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The growth of precarious work since the 1970s has emerged as a core contemporary concern within politics, in the media, and among researchers. Uncertain and unpredictable work contrasts with the relative security that characterized the three decades following World War II. Precarious work constitutes a global challenge that has a wide range of consequences cutting across many areas of concern to sociologists. Hence, it is increasingly important to understand the new workplace arrangements that generate precarious work and worker insecurity. A focus on employment relations forms the foundation of theories of the institutions and structures that generate precarious work and the cultural and individual factors that influence people's responses to uncertainty. Sociologists are well-positioned to explain, offer insight, and provide input into public policy about such changes and the state of contemporary employment relations.
Work is a core activity in society. It is cen- tral to individual identity, links individu- als to each other, and locates people within the stratification system. Perhaps only kin rela- tionships are as influential in people's everyday lives. Work also reveals much about the social order, how it is changing, and the kinds of prob- lems and issues that people (and their govern- merits) must address. Accordingly, the study of work has long been a central field in sociology, beginning with classical sociologists such as Durkheim (in his Division of Labor), Marx (in his theories of the labor process and alienation), and Weber (in his conceptualizations of bureaucracy and social closure).
For several decades, both in the United States and worldwide, social, economic, and political forces have aligned to make work more precarious. By "precarious work," I mean employment that is uncertain, unpredictable, and risky from the point of view of the worker. Resulting distress, obvious in a variety of forms, reminds us daily of such precarity. The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) estimates (and likely underestimates) that more than 30 million full-time workers lost their jobs involuntarily between the early 1980s and 2004 (Uchitelle 2006). Job loss often triggers many unpleasant events, such as loss of health insurance and enhanced debt. Mortgage foreclosure rates have increased fivefold since the early 1970s (Hacker 2006). U.S. personal bankruptcy filings are at record highs (Leicht and Fitzgerald 2007), and nearly two-thirds...