Inequality in Precarious Work

The Politics of Unpaid Labour can rightly be considered a magnum opus. Its conceptual and empirical breadth and depth are truly impressive. Equally significant for the field of employment relations is its use of 129 autobiographical narratives and 38 audio diaries from 3 occupational fields: creative dance, residential care, and online platform work. Valeria Pulignano and Markieta Domecka consider different national contexts, demonstrating the value of qualitative methods for nuanced analysis of work, workers, and specifically here of unpaid labor. Given the book’s scope, it is not possible to do justice to its entirety in a brief review. Accordingly, I give most attention to the politics of unpaid labor theory developed to explain inequality in precarious work. In this regard, the book is extremely valuable for sparking renewed engagement with conceptualizations of class in our current epoch. To my mind, particular strengths are worthy of mention.

For example, the emphasis on the political dimension of unpaid labor makes it possible for the book to successfully synthesize concepts, areas, and topics usually dealt with in isolation. This holistic approach achieves a multilevel analysis that is remarkable in its breadth and its engagement with nuance at macro, meso, and micro levels and the interplay between them, especially regarding institutions and private and personal motivations, meanings, and resources. The theoretical framework is used to explain inequalities in precarious work by highlighting how class structures are reproduced, connections between paid and unpaid work, the total social organization of labor, the interconnectedness of various work forms across different spaces and domains, the links and interstices between the so-called public and private spheres, the role of social reproductive labor, employment and welfare structures, and the way all these dimensions provide “scaffolding” for unpaid labor. This overarching framing of the politics of unpaid labor enables the authors to explore how it is embedded “within family and institutional structures and practices underscores the presence of structural inequalities restricting opportunities and resources based on social class” (Chapter 3). Indeed, the authors argue that it is critical to recognize the “influential role of class-based power structures” to understand how individuals conform to the ideal worker norm to avoid stigma or to gain recognition, rewards, and opportunities, and how these structures “sustain unpaid labour, often by establishing interdependencies with social reproductive labour” (Chapter 3). The attention to power dynamics, class-based structures, hierarchies, institutions, resources, and the ideal worker norm is thoughtful, and accounting for the links between them is well executed. Also woven throughout the book is a consideration of how this ideal norm is experienced and how individual motivations sustain it through unpaid (usually voluntary) labor and related factors, which ensure conformity to it. In this way the authors explain how it serves to reinforce the unequal distribution of labor, resources, and therefore inequalities.

A welcome aspect of the book is the authors’ effort to contextualize the total social organization of labor through a brief overview of this discussion’s origins and of gendered labor inequalities. Of note is the recognition of the similarity between the 19th-century “putting out” system and the recent digital “putting out” system, both of which affect the boundaries between work space and home space. There is a pleasing treatment of the productive–non-productive debate and the historical roots of the male breadwinner norm and family wage that provides a firm foundation for the book’s argument in relation to the unpaid labor performed mainly by women outside the market, which enables fulfilment of capitalism’s social reproduction purpose today.

Another strength of this book is its engagement with some of the greatest scholars of all time: Pierre Bourdieu, Michel Foucault, Erving Goffman, Jürgen Habermas, Henri Lefebvre, Karl Marx, C. Wright Mills, Karl Polanyi, Max Weber, and leading recent scholars from a range of disciplines engaged with the study of work, employment, labor markets, and inequalities. This itself is highly commendable and a remarkable source for scholars and students since it encourages us to reappraise past scholarship, concepts, and debates in light of contemporary changes.

Some issues need to be acknowledged regarding the book’s treatment, which may be somewhat demanding given its breadth and depth. First, I refer to the treatment of class itself. As the authors note in Chapter 1, referring to Kalleberg and Vallas’s Precarious Work (2018), there is “a need to theorise how to articulate social class as an analytical category adding inequality to precarious work.” Certainly, the authors explicate unequal class-based structures in their discussion of unpaid labor, precarious work, and inequality in capitalist society and of power relations and inequality structures produced, maintained, reinforced, and reproduced by unpaid labor. Moreover, the effort to build on Bourdieu’s notion of the fluid and evolving nature of class formation and the discussion of Lamont and Molnár (2002) “on how symbolic boundaries produce, reproduce and/or follow from in-group social differences, or exclusion from positions requiring material resources” are welcome (Chapter 3). However, the definition of class could have been enriched by attention to class relations and in this regard to work of Nicos Poulantzas (Classes in Contemporary Capitalism 1975), which would have made a valuable contribution to this book. Particularly pertinent are his writings on the changing nature of “intermediate classes” (Hodges 1961) and what he referred to as the new petit bourgeoisie, as well as his treatment of inequalities and “opportunities” (Poulantzas 1975: 17)—all significant issues considered by Pulignano and Domecka. In many ways, this book aligns with Poulantzas: It similarly explores social classes, social practices, and the state. Both also engage with class fractions and groupings of social agents in the social division of labor not simply in terms of economic positions but also political and ideological dimensions. In effect, Pulignano and Domecka create a basis on which to reappraise Poulantzas’ significant theoretical arguments as regards the self-employed and freelancers.

Given the book’s foundational Marxian framing, I was surprised by some notable gaps. For instance, the discussion on meaningful work in terms of the relationship between structure and agency draws on “existential philosophers and also psychologists” who “have examined the distinctions between leading an authentic, intricate life” as compared to “a superficial, routine-driven existence” (Chapter 3) but without reference to Marx’s concept of Alienation. The latter could have made for interesting explication of the interstices between collective and individual meaning-making in the current context of insecurity and unpaid labor for both those in paid employment and those undertaking precarious gig or project-based work.

Second, the reference to hegemonic ideology makes no mention of Antonio Gramsci vis-à-vis the meaning of work, which could add to the argument about the ideal worker and the legitimation of norms in employment. Indeed, a discussion of the relationship between hegemonic ideology and the reference to Bourdieu and Loïc Wacquant’s (1992) discussion of power through (mis)-recognition would also have been worthwhile. Third, given the insights offered by the outstanding case studies presented, the book’s discussion suggests that it might be time for a renewed consideration of past debates on labor market segmentation and secure versus insecure workers, notably core and peripheral work (Atkinson, Flexibility, Uncertainty and Manpower Management, 1985), albeit with greater appreciation of the current blurred boundaries and heterogeneity among workers.

Of course, these comments can be raised only in light of the comprehensive and integrated approach to theorization adopted by the authors and their outstanding application to the empirical data. More could be said regarding the latter and its broader implications. Perhaps most salient is its exposure of the role and impact of institutional resources consisting of the role of the state, state funding, the ideal worker norm with its associated stigmatization through punishments and potential for exclusion, as well as the need for so-called voluntary unpaid overtime to sustain the ideal type impression and hope of rewards for future opportunities. Any academic reading this book will recognize the relevance of this treatment for other sectors, such as higher education. I recommend this book for deep engagement with a wide range of critical concepts relating to unpaid labor and inequality in precarious work. It provides much-needed intellectual stimulation.