Abstract
Work schedules may fuel precariousness among U.S. workers by undermining perceptions of security, both economic and societal. Volatile hours, limited schedule input, and short advance notice are all dimensions of precarious work schedules. Our analyses suggest that scheduling practices that introduce instability and unpredictability into workers’ lives undermine perceptions of security in unique ways for hourly and salaried workers. Although the data suggest that precarious scheduling practices are widespread in the labor market, workers who are black, young, and without a college degree appear to be at highest risk. The findings highlight the importance of examining constellations of scheduling practices and considering the direction of work-hour fluctuations when investigating the ramifications of today’s scheduling practices for quality of employment and quality of life.
- © 2019 Russell Sage Foundation. Lambert, Susan J., Julia R. Henly, and Jaeseung Kim. 2019. “Precarious Work Schedules as a Source of Economic Insecurity and Institutional Distrust.” RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences 5(4): 218–57. DOI: 10.7758/RSF.2019.5.4.08. The authors are grateful to the Russell Sage Foundation for supporting this research and to David Howe, Arne Kalleberg, and reviewers for helpful suggestions. Direct correspondence to: Susan Lambert at slambert{at}uchicago.edu, University of Chicago, School of Social Service Administration, 969 E. 60th St., Chicago, IL 60637.
Open Access Policy: RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences is an open access journal. This article is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.