The Nature of Work: Sociological Perspectives (American Sociological Association Presidential Series) - Softcover

The nature of work in America is changing in important ways. Blue-collar jobs are being eliminated because of increased competition from countries where wages are lower, while a greater economic role is being assumend by professional, technical, and clerical workers involved in developing complex technologies, providing services, and processing information. All this affects the values and expectations of those who work as well as their relationships to one another and to society at large. This book discusses this recent transformation. Among the provocative issues raised are - precisely what alienation from work means, and what non-alienated forms of work might be like, what happens within the family when both husband and wife contribute to the family's income, how work values are changing, and whether the primacy of work in people's lives has begun to wane, why American society has failed to develop a full employment policy in the past, how the economy might be redirected to reduce unemployment, whether work sharing (in which available hours of work are divided among a labor force) is feasible in America, and what the future will be like for workers in advanced industrial societies.