SOCI2050 31st July 2020

Week 1: Work in 2020

Work is not just going to work and making money!

(There may be more kinds)

Understand different kinds of work in the beginning of the whole

unit!

Sociology is important

 Sociology is a modern science which studies social changes from pre-modern

to modern societies (to solve sociological problem such as who we are and
what we can do).
 No society can be understood without comparing to previous society
(sociological timeline) and identifying the social changes that have or are
occurring.
 People are not on their own and socially isolated. Everyone depends on social
context and society.

Thinking Sociologically

 Social interaction: The way people interact with others such as face-to-face
interaction and indirect communication (mediated interaction) through phones
and emails).
 Observation and interpretation: observe, interpret, and understand social
action through the social data and thereby get a casual explanation of its
course and consequences.
Example: Most people want to live in big cities in Australia. Therefore, we

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might need more infrastructure, public transport and even incentives for
people to live in rural area.
 Individual and society: Sociology is about the relationship between
individual and society. Work is a cornerstone of in this relationship that
connects individual and society.
 The sociological timeline (the changes in the rise of modernity).

Premodern societies (ancient societies): farming and work on land for families.

Modern societies (starts with industrialisation, rise of steam engines and

electricity): rise of factories, work is a massive driver for urbanisation (People
started to move from the land to the cities since they need to live close to work). It
is still a case today: migration (people try to go where they can find work).

Postmodern societies (starts after WWII): work in flexible terms.

Confronting the challenges of work today (weekly reading)

Elements that have an impact on people’s working lives from past to

now.

 Proliferation of electronic modes of work, increasingly globalisation and

competition.
 Transformation arises from processes of commodification and
decommodification.
 New work practices promoting flexibility (in relation to time and space).
 A massive growth of care work and heightened importance of voluntary and

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community work to the public domain.

Challenges of work

 As jobs are becoming more insecurity, career paths less defined, and hours of
work more variable and non-standardised (employees often work outside
standard hours), individuals’ working lives are being affected.
 For those homeworkers who work at home, the social meaning of space alters
since paid work is relocated in the individuals’ backstage which is also called
private area. Furthermore, the social meaning of time is also transformed:
home workers have no fixed end to their working day. Therefore, it is
important to individuals to obtain a ‘work-life balance’.
 Care work: The question of who cares – for children and the elderly – has an
ever-increasing resonance given the return of women to the workplace. The
shortage of people to undertake care work becomes critical.