Categorical Distinctions and Claims-Making: Opportunity, Agency, and Returns from Wage Negotiations

2021 ◽  
pp. 000312242110385
Author(s):  
Carsten Sauer ◽  
Peter Valet ◽  
Safi Shams ◽  
Donald Tomaskovic-Devey
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Women Migrants ◽  
Economic Returns ◽  
Specific Instance ◽  
Lower Status ◽  
Unskilled Workers ◽  
Part Time ◽  
Lower Wage ◽  
Wage Inequalities

In this article, we examine wage negotiations as a specific instance of claims-making, predicting that the capacity to make a claim is first a function of the position, rather than the person, and that lower-status actors—women, migrants, fixed-term, part-time, and unskilled workers—are all more likely to be in positions where negotiation is not possible. At the same time, subordinate-status actors may be less likely to make claims even where negotiation is possible, and when they do make wage claims they may receive lower or no returns to negotiation. Analyses of wage negotiations by more than 2,400 German employees largely confirm these theoretical expectations, although the patterns of opportunity, agency, and economic returns vary by categorical status. All low-status actors are more likely to be in jobs where negotiation is not possible. Women, people in lower-class jobs, and people with temporary contracts are less likely to negotiate even when given the opportunity. Regarding returns, agency in wage claims does not seem to improve the wages of women, migrants, or working-class individuals. The advice to “lean-in” will not substantially lower wage inequalities for everyone, although men who lean in do benefit relative to men who do not.

Macroeconomic Conditions, Voter Turnout, and the Working-class/Economically Disadvantaged Party Vote in Developing Countries

2000 ◽  
Vol 33 (8) ◽  
pp. 995-1017 ◽  
Author(s):  
EDWIN ELOY AGUILAR ◽  
ALEXANDER C. PACEK
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Economically Disadvantaged ◽  
Time Series Data ◽  
Economic Effect ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Series Data ◽  
Lower Status ◽  
Party Support ◽  
The Impact

Working and lower status citizens are more sensitive to macroeconomic fluctuations than their better-off counterparts in the developing world, due to the higher personal stakes involved. This heightened sensitivity affects fluctuations in voter turnout and voter choice across developing democracies. Macroeconomic downturns result in increased voter participation as more lower status voters express their grievances at the polls. This benefits political parties and coalitions with expressly working- and lower-class appeals. This article describes the impact of shifts in voter turnout on party support, the impact of macroeconomic shifts on voter turnout, and the impact of macroeconomic shifts on support for parties that are working-class/economically disadvantaged oriented using regression analysis of aggregate pooled time-series data from 10 countries in Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia. Although increased turnout primarily helps parties that are working-class/economically disadvantaged oriented, as is the case in the industrial world, the economic effect on party support is substantially greater.

SUBJECTIVE SOCIAL STATUSES OF THE UKRAINIANS: CHANGES OVER TIME (2009–2019)

2021 ◽  
pp. 5-24
Author(s):  
ELENA SIMONCHUK
Keyword(s):  
Social Status ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Current Status ◽  
Family Status ◽  
Self Evaluation ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Status ◽  
Unskilled Workers ◽  
Nominal Categories ◽  
Changes Over Time

The article examines the dynamics of social status self-evaluations of the Ukrainians based on two waves (2009 and 2019) of the Social Inequality module of International Social Survey Programme. Three types of social status self-evaluation in different biographical situations were noted: the current one (at the time of the survey), the retrospective one (of the parents’ family status) and the perspective one (status of oneself in 10 years’ time). They were measured through the respondents’ self-determination of their appropriate status on an imaginary 10-step social ladder. The noticeable changes for the better in the current social status self-evaluations of the Ukrainians are stated, which is visualized in changing the diagram of their distribution from pyramidal shape (where the lower-middle and the lowest positions are the basic ones) to the close to rhombus shape (where the majority is concentrated on the middle levels). The retrospective self-evaluations still demonstrate negative situation: the respondents mostly perceive the social status of parents’ families as higher than their current status. At the same time, the perspective self-evaluations of the Ukrainians are rather optimistic: majority of them hope to significantly increase their own status in the social hierarchy in the next decade. A connection between the class positions (both objectively and subjectively determined) and the status self-evaluations of three kinds was also studied. It is recorded that in both years of the survey this connection remains quite significant and expected in nature. Regarding EGP-classes: representatives of service classes and small owners had significantly higher current, retrospective and prospective self-evaluations than working-class people, primarily unskilled workers and farm labours. Regarding the subjective classes defined by nominal categories (upper middle, middle, lower middle, working, lower class): the higher the subjective class position a person has, the higher he/she evaluates his/her social status.

Roundtable discussion: Organising cleaners in the context of Covid-19

2021 ◽  
Vol 122 (1) ◽  
pp. 156-163
Author(s):  
Heather Wakefield ◽  
Helen O’Connor ◽  
Marjorie Mayo ◽  
Jonathan White
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Trade Union ◽  
Step Change ◽  
Substantial Part ◽  
Roundtable Discussion ◽  
Migrant Communities ◽  
The Status ◽  
Part Time ◽  
Minority Ethnic

People working as cleaners represent a substantial part of the modern British working class. Low-paid, often part-time, disproportionately female and, more recently, from black and minority ethnic and migrant communities, this workforce has historically been seen as hard to organise. Yet the Covid-19 crisis has elevated the status of cleaning as a key part of maintaining public health. In this article, trade union organisers with experience of working with cleaners discuss the possibilities of the current conjuncture for effecting a step change in both unionisation and the reconstruction of public services.

Women in Low Status Part-Time Jobs: A Class and Gender Analysis

2000 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 152-170 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tracey Warren
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Gender Analysis ◽  
Working Lives ◽  
Lower Status ◽  
Time Work ◽  
Part Time ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Part Time Work

Why, given all the problems associated with part-time employment in Britain, do women work part-time at all? Does the answer to this question lie in gender-based explanations which focus on womenís caring responsibilities? This paper addresses these issues by focusing on the relative experiences of the largest group of part-timers, women working in low status occupations. It is concluded that a gender-informed analysis of womenís part-time employment is clearly vital, but an awareness of further dimensions of social inequality is required if we are to understand diversity amongst part-timers. Relative to full-timers, part-timers are similar in their life-cycle positions, their marital status and motherhood status. However, incorporating a class analysis shows that part-timers in lower status jobs stand apart in that they are disproportionately likely to have been brought up in working class households and, as adults, they are more likely to be living in very low waged households with partners who are also in low paid manual occupations. It is concluded that women go into the lowest status part-time jobs in specific social contexts and, as a result, we cannot lump together into one unified group, women working part-time in manual and higher status occupations, and then talk sensibly about part-time work and its impact on women. It is essential to examine the interaction of gender and class inequalities to better understand these womenís working lives.

Tram, mobilitŕ e crescita urbana in Spagna, 1900-1936

STORIA URBANA ◽  
2009 ◽  
pp. 21-48
Author(s):  
Banales José Luis Onyňn
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Urban Growth ◽  
Urban Structure ◽  
Mobility Patterns ◽  
World War ◽  
Unskilled Workers ◽  
Urban Pattern ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The Relationship

- The article focuses on the relationship between tramway networks and urban structure in Spain during the period 1900-1936. It states that this relationship should be studied after considering the use of transport and the mobility patterns of different classes, specially the working class. Once these factors have been studied it is possible to assert the impact of the tramway netmark on urban growth. The impact of the tramways on major Spanish cities did not take the form of a transport revolution that would radically changed the urban pattern. Tramways did not direct urban growth until use of tramway lines by the working class became general. This did not happen until World War I. Since then, skilled and some unskilled workers did change their mobility patterns and tramway use experienced a cycle of growth that continued until the late 1950s.

The Rough South of Ron Rash

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Ærvold Bjerre
Keyword(s):  
South Carolina ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Family Background ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
White Trash ◽  
Poor Whites ◽  
The People ◽  
Almost All ◽  
Violent Conflicts ◽  
North And South

This chapter discusses the fiction of Ron Rash, who sets almost all of his work—poems, short stories, and novels—in the Carolinas and focuses on the people who live or have lived there. Rash was born in Chester, South Carolina, in 1953, and grew up in Boiling Springs, North Carolina. While not a direct heir to the “Southern Redneck and White Trash” tradition, Rash fills his work with characters firmly embedded in the Rough South—mostly lower-class whites from Appalachian North and South Carolina. Rash's work illustrates his concern with working-class characters and their struggles, with poor whites and their violent conflicts. His interest in the working class reflects his own family background. Rash published his first collection of poetry, Eureka Mill, in 1998. He also wrote novels that depict violence, such as One Foot in Eden, The World Made Straight, and Serena.

scholarly journals Gods, Gurus, Prophets and the Poor: Exploring Informal, Interfaith Exchanges among Working Class Female Workers in an Indian City

Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (9) ◽  
pp. 531
Author(s):  
Atreyee Sen
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Vital Role ◽  
Male Dominance ◽  
Migrant Women ◽  
Religious Traditions ◽  
Urban Workers ◽  
Indian City ◽  
The Face ◽  
Working Class Women

This article revolves around the narratives of Sabita (Muslim), Radha (Hindu) and Sharleen (Christian), migrant women in their mid-forties, who have been working as maids, cooks and cleaners in middle-class housing colonies in Kolkata, a city in eastern India. Informal understandings of gendered oppressions across religious traditions often dominate the conversations of the three working-class women. Like many labourers from slums and lower-class neighbourhoods, they meet and debate religious concerns in informal ‘resting places’ (under a tree, on a park bench, at a tea stall, on a train, at a corner of a railway platform). These anonymous spaces are usually devoid of religious symbols, as well as any moral surveillance of women’s colloquial abuse of male dominance in society. I show how the anecdotes of struggle, culled across multiple religious practices, intersect with the shared existential realities of these urban workers. They temporarily empower female members of the informal workforce in the city, to create loosely defined gendered solidarities in the face of patriarchal authority, and reflect on daily discrimination against economically marginalised migrant women. I argue that these fleeting urban rituals underline the more vital role of (what I describe as) poor people’s ‘casual philosophies’, in enhancing empathy and dialogue between communities that are characterised by political tensions in India.

scholarly journals Family Wealth and the Class Ceiling: The Propulsive Power of The Bank of Mum and Dad

Sociology ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 003803852092253
Author(s):  
Maren Toft ◽  
Sam Friedman
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Income Distribution ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Economic Returns ◽  
Income Gap ◽  
Family Wealth ◽  
Class Privilege ◽  
Class Origin ◽  
Parental Wealth ◽  
Propulsive Power

In this article we demonstrate that those from working-class backgrounds face a powerful ‘class ceiling’ in elite occupations. Examining how class origin shapes economic returns in the Norwegian upper class (3.8% of the population), we first find that the income advantage enjoyed by those from privileged backgrounds increases sharply as they ascend the income distribution in both elite business and cultural fields. Second, we show that those from economically upper-class backgrounds enjoy the highest pay advantage in all upper-class destinations. Finally, we demonstrate the profound propulsive power provided by parental wealth. Our results indicate that this is the most important single driver of the class-origin income gap in virtually every area of the Norwegian upper class. These findings move forward an emerging literature on class-origin pay gaps beyond mean estimates to reveal the distinct ‘pay-off’ to class privilege in the very highest income-earning positions.

Upper Class Bias and Class Conflict in America

The Forum ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher Witko
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Political Science ◽  
American Politics ◽  
Science Studies ◽  
Economic Inequality ◽  
Lower Class ◽  
Political Mobilization ◽  
Class Conflict ◽  
Upper Class ◽  
Class Bias

AbstractCompared to other affluent democracies, class conflict has not been very intense nor as much of an organizing principle in American politics. However, as wages stagnate for the working class and economic inequality grows, class conflict is becoming increasingly salient. Yet, reviewing recent political science studies, I argue that rather than politics becoming a clearer class “war” between the upper and lower classes, the growing class bias in political mobilization and participation, and the resulting overrepresentation of upper class actors, has prevented a clear articulation of lower class interests

scholarly journals The problem of defining the women’s status in sugar-refining industry: “woman” – “half-worker” – “worker” (on an example of sugar factories of Kyiv province, 1880s–1900s)

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 23-28
Author(s):  
Ihor Karpenko
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Working Women ◽  
Women's Status ◽  
Refining Industry ◽  
Women’S Status ◽  
Reform Period ◽  
Industrial Labor ◽  
Part Time ◽  
Male Part ◽  
Woman Working

This article regards the problem of defining the women’s status in the sugar-refining industry of the Russia Empire post-reform period. Based on the cases of sugar factories of Kyiv province during the 1880s–1905s, the author illustrates a complicated process of determining the role and the place of female laborers in the professional structure of industrial institutions which relate to this type of industry. Due to the fact that women had been recruited to unqualified parts of the working class (in the majority of cases), they remained at the bottom of the hierarchy of industrial labor. In contrast to men-laborers, who were distributed by the qualification parameter and professional skill (qualified/unqualified labor force), women-laborers were distributed by the gender parameter. Based on the archival materials of the factory inspection funds and in-factory documentation, it was found that working women were most often identified into the category “women” (“zhenschina”), less often as “part-time workers” (“polurabochaya”), and even less often as “workers” (“rabochaya”). It is possible to say that such division differed significantly from the distribution among the male part of the working class (“rabochiy/polurabo- chiy”). After all, a woman working in an industrial space was generally perceived not as a full-fledged unit of labor but as a supplement to qualified male labor. However, the model proposed by the author of this study: “woman” – “semi-worker” – “worker”, opened a different angle, according to which a woman’s professional position was not clearly fixed and could de facto change, regardless of the type of the performed work (qualified or unqualified). As a result, all these sources and evidence allow us to state that the period of industrialization and modernization provided for women (though not significant) a space for opportunities to realize their own work.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document