Full of unique and compelling insights into the working lives of migrant women in the UK, this book draws on more than two decades of in-depth research to explore the changing nature of women’s employment in post-war Britain. A first-rate example of theoretically located empirical analysis of labour market change in contemporary Britain Includes compelling case studies that combine historical documentation of social change with fascinating first-hand accounts of women’s working lives over decades Integrates information gleaned from more than two decades of in-depth research Revealing comparative analysis of the similarities and differences in the lives of immigrant working women in post-war Britain Features real-life accounts of women’s under-reported experiences of migration

This critical, international and interdisciplinary edited collection investigates the new normal of work and employment, presenting research on the experience of the workers themselves. The collection explores the formation of contemporary worker subjects, and the privilege or disadvantage in play around gender, class, age and national location within the global workforce. Organised around the three areas of: creative working, digital working lives, and transitions and transformations, its fifteen chapters examine in detail the emerging norms of work and work activities in a range of occupations and locations. It also investigates the coping strategies adopted by workers to manage novel difficulties and life circumstances, and their understandings of the possibilities, trajectories, mobilities, identities and potential rewards of their work situations. This book will appeal to a wide range of audiences, including students and academics of the sociology of work and labor history, and those interested in understanding the implications of the ‘new normal’ of work and employment.

This book presents research on pathways into creative work. The promise of ‘doing what you love’ continues to attract new entrants to the cultural and creative industries. Is that promise betrayed by the realities of pathways into creative work, or does a creative identification offer new personal and professional possibilities in the precarious contexts of contemporary work and employment? Two decades into the 21st century, aspiring creative workers undertake training and higher education courses in increasing numbers. Some attempt to convert personal enthusiasms and amateur activities into income-earning careers. To manage the uncertainties of self-employment, workers may utilise skills developed in other occupations, even developing timely new forms of collective organisation. The collection explores the experience of creative career entrants in numerous national contexts, including Australia, Belgium, China, Ireland, Italy, Finland, the Netherlands, Russia, the US and the UK. Chapters investigate the transitions of new workers and the obstacles they encounter on creative pathways. Chapters 1, 12 and 15 are available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

The empowering new 3-step guide to combining work and life strategically, creatively, and successfully. The message is simple: Work doesn't have to be all or nothing. There are countless combinations of balancing work and life between these extremes. People can establish boundaries and change the way work fits into their lives, in a way that's good for employees and employers. Work+Life provides the tools to adjust the "work" portion of life in order to have more time and/or energy for personal responsibilities and interests. Even a small change can make a big difference. Industry expert Cali Yost has been working with people on all sides of the issue: employees and managers at companies such as General Electric/NBC, Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceuticals, and Ernst & Young, and EAPs nationwide that help companies help their employees. They all say the same thing--Work+Life is the missing piece of the puzzle, providing readers with invaluable work life balance tips and putting them on the cutting edge of the workplace revolution.

A wide-ranging look at the allure and changing significance of work.With seductions, misunderstandings, and misinformation everywhere, this immensely readable book calls for a new contract--with ourselves. Drawing from history, mythology, literature, pop culture, and practical experience, Ciulla probes the many meanings of work or its meaninglessness and asks: Why are so many of us letting work take over our lives and trying to live in what little time is left? What has happened to the old, unspoken contract between worker and employer? Why are young people not being disloyal when they regularly consider job-changing? Employers can't promise as much to workers as before. Is that because they promise so much to stockholders? Why are there mass layoffs and "downsizing" in a time of unequaled corporate prosperity? And why are the most common lies in business about satisfactory employee performance? The traditional contract between employers and employees is over. This thoughtful and provocative study shows how to replace it by the one we make with ourselves.

The first book-length empirical investigation of writing center directors’ labor, The Working Lives of New Writing Center Directors presents a longitudinal qualitative study of the individual professional lives of nine new directors. Inspired by Kinkead and Harris’s Writing Centers in Context (1993), the authors adopt a case study approach to examine the labor these directors performed and the varied motivations for their labor, as well as the labor they ignored, deferred, or sidelined temporarily, whether or not they wanted to. The study shows directors engaged in various types of labor—everyday, disciplinary, and emotional—and reveals that labor is never restricted to a list of job responsibilities, although those play a role. Instead, labor is motivated and shaped by complex and unique combinations of requirements, expectations, values, perceived strengths, interests and desires, identities, and knowledge. The cases collectively distill how different institutions define writing and appropriate resources to writing instruction and support, informing the ongoing wider cultural debates about skills (writing and otherwise), the preparation of educators, the renewal/tenuring of educators, and administrative “bloat” in academe. The nine new directors discuss more than just their labor; they address their motivations, their sense of self, and their own thoughts about the work they do, facets of writing center director labor that other types of research or scholarship have up to now left invisible. The Working Lives of New Writing Center Directors strikes a new path in scholarship on writing center administration and is essential reading for present and future writing center administrators and those who mentor them.

As COVID-19 swept across the globe with merciless force, it was working people who kept the world from falling apart. Deemed "essential" by a system that has shown just how much it needs our labor but has no concern for our lives, workers sacrificed--and many were sacrificed--to keep us fed, to keep our shelves stocked, to keep our hospitals and transit running, to care for our loved ones, and so much more. But when we look back at this particular moment, when we try to write these days into history for ourselves and for future generations, whose voices will go on the record? Whose stories will be remembered? In late 2020 and early 2021, at what was then the height of the pandemic, Maximillian Alvarez conducted a series of intimate interviews with workers of all stripes, from all around the US--from Kyle, a sheet metal worker in Kentucky; to Mx. Pucks, a burlesque performer and producer in Seattle; to Nick, a gravedigger in New Jersey. As he does in his widely celebrated podcast, Working People, Alvarez spoke with them about their lives, their work, and their experiences living through a year when the world itself seemed to break apart. Those conversations, documented in these pages, are at times meandering, sometimes funny or philosophical, occasionally punctured by pain so deep that it hurts to read them. Filled with stories of struggle and strength, fear and loss, love and rage, The Work of Living is a deeply human history of one of the defining events of the 21st century told by the people who lived it.