
- Durkheim, Émile
- Economic Institutions and Institutional Change
- Economic Sociology
- Education
- Education and Health
- Education Policy in the United States
- Educational Policy and Race
- Elites
- Emotions
- Empires and Colonialism
- Entrepreneurship
- Environmental Sociology
- Epistemology
- Ethnic Enclaves
- Ethnicity
- Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis
- Exchange Theory
- Families, Postmodern
- Family
- Family Policies
- Fascism
- Feminist Theory
- Fertility
- Field, Bourdieu's Concept of
- Food
- Forced Migration
- Foucault, Michel
- Frankfurt School
- Friendship
- Gender
- Gender and Bodies
- Gender and Crime
- Gender and Education
- Gender and Health
- Gender and Incarceration
- Gender and Professions
- Gender and Social Movements
- Gender and Work
- Gender Pay Gap
- Gender, Sexuality, and Migration
- Gender Stratification
- Gender, Welfare Policy and
- Gendered Sexuality
- Genocide
- Gentrification
- Gerontology
- Ghetto
- Globalization and Labor
- Goffman, Erving
- Habit
- Health
- Historic Preservation
- Housework
- Human Trafficking
- Identity
- Immigration
- Indian Society, Contemporary
- Institutions
- Intellectuals
- Internet
- Intersectionalities
- Intersex
- Interview Methodology
- Job Quality
- Justice
- Knowledge, Critical Sociology of
- Labor Markets
- Latino/Latina Studies
- Law and Society
- Law, Sociology of
- Leisure
- LGBT Parenting and Family Formation
- LGBT Social Movements
- Life Course
- Lipset, S.M.
- Management
- Markets, Conventions and Categories in
- Marriage and Divorce
- Marxist Sociology
- Masculinity
- Mass Incarceration in the United States and its Collateral...
- Mass Media
- Material Culture
- Mathematical Sociology
- Mead, G.H.
- Medical Sociology
- Mental Illness
- Methodological Individualism
- Middle Classes
- Migration
- Military Sociology
- Money and Credit
- Morality
- Motherhood
- Multiculturalism
- Multilevel Models
- Multiracial, Mixed-Race, and Biracial Identities
- Nationalism
- Non-normative Sexuality Studies
- Norms
- Occupations and Professions
- Organizations
- Paid Work
- Panel Studies
- Parsons, Talcott
- Policing
- Political Culture
- Political Economy
- Political Sociology
- Popular Culture
- Positivism
- Poverty
- Power
- Proletariat (Working Class)
- Protestantism
- Public Opinion
- Public Space
- Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA)
- Race
- Race and Sexuality
- Race and Violence
- Race and Youth
- Race in Global Perspective
- Race, Organizations, and Movements
- Racism
- Rational Choice
- Relationships
- Religion
- Religion and the Public Sphere
- Residential Segregation
- Revolutions
- Role Theory
- Rural Sociology
- Scientific Networks
- Secularization
- Sequence Analysis
- Sex versus Gender
- Sexual Identity
- Sexualities
- Sexuality Across the Life Course
- Simmel, Georg
- Single Parents in Context
- Skill
- Small Cities
- Social Capital
- Social Change
- Social Closure
- Social Construction of Crime
- Social Control
- Social Darwinism
- Social Disorganization Theory
- Social Epidemiology
- Social History
- Social Indicators
- Social Mobility
- Social Movements
- Social Network Analysis
- Social Networks
- Social Policy
- Social Problems
- Social Psychology
- Social Stratification
- Social Theory
- Socialization, Sociological Perspectives on
- Sociolinguistics
- Sociological Approaches to Character
- Sociological Research on the Chinese Society
- Sociological Research, Qualitative Methods in
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- Sociology, History of
- Sociology of Manners
- Sociology of Music
- Sociology of War, The
- Sports
- Status
- Suburbanism
- Survey Methods
- Symbolic Boundaries
- Symbolic Interactionism
- The Division of Labor after Durkheim
- The State
- Tilly, Charles
- Time Use and Childcare
- Time Use and Time Diary Research
- Tourism, Sociology of
- Transnational Adoption
- Trust
- Unions and Inequality
- Urban Ethnography
- Urban Growth Machine
- Urban Inequality in the United States
- Values
- Veblen, Thorstein
- Violence
- Visual Arts, Music, and Aesthetic Experience
- Wallerstein, Immanuel
- Wealth
- Weber, Max
- Welfare, Race, and the American Imagination
- Welfare States
- Whiteness
- Women’s Employment and Economic Inequality Between Househo...
- Work and Employment, Sociology of
- Work/Life Balance
- Workplace Flexibility