SOCIAL POLICY

Social Policy

Social Policy

Introduction

Work is a generic concept addressing the performance of all human tasks, but such activities may be carried out in a wide variety of social contexts that give them rather different meanings. Boyer, et al (1998, pp. 67-78) mentions clothes may be made by an employee or the self-employed, or by a friend, relation, servant, or slave. Sociologists of work and employment have primarily been concerned with paid work and employment relations. These terms indicate that the activity concerned takes place on the basis of a contractual relationship: Paid work may involve payment for pieces of work delivered, but an employment relationship is only established between an employer and an employee when the former pays the latter a wage or salary to work for a period according to the requirements defined by management (Boyer, et al, 1998, pp. 34-38). Nevertheless the substantive differences between these working arrangements may rest more on the wider social contexts in which they are performed than on their specific legal status. This underlines the ways in which paid work and employment involve market transactions but are also embedded in wider social relations, including state policies, forms of corporate organization, industrial relations institutions, local communities, and household forms.

Conceptual Overview

Paid work and employment relations are central features of modern capitalist societies. The wage or salary resulting from such employment is crucial to the welfare and consumption patterns of individuals and households, while the conditions under which people work affect their lives both during and outside working time (Peck, 1996, pp. 89-94). Thus social research has given considerable attention to the analysis of paid work and employment relations, though their interaction with other forms of the social organization of work also needs consideration, both historically and in contemporary societies. Thus comparisons of work in conditions of slavery, serfdom, debt bondage, marriage, waged labor, or volunteering lead into investigations of the ways in which these different forms have operated over time and space (Hutchison & Brown, 2001, pp. 111-115). In recent years, for example, renewed attention has been given to the conditions under which paid work may replace, coexist with, or be displaced by forms of unpaid family labor; while some middle-class families may pay others for cleaning and childcare, public authorities may expect volunteers or relatives to take on more caring activities (Pettinger, et al, 2006, pp. 45-48).

The sociology of paid work and employment has a long history, rooted in the classics of Karl Marx, Max Weber, Emile Durkheim, and the Webbs. In their efforts to understand capitalist development, each of these theorists offered distinctive accounts of the dynamics of management policies, work hierarchies, labor markets, occupational associations, and labor movements, founding contrasting theoretical traditions that still inform much contemporary debate. While such traditions placed employment relations in a broader societal context, a contrasting strand of research and theorizing arose more directly from the efforts of employers to manage their workforces (Hutchison & Brown, 2001, pp. 78-83). This focused on ways of facilitating technical and organizational ...