Does Precarity of Employment Affect all Spheres of Life?
Temnitskiy A.L.
Cand. Sci. (Sociol.), Assoc. Prof., the Sociological Department of the MGIMO University; Senior Researcher, Institute of Sociology of FCTAS RAS, Moscow, Russia taleksandr@list.ru
Temnitskiy A.L. Does Precarity of Employment Affect all Spheres of Life?. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [Sociological Studies]. 2023. No 2. P. 158-164
The paper presents the author’s analysis of the collective monograph entitled “From Precarious Employment to Precarity of Life”. Despite the variety of precarious employment aspects discussed in separate chapters, the authors are united by a methodological principle: singling out the personality of an employee – as an individual, a resident, a worker, and a participant in his/her immediate environment in the context of interpersonal communication – and taking this personality into account in the analysis of social roles. Such an integrated approach allows to see the interconnection between the spheres of production and non-production life of people belonging to different professional groups and having different employment statuses. The main hypothesis of our study is that precarity of employment entails precarity of other spheres of life. This hypothesis is tested primarily by comparing precarious and non-precarious persons in their responses to relevant questions of a survey using the percentage difference method. Our analysis of the monograph content and the summary tables in the appendices allowed to conclude that there is not enough evidence to support this hypothesis. To better understand the differences described for the many aspects covered in the monograph, we have compiled a collective social and demographic profile of a precarious employee. Using this profile as a model for rechecking the authors’ empirical generalizations led us to conclude that the influence of a third factor (sex, age, education) is often at the back of detectable differences between precarious and non-precarious persons.
Bessokirnaya G.P., Temnitsky A.L. (2000) Workers at a private enterprise: satisfaction with life. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [Sociological studies]. No. 7: 33–37. (In Russ.)
Buzgalin A.V., Kolganov A.I. (2019) Transformation of the social structure of late capitalism: from the proletariat and the bourgeoisie to the precaritat and the creative class. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [Sociological studies]. No. 1: 18–28. DOI: 10.31857/S013216250003744-1. (In Russ.)
Gasyukova E.N., Karacharovsky V.V., Yastrebov G.A. (2016) Different precariat: about the sources and forms of instability of the social status of individuals and groups. Obshchestvennyye nauki i sovremennost’ [Social sciences and modernity]. No. 3: 48–63. (In Russ.)
Klimova S.G. (2022) Rev.: Precarious employment: Precarious employment: origins, criteria, features / Ed. Zh.T. Toshchenko. Moscow: Ves’ Mir. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [Sociological studies]. No. 5: 168–172. DOI: 10.31857/S013216250020194-6. (In Russ.)
From Precarious Employment to Precarity of Life. (2022) Ed. Zh.T. Toshchenko. Moscow: Ves’ Mir. (In Russ.)
The Precariat: The Rise of a New Class. (2020) Ed. Zh.T. Toshchenko. Moscow: TsSP i M. (In Russ.)
Precarious employment: origins, criteria, features. (2021) Ed. Zh.T. Toshchenko. Moscow: Ves’ Mir. (In Russ.)
Soviet sociology: in 2 vol. (1982) Ed. G.V. Osipov. Moscow: Nauka. Vol. 2: Dynamics of social processes in the USSR.
Temnitskiy A.L., Bessokirnaya G.P. (2018) Work and life satisfaction in modern Russia: models of interrelation. Vestnik Omskogo univerciteta. Seriya Ekonomika [Herald of Omsk University. Series “Economics”]. No. 4: 138–152. (In Russ.)
Temnitskiy A.L. (2022) Resource Potential of Precarious Employees in Russia. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya [Sociological studies]. No. 11: 86–99. DOI: 10.31857/S013216250021065-4.
Toshchenko Zh.T. (2018) Precariat: from protoclass to new class. Moscow: Nauka. (In Russ.)