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Changing Contours of Work
Jobs and Opportunities in the New Economy
Fourth Edition
April 2020 | 368 pages | SAGE Publications, Inc
The authors are proud sponsors of the 2020 SAGE Keith Roberts Teaching Innovations Award—enabling graduate students and early career faculty to attend the annual ASA pre-conference teaching and learning workshop.
Changing Contours of Work is an exploration of the American workplace in the larger context of an integrated global economy. Presented with engaging vignettes and rich data, this Fourth Edition shows the reader how the "old economy" is now operating within the "new economy" and how that integration shapes the development of work opportunities.Authors Stephen Sweet and Peter Meiksins use an international comparative perspective, revealing the historical transformations of work and identifying the profound effects that these changes have had on lives, jobs, and life chances. This text supports the reader's understanding of the origins of current problems confronting working people in the new economy, and contributes to a much-needed dialogue about the strategies for liberating workers from poverty, drudgery, discrimination, stress, and exploitation.
List of Exhibits
About the Authors
Preface to the Fourth Edition
Acknowledgments
1. Mapping the Contours of Work
2. New Products, New Ways of Working, and the New Economy
3. Economic Inequality, Social Mobility, and the New Economy
4. Whose Jobs Are Secure?
5. A Fair Day’s Work? The Intensity and Scheduling of Jobs in the New Economy
6. Gender Chasms in the New Economy
7. Race, Ethnicity, and Work: Legacies of the Past, Problems in the Present
8. Reshaping the Contours of the New Economy
Appendix: Legislative and Regulatory Time Line of Worker Rights and Protections in the United States
References
Index
“A thorough book, which is one of the best fits for this current course.”
“I believe this book is well organized. I often get positive feedback on my course surveys referring to the text.”
Rutgers University
“We adopted it as a department because it had the best overall coverage of contemporary issues explored by our major, was reasonably priced, and was quite readable.”
Rutgers University
“This insightful book offers a clear, concise, and comprehensive introduction to the history, present, and future of work in the U.S. I appreciate the accompanying graphs and charts, as well as it's engagement with race, class, and gender. The comparisons, both to work conditions in European nations and the global South, are important and eye-opening for my students.”
University of Illinois at Springfield
