Patchy progress? Two decades of research on precariousness and precarious work in Australia

ABSTRACT

Precariousness, together with its cognate terms (e.g. precarity, precarious work, precarious workers, the precariat and precarious life), has become a significant theme in employment relations research in recent years. This paper reviews important aspects of the discussion, taking its starting point from an article in Labour and Industry which introduced the concept and sketched out a proposed research agenda for examining poor job quality in Australia. The current paper identifies patchy progress in knowledge concerning the core issues. Casual employment has been one area of successful inquiry, but challenges remain in connection with analysis of precariousness in permanent employment. At the same time, understanding of precariousness has moved into new channels of inquiry that were uncharted in the 1998 article and offer great promise for further research.

KEYWORDS:

• Precarious work
• casual workers
• Australia
• migrant workers

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Corrigendum

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the support, encouragement and editorial input of Jim Arrowsmith in developing this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Iain Campbell

Iain Campbell is a Research Fellow at the School of Law, University of Melbourne, Australia. His research interests cover precarious employment, especially new and old forms of casual employment.

John Burgess

John Burgess is Professor at the School of Management, RMIT University, Melbourne, Australia. His research interests include working arrangements and health; transition from education to employment and employment conditions in the aged care sector