Most workers on temporary, zero hours and involuntary part-time contracts in the UK are women. Many are also carers. Yet employment law tends to exclude such women from family-friendly rights.
Drawing on interviews with women in precarious work, this book exposes the everyday problems that these workers face balancing work and care. It argues for stronger and more extensive rights that address precarious workers’ distinctive experiences.
Introducing complex legal issues in an accessible way, this crucial text exposes the failures of family-friendly rights and explains how to grant these women effective rights in the wake of COVID-19.
Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence.
Bringing together a range of experts across various sectors, this important volume explores some of the key issues that have arisen in the Global South with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Situating the worldwide health crisis within broader processes of globalisation, the book investigates implications for development and gender, as well as the effects on migration, climate change and economic inequality. Contributors consider how widespread and long-lasting responses to the pandemic should be, while paying particular attention to the accentuated risks faced by vulnerable populations. Providing answers that will be essential to development practitioners and policy makers, the book offers vital insights into how the impact of COVID-19 can be mitigated in some of the most challenging socio-economic contexts worldwide.
Labour exploitation is a highly topical though complex issue that has international resonance for those concerned with social justice and social welfare, but there is a lack of research available about it. This book, part of the Studies in Social Harm series, is the first to look at labour exploitation from a social harm perspective, arguing that, as a global social problem, it should be located within the broader study of work-based harm.
Written by an expert in policy orientated research, he critiques existing approaches to the study of workplace exploitation, abuse and forced labour. Mapping out a new sub-discipline, this innovative book aims to shift power from employers to workers to reduce levels of labour exploitation and work-based harm. It is relevant to academics from many fields as well as legislators, policy makers, politicians, employers, union officials, activists and consumers.
The outsourcing of domestic work in the UK has been steadily rising since the 1970s, but there has been little research into White British women who work as independent providers of cleaning services.
Work, Labour and Cleaning is a cross-cultural analysis based on new research into two particular social contexts, one in the UK and one in India. It argues that outsourced domestic cleaning can be undertaken either as work (using mental and manual skills) or as labour (usually defined as unskilled, ‘natural’ women’s work) depending on the social context and working conditions in which it occurs. The book challenges feminist dogma and popular myths about housework.
Nations that are raising retirement ages appear to work on the assumption that there is appropriate employment available for people who are expected to retire later. ‘Gender, ageing and extended working life’ challenges both this narrative, and the gender-neutral way the expectation for extending working lives is presented in most policy-making circles.
The international contributors to this book - part of the Ageing in a Global Context series - apply life-course approaches to understanding evolving definitions of work and retirement. They consider the range of transitions from paid work to retirement that are potentially different for women and men in different family circumstances and occupational locations, and offer solutions governments should consider to enable them to evaluate existing policies.
Based on evidence from Australia, Germany, Ireland, Portugal, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States, this is essential reading for researchers and students, and for policymakers who formulate and implement employment and pensions policy at national and international levels.
The rapid economic growth of the past few decades has radically transformed India’s labour market, bringing millions of former agricultural workers into manufacturing industries, and, more recently, the expanding service industries, such as call centres and IT companies.
Alongside this employment shift has come a change in health and health problems, as communicable diseases have become less common, while non-communicable diseases, like cardiovascular problems, and mental health issues such as stress, have increased.
This interdisciplinary work connects those two trends to offer an analysis of the impact of working conditions on the health of Indian workers that is unprecedented in scope and depth.
Examining the changing pluralities of contemporary abortion debate in Britain, this innovative and important book shows why it is necessary to move beyond an understanding of abortion politics as characterised in binary terms by ‘pro-choice’ versus ‘pro-life’.
Amery traces the evolution of political and parliamentary discourses from the passage of the Abortion Act in the 1960s to the present day, and argues that the current provision of abortion in Britain rests on assumptions about medical authority over women’s reproductive decision-making which are unsustainable.
She explores new arguments around sex-selective abortion, disability rights, pre-abortion counselling and the push for decriminalization, and radically reconceptualizes the debate to account for these new battlegrounds in abortion politics.
A great deal has been written about developing effective practice against a backdrop of rapid change in criminal justice services. Much of this is research-oriented and not always accessible to practitioners in their day-to-day work. This book changes that.
Drawing on research and integrating this with practitioner experience, the book creates fresh, research-based ‘practice wisdom’ for engaging effectively with offenders. It explores issues of risk, responsivity and diversity in the context of work with specific offender and offending behaviour groups as a means to highlight those skills and understandings which can be used across the wider range of work environments. The authors break down complex ideas to enable practical application, and each chapter includes questions for reflection and practice development.
With its accessible style, balancing academic rigour with clear pointers to best practice, this book will interest everyone working face to face with offenders. It recognises that there are no instant solutions to changing offending behaviour but provides a practice text that will encourage a sense of competence and confidence, enhancing readers’ skill and enthusiasm when working with a broad spectrum of offenders.
This chapter reviews the current debates on the role of work and working conditions in the discourse on international development and explores the impact of vulnerable work and poor psychosocial working conditions on health. The launch of the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015 is a welcome addition in the fight to secure decent work and ensure health and well-being in developing countries. For decades research from Europe and North America has consistently shown that being exposed to poor psychosocial working conditions, such as not having sufficient control to meet the demands at work or being inadequately rewarded for one’s efforts, can have serious negative health consequences. The extent of poor working conditions in these countries today demonstrates just how big a task the UN and associated agencies face in tackling this issue. This in turn raises the question of how Sustainable Development Goal 8, of ensuring decent work for all, will be realised.
Reviews 89 COSTABILE L. (ed.), Institutions for Social Weil-Being, Houndmills, Palgrave Macmil- lan, 2008, pp. 242, $ 100.00, ISBN 0-230-53806-1. In a period when governments of industrial countries cut their social expenditures, this book courageously tries to show that the welfare state can contribute to both efficiency and social goals in a balanced way. The book is structured in three parts. The first part contains two chapters ^ E u ropean Union Social Policy in a Globalising Context» by Anthony Atkinson and «Conditions of Social Vulnerability, Work
