Browse by author
Lookup NU author(s): Dr Andreas GiazitzogluORCiD
This is the authors' accepted manuscript of an article that has been published in its final definitive form by Sage Publications, 2019.
For re-use rights please refer to the publisher's terms and conditions.
By taking an historical perspective, and by drawing on our own empirical work from the UK in the 1980s and more recently, we argue three main things. First, we need to understand the particular conditions of ‘the gig economy’ as a concentrated form of a more general de-standardisation of employment that has brought multiple forms of insecure work. Second, although there is clamour and excitement about ‘the gig economy’ in fact it shares strong parallels with earlier forms of insecure enterprise. Third, while not uniform nor as yet fully empirically demonstrated, young adults’ encounters with the ‘gig economy’ and other aspects of the contemporary labour market (such as the ‘low-pay, no-pay’ cycle, self-employment, ‘zero-hours contracts’) appear to be typified by a lack of choice and control, and experiences of disempowerment, low pay, degraded work conditions, alienation, anxiety and insecurity. This stands at odds with more celebratory proclamations about ‘the gig economy’.
Author(s): MacDonald R, Giazitzoglu A
Publication type: Article
Publication status: Published
Journal: Journal of Sociology
Year: 2019
Volume: 55
Issue: 4
Pages: 724-740
Print publication date: 01/12/2019
Online publication date: 03/04/2019
Acceptance date: 18/02/2019
Date deposited: 23/04/2019
ISSN (print): 1440-7833
ISSN (electronic): 1741-2978
Publisher: Sage Publications
URL: https://doi.org/10.1177/1440783319837604
DOI: 10.1177/1440783319837604
Altmetrics provided by Altmetric