Precarious jobs have been a developing problem in Canada and have been affecting families tremendously. Precarious work is a difficult form of employment that has recently been the only option of income for many Canadians. The purpose of this paper is to explore how jobs that are high in insecurity affect people and how factors such as race, class and gender take part in this issue. Job insecurity has been a big problem in Toronto and Hamilton; people have either lost their jobs or are financially unstable due to the precarious positions. It is frustrating for people who work in jobs that have no security because an unstable employment does not allow workers to benefit, or get better job opportunities. This simply affects the quality of life …show more content…
A research was conducted from 2008 to 2014 where over 140 workers who were employed in the plant companies were interviewed for this research, majority of which were men. It was found that those who varied in age, gender, and class had different worries and strains. The article reports that although some workers moved from one closing plant to another, they were put in hard situations regarding home payments and childcare. The researchers also found some employed workers as precarious workers, their jobs unstable and undependable. The unreliable jobs and overtime performances that some workers sustained caused a strain in their lives mentally and physically. The most frustrating aspect for workers was not having a secure employment. This was a frequent problem that people struggled with, as it was reported that a 50% increase of precarious work has grown in the Toronto and Hamilton area (Duffy et al, 2015). This especially affected those with low or middle income, which lead them to have anxiety. As the economy is changing rapidly the gap between the upper and lower class is widening with the middle class disappearing …show more content…
According to Cranfod et al, men have better forms of employment, as they are more and highly likely to have a permanent full time position than women (2003). Likewise whether it is permanent or temporary more women are in part time positions than men (2003), thus shows how gender correlates with employment forms. As the main article mentions that in Canada housing, educational and childcare costs are increasing significantly (Duffy et al, 2015, 2) this plays a factor in peoples quality of life as the loss of work can be devastating. Those who also work overtime are still not making enough to be well off, especially for single moms who are the sole providers for their children. If they don’t have stable jobs or a stable income it is hard to provide for their kids, and the rapid change in economy does not help this problem. With the change and decline in the economy the strong distinction between middle and lower class becomes no longer visible. As the gap between the rich and poor become greater, middle class is gradually disappearing (Duffy et al, 2015, Dimitrova,
Porter, A. (2003). Consolidating Neoliberal Reforms: Globalization, Multi-Earner Families, and the Erosion of State Support for the Unemployed. Gendered States: Women, Unemployment Insurance and the Political Economy of the Welfare State in Canada. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Imagine waking up and regretting going to work not because you don’t love your job, but because you are facing injustices at your workplace. When we apply for a job we expect to get hired and when we do, we are always nervous and anxious on our first day because we don 't know what to expect. In “Nickle and Dimed” by Barbara Ehrenreich, she is an undercover journalist that explores the impact of the 1996 Welfare Reform Act on the working poor in the United Sates. Ehrenreich explores the process of applications and the difficulties of being a low-wage worker in and outside the workplace. The process of applications could be scary as well as humiliating, in some cases. Sometimes, the application process seems unfair, and the workplace and its
In this paper, Gregory Mantsios compares and contrasts class in America. He uses facts to support his point that things are getting better for the upper class, while things are increasingly getting worse for the middle and lower classes. Throughout the paper, he demonstrates comparing and contrasting by using “myth” versus “reality”.
I consider my family and I to be in the middle class category and from being in the middle class, and the facts that are provided, the middle class is slowly declining as the time goes on. I believe that a lot of people go beyond the middle class to the upper middle class or people go below the middle class to the poor category. I’ve found a graph from Forbes that compares the rates of all classes from 1979 to 2014. From observing the graph my initial hypothesis was right. The middle class has declined by 6.8% between the years 1979-2014.
With each class comes a certain level in financial standing, the lower class having the lowest income and the upper class having the highest income. According to Mantsios’ “Class in America” the wealthiest one percent of the American population hold thirty-four percent of the total national wealth and while this is going on nearly thirty-seven million Americans across the nation live in unrelenting poverty (Mantsios 284-6). There is a clear difference in the way that these two groups of people live, one is extreme poverty and the other extremely
This article stated that, according to a study conducted by the United Way and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), approximately 40% of young workers in Ontario are in jobs classified as part-time, temporary or self-employed. The same study also found that less than half of part-time/temporary workers were able to transition into full-time higher-wage work and, perhaps most importantly, the percentage of those able to transition will likely decline over the next decade. Clearly, the growth of part-time and temporary jobs has been growing on an upward trend over the past decade and appears to have become part of business as usual. A study conducted in 2015 by the United Way and the Law Commission of Ontario (LCO) states that approximately 22% of part-time/temporary work in the past year can be characterized as precarious work, i.e. work with poor or no benefits and job security. The growth in precarious employment is due to many factors including Globalization, improved technology, changes to business models, and the economic shift from manufacturing to the service sector. These shifts have essentially formed a new economy that has a high demand for fluidity and flexibility in the common workplace, and has low a demand for the old fashioned “Standard” model of the workplace (largely full-time employees with a full suite of
Canadian workplaces today seem to be a fairly diverse place, with a blend of many religions, ethnicities, and genders present. However, although people preach affirmative action and melting pots in current times, many inequality and power issues still abound. One strikingly noticeable example is gender discrimination. Women in the workforce face many challenges like smaller wages, harassment, male privilege in hiring or promotions, and lack of support when pregnant or raising children. One half of the planet is women, and it can be assumed the same for Canada, but they still face judgment at work because they lack the authority to dispute against big corporations or even their male supervisor. It cannot be argued that Canadian women’s status has worsened over the past hundred years, of course, thanks to feminism and activism. However, their status is not as high as it could be. Women as a group first started fighting for workplace equality during the second wave of feminism, from the 1960s to the 1990s. Legislation was approved during the second wave to try to bring gender equality to the workplace. Feminists both collided and collaborated with unions and employers to ensure women received fair treatment in an occupation. Quebec had the same issues, only the province approached the conflict differently than English Canada with its own unique viewpoint. It became clear that women were entering the workplace and did not plan on leaving. Second-wave feminism in Canada shifted power from the government and businesses to women in order to try to bring equality, although the discrimination never completely disappeared.
Edward McClelland focuses his essay RIP, the Middle Class: 1946-2013 on how the middle class is no longer able to thrive if the actions of the government continue – or their nonexistent
In the United States there are four social classes : the upper class, the middle class, the working class, and the lower class. Of these four classes the most inequality exists between the upper class and the lower class. This inequality can be seen in the incomes that the two classes earn. During the period 1979 through the present , the growth in income has disproportionately grown.The bottom sixty percent of the US population actually saw their real income decrease in 1990 dollars. The next 20% saw medium gains. The top twenty percent saw their income increase 18%. The wealthiest one percent saw their incomes rise drastically over 80%. As reported in the 1997 Center on Budget's analysis , the wealthiest one percent of Americans ( 2.6 million people) received as much after-tax income in 1994 as the bottom 35 percent of the population combined (88 million people). But in 1977 the bottom 35 percent had about twice as much after tax income as the top one percent. These statistics further show the disproportional income growth among the social classes. The gr...
Racial discrimination in the workplace has been a persistent theme in Canada’s history as well as present-day times. The occurrence of actions and attitudes that impose a sense of one being less equal than another on the basis of one’s race in Canada’s workplace inhibits both our nation’s ability to move forward as well as strengthen unification within our country. The belief in a more egalitarian society, where one’s race and ethnic background have little to no impact on employees (or potential employees) standings within the job market, would seemingly be reinforced by the majority of Canadians, who consistently show support for Canada’s multicultural identity. Couple that with the noticeable strides Canada has made in the past several decades through legislation, in order to eliminate discriminatory practices and actions within the workplace, and one would likely assume that racial discrimination within the workplace is largely a concern of the past. However, current research supports the argument that the level of which racial discrimination occurs today is increasing, and as such it persists to be a key problem in the current workplace of the nation. In the workplace, racial discrimination is often seen with regard to uneven access to jobs, unfair selection and promotion criteria (as well as access to the means in order to meet this criteria), and workplace harassment. This paper compares similar findings of two articles; the first, Racial inequality in employment in Canada, as was published in the Canadian Public Administration (CPA), and the second, What Are Immigrants’ Experiences of Discrimination in the Workplace?, published by the Toronto Immigrant Employment Data Initiative (TIEDI).
While the the 1%, are secured, no one is addressing the rest of the people. As the economy flourishes, housing, higher education and health care, and child care increases with it to the point where 30 percent of a person’s income goes towards housing. People are finding it impossible to purchase a house with their middle class incomes. People begin to fall out of the once stable middle class because too much is needed to be sacrificed in order to live in a stable home. In the shrinking middle class, “40% or more of the residents live below the poverty
Work is more than just a way of earning money to pay the bills; it is also a key feature of our culture and provides people with purpose and dignity. Many people define themselves by what they do. Thus, determining the future prospects for the job market in Canada is very important (Watson 2008). For the most part, Canada’s economy has done relatively well during the recent economic crisis, especially when compared to some other nations. However, the economic and technological trends that have driven changes in the workforce in recent years are likely to continue for the near future. These shifting trends will affect Canadian society and its workers in a number of areas, and it is vital that steps be taken to deal with any problems that result.
The structural-functional analysis of jobs in the U.S. is governed by the workforce stratification and technology. The more educated and diverse a society is the better society’s job market is served. This social economic separation of class has been both good and bad for society. Many workers at the lower levels of employment are both pleased and displeased with many aspects of work. Though this fact also holds true with most any job at any level, pay scale often compensates for endurance of a particular job type. The security of a person’s job also is an issue that in today’s economic times forces one to be prepared for change. This is to say that even if one’s field of expertise is needed today it may not be tomorrow. This type of ever-changing job market leads many to believe that another socio-economic change may occur at any time. This change was apparent with the transition into the industrial age and again in the information age. These concerns caused stress, various health issues, a...
Rosenbaum, E. (2013, August 8). A new species? The elusive nature of the global middle class. Retrieved from http://www.cnbc.com/id/100949800
Unfortunately, there are many Americans out of work in today’s current declining economy. Unemployment can be defined as a person who is out of work involuntary, not by choice. These people are looking jobs and available to start work. Being unemployed can be disheartening and deciding what the next step is can be challenging. Underemployed can be described as being inadequately employed, such as a low-paying job that requires fewer skills than one possess. (Daly, Hobijn, and Kwok 2015) Making ends meet can be difficult for one who has been affected by this economy over the past few years. America still has a high unemployment rate since the decline of the current job market. And many Americans are struggling to establish the skills needed for employment, or the underemployed are force to lower they skill to make a profit. America’s economic status has force the underemployed and unemployed to make ends meet with the current jobs available. And last but not least some have also utilized these difficult times to venture into new discoveries to make life hassle free. So, we wonder is Americans giving up in today’s economy or do they settle for lower end job to establish a steady income to make ends.