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New book explores irregularities of working life

Published on 14.5.2020
Tampere Universities
Kansikuva Boundaries of working life
The nature of work is changing all the time, that is nothing new. However, in recent years these changes have sometimes seemed unprecedented. The labour market has been under massive pressure due to fast technological change, globalisation, deregulation, privatisation, mass migration, and financial and economic crisis. In a new book, Shaping and re-shaping the boundaries of working life, some of the finest work researchers from Finland and abroad explore the ways working life is changing.

The authors take a unique and interdisciplinary approach by combining historical overviews, theoretical pondering, quantitative analysis and ethnographic fieldwork. They show the “big picture” of changing labour market structures as well the ways in which people’s everyday working lives are affected. Furthermore, they explore whether and how institutions, ideas and politics can be used to shape alternative futures.

The chapters of the book concentrate on four main themes: life course and gender in the labour market, varieties of migration and work, new ways of working, and the politics and possibilities of changing work.

The book brings together an international group of scholars who have been part of the Finnish doctoral school for work and welfare studies – LabourNet. Under the leadership of professor Pertti Koistinen, LabourNet successfully educated a new generation of work researchers from Finland. The chapters of the book were written and collected when the doctoral school ceased to exist in 2015.

This Open Access book is available on Tampere University institutional repository Trepo. It will also be available on OAPEN Library portal and on the Directory of Open Access Books (DOAB).


Nicol Foulkes Savinetti & Aart-Jan Riekhoff (eds): Shaping and re-shaping the boundaries of working life. Tampere University Press, 2020. http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-359-020-5


Contact details to the editors

Nicol Foulkes Savinetti
nicolsavinetti @ gmail.com

Aart-Jan Riekhoff
arie.riekhoff @ etk.fi


Contact detail to Tampere University Press

tup @ tuni.fi
Tampere University Press