Vulnerability and Risks of Undeclared Work through the Eyes of Employees from Bulgarian Economy

The article presents recent empirical data from a national representative survey amongst Bulgarian employees, conducted within the framework of a project implementation by BICA studying undeclared work and the risks of its occurrence in enterprises. The study focuses on establishing, explaining and analyzing the relationships between the nature of employment and its duration and the propensity of undeclared work emergence, taking into account the growing spread of atypical forms of employment coupled with accelerated digitalization. The risks of inclusion in undeclared work practices of different categories of people, according to their basic characteristics, such as educational status, qualification and professional and specific experience in employment, have also been studied. The article presents new empirical data, which is valuable for allowing, based on their analysis, the formulation of relevant policies and measures for reducing and preventing undeclared work.

Resource Threat versus Resource Loss and Emotional Well-Being of Ethnic Minorities during the COVID-19 Pandemic

This paper used Hobfoll’s conservation of resources theory as a theoretical framework to investigate which kinds of resource loss predicted the emotional well-being (EWB) of ethnic minorities and majority populations during a period of crisis. Data were collected from a national representative survey conducted by the Israel Central Bureau of Statistics during the COVID-19 pandemic. The sample inclu`ded 1157 respondents, including 174 Israeli Palestinian citizens (ethnic minority) and 983 Israeli Jews (majority population). Measures of EWB, actual losses and threats of losses of economic, social, and health resources were examined. The results showed that the losses of economic, social, and health resources reduced the EWB of individuals. Negative effects of the actual losses of resources on EWB were greater than those of the perceived threats of loss. The largest effect was for economic resources. There were differences in effects between the ethnic minorities and the majority populations. The study revealed that for the ethnic minorities, who are less powerful and more disadvantaged than ethnic majorities, the depletion of already deficient resources during time of crisis is more important for predicting their EWB than for the majority populations.

Imposed volunteering: Gender and caring responsibilities during the COVID-19 lockdown

This article contributes to the sociology of care-relational justice by identifying, conceptualising and unpacking ‘imposed volunteering’ as a mechanism that shapes societal caring arrangements. Contemporary societies allocate care work disproportionately to women, ethnic minorities and working-class citizens, which exacerbates social inequalities. Distribution of caring responsibilities is a political question but often not recognised as such, because it is deeply immersed in everyday routines. Our study uses the context of the COVID-19 pandemic to dissect the distribution mechanisms that became unusually palpable when the lockdown of public welfare provision in Denmark relocated some forms of care work from professionals to volunteers. With the term imposed volunteering, we conceptualise the feeling of being coerced into taking on new caring responsibilities, which some women – and men – experienced during the lockdown. Drawing on a national, representative survey, we document that, compared to men, women carried out significantly more voluntary care work and organised voluntary work through informal personal networks rather than through formal civil society organisations to a significantly higher degree. We unpack the experience of imposed volunteering as it unfolded during the lockdown through qualitative case studies, and clarify how relational and institutional factors, such as gendered expectations and the sense of personal obligation, imposed volunteering. Our study illuminates the importance of public care, reciprocal caring relationships and care for carers, and demonstrates why the mobilisation of care work volunteers must take gendered implications into account if it is to be consistent with democratic commitments to justice, equality and freedom for all.

North American Attitudes toward Immigrants and Immigration in the Time of COVID-19: The Role of National Attachment and Threat

Using a cross-national representative survey conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, we examine predictors of attitudes toward immigrants and immigration in Canada and the United States, including general and COVID-related nationalism, patriotism, and perceived personal and national economic and health threats. In both countries, nationalism, particularly COVID-related nationalism, predicted perceptions that immigration levels were too high and negative attitudes toward immigrants. Patriotism predicted negative immigration attitudes in the United States but not in Canada, where support for immigration and multiculturalism are part of national identity. Conversely, personal and national economic threat predicted negative immigration attitudes in Canada more than in the United States. In both countries, national health threat predicted more favorable views of immigration levels and attitudes toward immigrants, perhaps because many immigrants have provided frontline health care during the pandemic. Country-level cognition in context drives immigration attitudes and informs strategies for supporting more positive views of immigrants and immigration.

Migration and Identity in Contemporary Bulgarian Society

The article, based on the results of an empirical sociological study, examines the changes in the national identity of Bulgarian citizens under the influence of active migration processes within the EU. The started process of formation of su- pranational/European identity is substantiated. The exceptional dynamics of contemporary social processes, mass migratory movements in a world where borders are becoming more open and even practically absent (within the EU), and huge distances are covered in a very short time lead to significant changes in the identity of the Bulgarian citizens. New types of identity appear that are structurally and functionally different from the pre-existing ones, corresponding to the previous axiological paradigms. Constant process of movement from one society to another, and in particular from the new EU member states to the old member states within the “liquid migration”, leads to the transfer, assimilation and reconciliation of ideas, perceptions, understandings, values and behaviors that are typical for different societies, social groups and cultures. Bulgaria and Bulgarian citizens have been involved in these processes for three decades, with a gradually increasing intensity. Today the Bulgarian national identity is in constant transformation - the Bulgarian citizen becomes a European citizen, a citizen of the world. Thus, the specificity of social development logically leads to the formation of a supranational identity. On the other hand, when the change becomes permanent feature of society and radical changes occur over extremely short periods of time, it creates prerequisites for dissonance of identity. And sometimes, instead of the formation of a supranational identity, reverse processes of closure, localization, and regionalization are observed. It can be said that in modern Bulgarian society, the processes of European integration are accompanied by opposite processes of “atomization” of society and the “closure” of people into smaller, than national communities. The results of a national representative survey show that at this stage of development of the Bulgarian society, identification with the nation-state remains a key for Bulgarian citizens - more than half of the respondents identify themselves as citizens of Bulgaria. Almost one third of Bulgarian citizens, however, identify themselves with supranational structures (“citizen of Europe” and “citizen of the world”), which is an illustration of the processes of the formation of a supranational identity that have begun. And the identification of about one tenth of the respondents with their hometown, with the place where they were born, reflects the opposite trend of formation of local identity.