Undergraduate and postgraduate students of the sociology of work and employment.

"Changing Contours of Work: Jobs and Opportunities in the New Economy provides numerous insights into the new world of work and is a prolific source of material for class discussion, further research, and written assignments." -- Teaching Sociology
"Changing Contours of Work is an engaging text that is of significant value in courses on the sociology of work." -- Journal of Family Theory & Review
"With a captivating dose of realism and critical inquiry, the authors have done an excellent job of introducing some of the most troubling labour market issues of our time. It is an excellent source for upper level undergraduate students and those trying to make sense of recent transformations in the world of work and beyond." -- Work, Employment and Society

"Changing Contours of Work inspires students to acquire a sociological imagination in the way they view the labor force, understanding the way that personal troubles with income or employment are linked to public issues.

Changing Contours of Work provides a thorough overview of the structure of the new economy and the way opportunities and rewards are unequally divided across the lines of class, gender, and race.Perhaps one of the greatest attributes of the book,however, is the ease by which Sweet and Meiksins integrate classical sociology with contemporary studies of stratification in a way that is extremely accessible to undergraduate students."

-- William J. Scarborough * American Sociological Association *

Stephen Sweet is Associate Professor and Chair of Sociology at Ithaca College and formerly the associate director of the Cornell Careers Institute, a Sloan Center for the Study of Working Families. He has written a number of articles on the challenges confronting working families, focusing on the issues of concern to dual career couples across the life course. His studies have appeared in a variety of publications, including the New Directions in Life Course Research, Journal of Vocational Behavior, Journal of Marriage and the Family, Innovative Higher Education, The International Journal of Mass Emergencies and Disasters, Journal of College Student Development, and Community, Work, and Family. Stephen's other book with SAGE is The Work-Family Interface. He has also published The Handbook of Work and Family with co-authors Marcie Pitt-Catsouphes and Ellen Ernst Kossek; Managing Careers in the New Risk Economy, with co-investigator Phyllis Moen; College and Society: An Introduction to the Sociological Imagination, and Data Analysis with SPSS: A First Course in Applied Statistics. Stephen has been the recipient of a Sloan Officers Grant to study the effects of corporate downsizing on dual earner couples. Peter Meiksins is a Professor of Sociology at Cleveland State University. He is the author of many articles on the sociology of work, including studies of the work experiences of engineers and part-time work in professional technical occupations and essays on labor process theory, professional work in comparative perspective, and contemporary labor relations. His work has appeared in a variety of journals, including Work and Occupations, Theory and Society, Economic and Industrial Democracy, Work, Employment and Society, and Sociological Quarterly. He is the author of Putting Work in Its Place: A Quiet Revolution (with Peter Whalley) and of Engineering Labour: Technical Workers in Comparative Perspective (with Chris Smith). Peter's other books are Rethinking the Labor Process (with Mark Wardell and Tom Steiger) and Rising From the Ashes: Labor in the Age of Global Capitalism (with Ellen Wood and Michael Yates). He and co-investigator Peter Whalley received a major grant from the Sloan Foundation to study "Flexible Work for Technical Professionals." Peter's current research concerns the sociology of design work (a study of the work of graphic designers, industrial designers and interior designers). This research has been supported by a Fund for the Advancement of the Discipline grant from the American Sociological Foundation.

List of Exhibits About the Authors Preface Acknowledgments Chapter 1: Mapping the Contours of Work Scenes From the New Economy Culture and Work Structure and Work Agency and Careers Chapter 2: New Products, New Ways of Working, and the New Economy A Postindustrial Society? The End of Mass Production? New Skills? New Cultures of Control? The End of Organized Labor? A New Global Economy? Chapter 3: Economic Inequality, Social Mobility, and the New Economy Are Economic Divides Narrowing or Widening in the United States? Are Career Pathways Opening or Closing? Is the Global Economy Becoming More Flat or Bumpy? Chapter 4: Whose Jobs Are Secure Risk and Work: Historical and Comparative Views How Insecure Are Workers in the New Economy? The Costs of Job Loss and Insecurity Responding to Insecurity: Old and New Careers Chapter 5: A Fair Day's Work? The Intensity and Scheduling of Jobs in the New Economy Time, Intensity, and Work How Much Should We Work? Comparative Frameworks Why Are Americans Working So Much? Nonstandard Schedules: Jobs in a 24/7 Economy How Americans Deal With Overwork Chapter 6: Gender Chasms in the New Economy When Did Home Work Become Nonwork? Women's Participation in the Paid Labor Force in America Gender Inequalities in Compensation Socialization, Career Selection, and Career Paths Interpersonal Discrimination in the Workplace Structural Dimensions of Gender Discrimination Strategies to Bridge the Care Gaps: International Chapter 7: Race, Ethnicity, and Work: Legacies of the Past, Problems in the Present Histories of Race, Ethnicity, and Work Magnitude of Racial Inequality in the New Economy Intergenerational Transmission of Resources Geographic Distribution of Race and Work Opportunity Racial Prejudice and Discrimination Racialized Jobs Race, Ethnicity, and Work: Social Policy Chapter 8: Reshaping the Contours of the New Economy Opportunity Chasms Agents of Change Appendix: Legislative and Regulatory Time Line of Worker Rights and Protections in the United States References Index