Working Hours and Social Guarantees of the Precariat (a Comparative Analysis)

Working Hours and Social Guarantees of the Precariat (a Comparative Analysis)


Аnisimov R.I.

Cand. Sci. (Sociol.), Dean of the Faculty of Sociology, Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow, Russia ranisimov@list.ru

ID of the Article: 9368


The article is written with the support Russian Science Foundation Grant № 18-18-00024.


For citation:

Аnisimov R.I. Working Hours and Social Guarantees of the Precariat (a Comparative Analysis). Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [Sociological Studies]. 2022. No 11. P. 100-111




Abstract

The article is devoted to a comparative analysis of the working hours of the core of the precariat – informally employed workers with employees registered on the terms of an indefinite contract. Based on empirical research data, it has been revealed that precariums have longer working hours, which is presumably compensated by higher wages of low-skilled groups of precariums. However, in addition to longer working hours, the precariat, unlike officially employed employees, is excluded from the system of social guarantees. This social exclusion qualitatively distinguishes the precariat from other employees. The employer, extracting additional income from the precarious state of the employee shifts social obligations towards the latter to society. The author of the article believes that the most relevant term denoting this situation is the concept of “rent” – as the extraction of income without labor activity. The process of rent extraction by the employer on the one hand and the precarization of the worker on the other hand has a social nature and characterizes a new stage of capitalism, in which there is a purposeful removal of institutional restrictions on the fulfillment of the main function of capitalism – profit-making.


Keywords
working time; precariat; employer; employee; social exclusion; rent; capitalism

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Content No 11, 2022