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- Author or Editor: Hanna-Mari Ikonen x
This article discusses the uncertainty of working life by providing a viewpoint of one individual’s experience of it. The article argues that entrepreneurship and employment are forms of income that are not separate from each other; instead, in precarious labour markets, individuals can alternate between the two. An entrepreneurial mindset and practices are required from the self-employed and employees alike, but neither form of livelihood ensures a permanent income. Though in different ways, the process of precariatisation touches many groups of people, and the varying alternatives for navigating this situation are deconstructed here. The analysis discusses how surviving precarious labour markets and uncertain income requires a lot of endurance and self-governance as illustrated by an in-depth interview with a woman who lives in a remote area. The analysis also proves that the opportunity to remain in a place of residence and establish a sense of belonging has a significant impact on an individual’s ability to experience everyday pleasure and permanence, especially when everything else around them is changing in ways over which they have little control.
The chapter examines the effects of changes in research and innovation (R&I) funding on gendered practices (Korvajärvi, 2012), gender (in)equalities and the formation of women’s career paths in R&I. The context is Finland, where R&I and its funding expanded in the 1990s and 2000s and then declined significantly between 2008/09 and 2015. Drawing on Dorothy Smith’s (2005) institutional ethnography, the chapter analyzes the career histories of Finnish women (N=30) working in research in and outside of academia, in the multidisciplinary field of health technology. Most of the interviewees had lived through both the expansion period and the cuts that emerged in R&I funding in the post-2000s. Many had found opportunities for research work during the period of plentiful funding and had started successful research careers, and then faced the hardening competition of declining resources with experiences of gender inequality and even direct gender discrimination. Gendered (male/female dominated or mixed gender) work communities shaped these inequalities and especially for women researchers with a ‘reproductive body’ (Pecis, 2016) who were treated unequally and even excluded. We argue that significant changes in R&I funding intensify gender inequalities and affect the career paths of women in R&I.
