Not Working: Gender Inequality when Jobs Disappear

• In Event: 41012 - The Future of Work

Abstract

Social scientists are raising alarm about the “end of work” and the “post work society.” Whether caused by automation, financialization, gigification, or something else, the future of work is uncertain. Because for most people today, paid work is their primary source of life support, what happens when jobs disappear? In this paper, I investigate the experience of not working. I address three questions: (1) How many people are not working? (2) What alternative forms of support are available to workers who lose their jobs? (3) Is it possible to live a good life and be unemployed? Drawing on existing feminist scholarship, including research on the pandemic, I address these questions with an intersectional lens. My goal is to contribute to “post work imaginaries” (Weeks 2011), the effort to identify and develop new approaches to distributing vital resources that do not involve waged labor.

Author

• Christine L. Williams, University of Texas-Austin