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Lookup NU author(s): Professor Steve VincentORCiD
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND).
This paper uses the sociology of Bourdieu to explore the social structure of working time and uses this approach to analyse interview data from 25 self-employed human resources professionals practicing in the UK. More specifically, Bourdieu's approach to resources as forms of capital that are deployed strategically by actors within social fields, is used to compare outcomes for respondents with different working time patters. The findings demonstrate that self-employed professionals' uses of resources is affected by distinctive and gendered temporal rhythms within and between social fields. These temporal patterns typically serve the interests of well-resourced (more typically male) actors who structure their lives according to specific routines. Self-employed people with less working time often struggle to synchronise their lives with their environments and so are often at a disadvantage in accessing and using resources. The analysis, which develops novel propositions about the ways in which actors become differentially adapted to the social structure of time, facilitates a more fine-grained and relational appreciation of gendered advantages within self-employed careers which is likely to have wider applicability and the potential for broader impact.
Author(s): Vincent S
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Human Relations
Year: 2016
Volume: 69
Issue: 5
Pages: 1163-1184
Print publication date: 01/05/2016
Online publication date: 15/03/2016
Acceptance date: 17/08/2015
Date deposited: 27/01/2015
ISSN (print): 0018-7267
ISSN (electronic): 1741-282X
Publisher: Sage Publications Ltd
URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0018726715612898
DOI: 10.1177/0018726715612898
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