Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-x24gv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-16T19:00:36.328Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

7 - Precarity and Diversity

The Intersectional Case of Female Christian Janitorial Workers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 February 2024

Elina Meliou
Affiliation:
Brunel University
Joana Vassilopoulou
Affiliation:
Brunel University
Mustafa F. Ozbilgin
Affiliation:
Brunel University
Get access

Summary

This chapter presents case studies of female janitorial workers, working on a contractual basis, in a public sector organization in Pakistan where the typical employment format is full-time and permanent. Drawing on these cases, the chapter seeks answers to three interrelated research aims: (1) to study the gendered aspect of precarious work in Pakistani organizations, (2) to identify the intersectionality of gender, social class and religion in relation to precarious work, and (3) and to understand the various dimensions of precarity in specific reference to the intersectionality of gender, social class and religion. The findings offer insights into conceptualizing precarious employment and present a taxonomy that divides precarity into three distinct categories: (1) precarity in terms of job security and continuance of employment, (2) precarity in terms of financial stability, and (3) systematic precarity that affects certain groups more than the others. Findings reveal that these categories have distinct effects on different categories of individuals.

Type
Chapter
Information
Diversity and Precarious Work During Socio-Economic Upheaval
Exploring the Missing Link
, pp. 119 - 136
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Agarwala, R. (2021). An Intersection of Marxism and Feminism among India’s Informal Workers: A Second Marriage? In , L. Fernandez, (ed.) Routledge Handbook of Gender in South Asia (pp. 263275). Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ahluwalia, P. (2019). Precarious and model minorities: Sikh identities in the ‘new’ global politics of religion. Sikh Formations, 15(3–4), 332342.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Amin, A. (1994). Post‐Fordism: Models, fantasies and phantoms of transition. In , A. Amin, (Ed.), Post‐Fordism: A Reader (pp. 139). Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Anderson, B (2007) A very private business: exploring the demand for migrant domestic workers. European Journal of Women’s Studies, 14(3), 247264.Google Scholar
Ayaz, M., Ashraf, M. J., & Hopper, T. (2019). Precariousness, gender, resistance and consent in the face of global production network’s ‘reforms’ of Pakistan’s garment manufacturing industry. Work, Employment and Society, 33(6), 895912.Google Scholar
Betti, E. (2016). Gender and precarious labor in a historical perspective: Italian women and precarious work between Fordism and post-Fordism. International Labor and Working-Class History, 89, 6483.Google Scholar
Bloch, A. & McKay, S. (2017) Living on the Margins: Undocumented Migrants in a Global City. Bristol: Policy Press.Google Scholar
Bloch, A., Sigona, N. & Zetter, R. (2012). Migration routes and strategies of young undocumented migrants in England: a qualitative perspective. Ethnic and Racial Studies 34(8), 12861302.Google Scholar
Branch, E. H., & Hanley, C. (2017). A racial-gender lens on precarious nonstandard employment. Res Sociological Work, 31, 183213.Google Scholar
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2012). Thematic analysis. In , H. Cooper, (Ed) APA Handbook of Research Methods in Psychology, Vol 2: Research Designs. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association, pp. 5771.Google Scholar
Castel, R. (2003). From manual workers to wage laborers: Transformation of the social question. Trans. Richard Boyd. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers.Google Scholar
Chan, S. (2013). ‘I am king’: Financialization and the paradox of precarious work. The Economic and Labour Relations Review, 24(3), 362379.Google Scholar
Dawn (2017, Aug 1). Former residents visit Islamabad slum two years after it was razed. Available at: www.dawn.com/news/1348894/former-residents-visit-islamabad-slum-two-years-after-it-was-razedGoogle Scholar
Fantone, L. (2007). Precarious changes: gender and generational politics in contemporary Italy. Feminist Review, 87(1), 520.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fudge, J. (2006). Self-employment, women, and precarious work: The scope of labour protection. Precarious work, women and the new economy: The challenge to legal norms, 201222. https://ssrn.com/abstract=896170Google Scholar
Han, C. (2018). Precarity, precariousness, and vulnerability. Annual Review of Anthropology, 47, 331343.Google Scholar
Harvey, D. (1989). The Condition of Postmodernity: An Inquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Hašková, H., & Dudová, R. (2017). Precarious work and care responsibilities in the economic crisis. European Journal of Industrial Relations, 23(1), 4763.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huo, J., Nelson, M., & Stephens, J. D. (2008). Decommodification and activation in social democratic policy: resolving the paradox. Journal of European Social Policy, 18(1), 520.Google Scholar
Jokela, M. (2017). The role of domestic employment policies in shaping precarious work. Social Policy & Administration, 51(2), 286307.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Joy, A., Belk, R., & Bhardwaj, R. (2015). Judith Butler on performativity and precarity: Exploratory thoughts on gender and violence in India. Journal of Marketing Management, 31(15–16), 17391745.Google Scholar
Kalleberg, A. L. (2009). Precarious work, insecure workers: Employment relations in transition. American Sociological Review, 74(1), 122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kalleberg, A. L. (2011). Good Jobs, Bad Jobs: The Rise of Polarized and Precarious Employment Systems in the United States, 1970s–2000s. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.Google Scholar
Kalleberg, A. L., & Hewison, K. (2013). Precarious work and the challenge for Asia. American Behavioral Scientist, 57(3), 271288.Google Scholar
Lawton, N. R., Calveley, M., & Forson, C. (2015). Untangling multiple inequalities: intersectionality, work and globalisation. Work Organisation, Labour and Globalisation, 9(2), 713.Google Scholar
Lazar, S., & Sanchez, A. (2019). Understanding labour politics in an age of precarity. Dialectical Anthropology, 43(1), 314.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lee, C. K., & Kofman, Y. (2012). The politics of precarity: views beyond the United States. Work and Occupations, 39(4), 388408.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDowell, J. (2018). Men’s Talk in Women’s Work: ‘Doing being a Nurse’. In , B. Vine, (Ed.) The Handbook of Workplace Discourse. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Millar, K. M. (2017). Toward a critical politics of precarity. Sociology Compass, 11(6), 111.Google Scholar
O’Keefe, T., & Courtois, A. (2019). ‘Not one of the family’: Gender and precarious work in the neoliberal university. Gender, Work & Organization, 26(4), 463479.Google Scholar
Paraskevopoulou, A. (2020). Gender and Precarious Work. In , Klaus F. Zimmerman, (Ed) Handbook of Labor, Human Resources and Population Economics, 118. New York: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Patras, A. I., & Usman, A. (2019). Intersection of Gender, Work and Caste: The Case of Christian Female Sweepers of Lahore. Journal of the Research Society of Pakistan, 56(2), 363373.Google Scholar
Pedaci, M. (2010). The flexibility trap: Temporary jobs and precarity as a disciplinary mechanism. Working USA: The Journal of Labor and Society, 13, 245262.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ross, A. (2009). Nice Work if You Can Get It: Life and Labor in Precarious Times. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Rubery, J., Grimshaw, D., Keizer, A., & Johnson, M. (2018). Challenges and contradictions in the ‘normalising’ of precarious work. Work, Employment and Society, 32(3), 509527.Google Scholar
Shams, T. (2020). Successful yet precarious: South Asian Muslim Americans, Islamophobia, and the model minority myth. Sociological Perspectives, 63(4), 653669.Google Scholar
Shaukat, Z. (2019). The faces of discrimination. Available at The News www.thenews.com.pk/tns/detail/592949-faces-of-discriminationGoogle Scholar
Tapia, M. & Alberti, G. (2018). Unpacking the Category of Migrant Workers in Trade Union Research: A Multi-Level Approach to Migrant Intersectionalities. Work, Employment and Society, 33(2), 314325.Google Scholar
The New York Times (2020). Sewer Cleaners Wanted in Pakistan: Only Christians Need Apply. Available at: www.nytimes.com/2020/05/04/world/asia/pakistan-christians-sweepers.htmlGoogle Scholar
Triantafyllidou, A. & Marchetti, S. (2015). Employers, Agencies and Immigration: Paying for Care. Farnham: Ashgate.Google Scholar
Villegas, P. E. (2019). “I made myself small like a cat and ran away”: workplace sexual harassment, precarious immigration status and legal violence. Journal of Gender Studies, 28(6), 674686.Google Scholar
Vosko, L. F. (2010). Managing the Margins: Gender, Citizenship, and the International Regulation of Precarious Employment. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Vosko, L. F. (Ed) (2006). Precarious Employment: Understanding Labour Market Insecurity in Canada. Montreal and Kingston: McGill‐Queens University Press.Google Scholar
Wilson, S., & Ebert, N. (2013). Precarious work: Economic, sociological and political perspectives. The Economic and Labour Relations Review, 24(3), 263278.Google Scholar
Wright, C. F. (2013). The response of unions to the rise of precarious work in Britain. The Economic and Labour Relations Review, 24(3), 279296.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Young, M. C. (2010). Gender differences in precarious work settings. Industrial Relations, 65(1), 7497.Google Scholar
Zou, M. (2015). The legal construction of hyper-dependence and hyper-precarity in migrant work relations. International Journal of Comparative Labor Law and Industrial Relations, 31(2), 141162.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×