Perspectives on the Future in the Sociology of Work

Journal title SOCIOLOGIA DEL LAVORO
Author/s Duncan Gallie
Publishing Year 2019 Issue 2019/153
Language English Pages 23 P. 9-31 File size 298 KB
DOI 10.3280/SL2019-153002
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The current concern with a new digital transformation has once more placed the future of work at the center of the public and research agendas. As sociologists of work seek to grapple with its potential implications, it is perhaps salutary to consider the fate of their earlier attempts to forecast the future. The paper examines the empirical success of the major theoretical forecasts of the early postwar period and their successors in the 1990s. The last seven decades of research should make us careful about ready predictions of the direction of social change, attentive to the dangers of extrapolating from "cutting-edge" developments, and aware of the complexity of trends and the factors that can moderate them.

Keywords: Quality of work, digital transformation, future of work

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Duncan Gallie, Perspectives on the Future in the Sociology of Work in "SOCIOLOGIA DEL LAVORO " 153/2019, pp 9-31, DOI: 10.3280/SL2019-153002