096 - Thematic Session. Networks of Need in the Age of Economic and Social Precarity

Session Submission Type: Invited Session

Abstract

Since the 1970s, economic inequality has grown dramatically in the U.S., and during the same period, the age of precarity was been reborn. Increasingly, as nonstandard employment relationships have proliferated and welfare state supports have gradually eroded, low- and middle-income workers have struggled to secure jobs offering stability, security, and a living wage. In this session, we will explore the extent to which growing precarity, rooted in the changing nature of workers' relationships with employers and the state, has fundamentally altered the structure of workers' personal networks of relations as well as the function that these personal networks serve.  In the process, we will consider both emerging theoretical frameworks, including those highlighting the role that cognition plays, and cutting edge empirical studies that shed light on these issues.

Sub Unit

• Thematic Sessions

Session Organizer

• Sandra S. Smith, University of California-Berkeley

Presider

• Sandra S. Smith, University of California-Berkeley

Panelists

• Cecilia Menjivar, Arizona State University

• Edward Bishop Smith, Northwestern University

• Sandra S. Smith, University of California-Berkeley

• Steve McDonald, North Carolina State University