Table Of ContentTHE CHANGING SHAPE OF WORK
Also by Richard K. Brown
KNOWLEDGE, EDUCATION AND CULTURAL CHANGE (editor)
THE SOCIOLOGY OF INDUSTRY
UK SOCIETY: Work, Urbanism and Inequality (editor with
Philip Abrams)
UNDERSTANDING INDUSTRIAL ORGANISATIONS
The Changing Shape of
Work
Edited by
Richard K. Brown
Emeritus Professor of Sociology
University of Durham
Contributors
Sheila AlIen, Huw Beynon, Harriet Bradley,
Richard Brown, Robert MacDonald, Lydia Morris,
Ian Roberts, Stephen Taylor
First published in Great Britain 1997 by
MACMILLAN PRESS LTD
Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and London
Companies and representatives throughout the world
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-0-333-67815-2 ISBN 978-1-349-25651-8 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-25651-8
First published in the United States of America 1997 by
ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC.,
Scholarly and Reference Division,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010
ISBN 978-0-312-17251-0
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The changing shape of work / edited by Richard K. Brown;
contributors, Sheila Alien ... [et al.].
p. cm.
Based on papers presented to Section N (Sociology and Social
Policy) of the British Association for the Advancement of Science at
a meeting in 1995.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-312-17251-0
1. Work-Sociological aspects-Congresses. I. Brown, Richard K.,
1933- . H. Alien, Sheila. Ill. British Association for the
Advancement of Science. Section N (Sociology and Social Policy)
HD4904.C4535 1997
306.3'6--dc20 96-46174
CIP
Editorial matter and selection © Richard K. Brown 1997
Text © Macmillan Press Lld 1997
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made
without written permission.
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written permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs and
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Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to
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This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and
sustained forest sources.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4
06 05 04 03 02 01 00
Contents
List of Tables vi
Preface vu
Notes on the Contributors IX
1 Introduction: Work and Employment in the 1990s
Richard Brown 1
2 The Changing Practices of Work
Huw Beynon 20
3 What is Work for? The Right to Work and the
Right to be Idle
Sheila Allen 54
4 Flexibility and Security: Contradictions in
the Contemporary Labour Market
Richard Brown 69
5 Gender and Change in Employment:
Feminization and its Effects
Harriet Bradley 87
6 Informal Working, Survival Strategies and the
Idea of an 'Underclass'
Robert MacDonald 103
7 Economic Change and Domestic Life
Lydia Morris 125
8 The Culture of Ownership and the Ownership
of Culture
Ian Roberts 150
9 'Empowerment' or 'Degradation'? Total Quality
Management and the Service Sector
Stephen Taylor 171
Bibliography 203
Subject Index 218
Author Index 223
v
List of Tables
2.1 Changing Patterns of Employment in the UK
1979-95 ('OOOs) 22
2.2 Changing Patterns of Gender Employment
1979-95 ('OOOs) 25
2.3 Changes in Weekly Earnings 1979-95 (in 1995
prices) 28
2.4 Labour Force Changes 1979-95 ('OOOs) 31
2.5 Changing Labour Contracts 1979-95 ('OOOs) 34
2.6 State Sector Employment 1982-92 ('OOOs) 39
2.7 Economic Activity Rates 1975-93
(percen tages) 44
5.1 Employees' Attitudes to Employment 94
5.2 Time Taken Out of the Labour Market to Bring
up Children 95
5.3 Percentages of Women and Men Wishing for
Promotion at Work, by Age (Full-time Workers
Only) 98
6.1 The Status of Young Adults in 1995 who were
Involved in Enterprise in 1989 107
vi
Preface
The chapters in this book are based on papers presented
to Section N (Sociology and Social Policy) of the British
Association for the Advancement of Science at its Annual
Festival in 1995 held in the University of Newcastle upon Tyne.
As President of the Section for that year I organized its
programme for one day of the Festival on the theme of 'The
Changing Shape of Work'. The day concluded with a panel
discussion which involved all the contributors to this volume,
and some of the points and arguments made during that
discussion have been incorporated in the Introduction to this
book.
I would like to thank all the contributors to this book both
for agreeing to present papers to the British Association
meeting and for subsequently preparing their contributions
for publication. I am also very grateful to John Cooper,
Recorder of Section N, and to Robin Humphries, Local
Secretary to the Section in 1995, for all their advice and
support in arranging and carrying out the programme for the
'President's Day'.
Basil Blackwell is gratefully acknowledged for permission to
include Chapter 8 by Lydia Morris which originally appeared
in The International Journal of Urban and Regional Research,
Vol. 18, 1994, under the title 'Informal aspects of social
divisions' .
Richard K. Brown
vu
Notes on the Contributors
Sheila Allen is Research Professor of Sociology and University
Advisor on Equal Opportunities, and Director of the Work
and Gender Research Unit, in the University of Bradford. Her
main areas of research are the sociology of work, ethnic and
race relations, and the sociology of gender divisions. She has
published extensively in these areas and is currently writing a
book for Oxford University Press on 'Feminist Contributions
to Sociology'. In addition to articles in books and journals her
recent publications include Homeworking - myths and realities,
with Carol Wolkowitz (Macmillan, 1987) and Women in
Business: perspectives on women entrepreneurs, edited with Carole
Truman (Routledge, 1993).
Huw Beynon is Professor of Sociology in the University of
Manchester where he has also been Research Dean of the
Graduate School of Economic, Social and Legal Studies. He
has undertaken research and published extensively on many
aspects of work and industry including the motor industry
(Working for Ford, Penguin, second edition 1984), chemicals
(Living with Capitalism (with Theo Nichols), Routledge, 1977),
and steel and coal (A Tale of Two Industries, Open University
Press, 1991, and A Place called Teesside, Edinburgh University
Press, 1994 (both with Ray Hudson & David Sadler». The first
volume of his study of the Durham miners, Masters and Servants
(with Terry Austrin, Rivers Oram Press) was published in 1994.
Harriet Bradley is Lecturer in Sociology at Bristol University
and was previously Reader in Sociology at Sunderland
University. Her most recent publication is Fractured Identities:
changing patterns of inequality (Polity Press, 1996) and she is
currently writing a book based on her research project on
women, work and trade unions, which provided the material
for the paper in this volume.
Richard Brown is Emeritus Professor of Sociology in
the University of Durham. His research interests are in the
ix
x Notes on the Contributors
sociology of work and employment, and he was the founding
editor of the British Sociological Association journal,
Work, Employment and Society. His recent publications include
Understanding Industrial Organisations. Theoretical perspectives in
industrial sociology (Routledge, 1992).
Robert MacDonald is Senior Lecturer in Sociology in the
University of Teesside, and researches and writes about youth
and about changing cultures of work. In addition to many
articles he is the author of Risky Business? Youth and the enter
prise culture, with Frank Coffield, (Falmer Press, 1991).
Lydia Morris is Professor of Sociology at the University of
Essex. She has a long-standing interest in the social effects of
economic decline, and particularly in unemployment and
gender relations. Her publications include: The Workings of the
Household (Polity Press, 1990); Dangerous Classes. The underclass
and social citizenship (Routledge, 1994); and Social Divisions.
Economic decline and social structural change (UCL Press, 1995).
Ian Roberts is Lecturer in Sociology in the University of
Durham, where he has researched and taught for over ten
years. He has worked for Durham University Business School
researching industrial relations in small firms, and his publi
cations include Craft, Class and Control (Edinburgh University
Press, 1993), a study of the changing nature of the community
and the labour process in the shipbuilding industry. He is cur
rently undertaking research into the changing relationships
between skilled and unskilled workers in the construction and
engineering industries.
Steve Taylor is Lecturer in Sociology in the University of
Teesside. He studied at the Universities of Nottingham Trent
and Warwick, and recently completed a Ph.D. thesis, Work and
Autonomy. Case studies of clerical work, in the Department of
Sociology and Social Policy in the University of Durham. His
current research interests include emotion and organizations,
labour process theory, and the 'culture' of work.
