Sociology Work

With the exception of sleep, humans spend more of their lifetimes on work than any other activity. It is central to our economy, our society, and the family. It underpins our finances and our sense of meaning in life. Given the overriding importance of work, we need to recognize a profound transformation in the nature of work that is significantly altering lives: the incoming tidal wave of shadow work. Shadow work includes all the unpaid tasks we do on behalf of businesses and organizations.

The work-family conflict that mothers experience today is a national crisis. Women struggle to balance breadwinning with the bulk of parenting, and stress is constant. Social policies don't help. Of all Western industrialized countries, the US ranks dead last for supportive work-family policies: No federal paid parental leave. The highest gender wage gap. No minimum standard for vacation and sick days. Can American women look to European policies for solutions?

By the end of World War I, the skyrocketing divorce rate in the United States had generated a deep-seated anxiety about marriage. This fear drove middle-class couples to seek advice, both professional and popular, in order to strengthen their relationships. In Making Marriage Work, historian Kristin Celello offers an insightful and wide-ranging account of marriage and divorce in America in the 20th century, focusing on the development of the idea of marriage as "work."

We have always been told that work defines us, and serves as the foundation of our dignity as human beings. So why, all over the world, are more and more people quitting their jobs? In recent years, we have had several opportunities to ask ourselves whether the life we are living is the one we truly desire. For many, the answer has been no. This is due to a growing unwillingness to submit to the toxic and vexatious rules imposed by many work contexts. Even prior to the pandemic, a survey conducted in 140 countries revealed that 80 percent of the employed population disliked their jobs.

'Work hard, get paid.' It's simple. Self-evident. But it's also a lie—at least for most of us. For people today, the old assumptions are crumbling; hard work in school no longer guarantees a secure, well-paying job in the future. Far from a gateway to riches and fulfilment, 'work' means precarity, anxiety and alienation. In this audiobook, beautifully narrated by award-winning actor Libby Mai, Amelia Horgan poses three big questions: what is work? How does it harm us? And what can we do about it?

Today's ways of working are not working - even for professionals in "good" jobs. Responding to global competition and pressure from financial markets, companies are asking employees to do more with less, even as new technologies normalize 24/7 job expectations. In Overload, Erin Kelly and Phyllis Moen document how this new intensification of work creates chronic stress, leading to burnout, attrition, and underperformance. "Flexible" work policies and corporate lip service about "work-life balance" don't come close to fixing the problem.

In a wide-ranging narrative that takes us from a downsized marketing executive in Massachusetts, to a father of three in Appalachia finding purpose and meaning working in a convenience-store chain, to an unemployed autoworker retraining in "advanced manufacturing", Shell reveals how work is essential to our flourishing and pyschological well-being - and how so many of the avenues to well-paid and meaningful work will be challenged in the years ahead.

In Callings, StoryCorps founder Dave Isay presents unforgettable stories from people doing what they love. Some are paid well for their work, others not at all; some found their paths at very young ages, others later in life; many overcame great odds or upturned their lives in order to pursue what matters to them. Many of these stories have never been published or broadcast by StoryCorps until now.

The struggle to pay for college is one of the defining features of middle-class life in America today. At kitchen tables all across the country, parents agonize over whether to burden their children with loans or to sacrifice their own financial security by taking out a second mortgage or draining their retirement savings. Indebted takes listeners into the homes of middle-class families throughout the nation to reveal the hidden consequences of student debt and the ways that financing college has transformed family life.

From the inquisitive layperson to the professional economist or policymaker, The Inequality Paradox is essential listening for understanding the global economy in its present state. McWilliams is a fresh, authoritative voice entering the global discussion, making this book indispensable in preparing for the imminent economic challenges of our changing world.

Women in today's advanced capitalist societies are encouraged to "lean in." The media and government champion women's empowerment. In a cultural climate where women can seemingly have it all, why do so many successful professional women - lawyers, financial managers, teachers, engineers, and others - give up their careers after having children and become stay-at-home mothers? How do they feel about their decision and what do their stories tell us about contemporary society?

Identity Economics bridges a critical gap in the social sciences. It brings identity and norms to economics. People’s notions of what is proper, and what is forbidden, and for whom, are fundamental to how hard they work, and how they learn, spend, and save. Thus people’s identity—their conception of who they are, and of who they choose to be—may be the most important factor affecting their economic lives.

Thirty years ago, the best-selling "letter to the government", Work in America, was published to national acclaim, including front-page coverage in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Post. It sounded an alarm about worker dissatisfaction and the effects on the nation as a whole.

Modello is an inspirational true story from beginning to end of how Dr. Roger Mills and staff accomplished the "miracle" in the Modello and Homestead Gardens Housing Projects, applying the Three Principles/Health Realization approach based on an innovative spiritual psychology. Through extensive interviews with residents as well as Dr. Mills, his staff, and other professionals, a compelling and moving portrait is painted.

Chicago has long struggled with racial residential segregation, high rates of poverty, and deepening class stratification. Unequal City examines the ways in which Chicago's most vulnerable residents navigate their neighborhoods, life opportunities, and encounters with the law. In this pioneering analysis of the intersection of race, place, and opportunity, sociologist and criminal justice expert Carla Shedd illuminates how schools either reinforce or ameliorate the social inequalities that shape the worlds of these adolescents.

Check out HowExpert Guide to Phlebotomy to learn about blood draws, lab work, panels, plasma, tests, and the profession of a phlebotomist.

Education, employment, and home ownership have long been considered stepping stones to the middle class. But in Abandoned Families, social policy expert Kristin Seefeldt shows how many working families have access only to a separate but unequal set of poor-quality jobs, low-performing schools, and declining housing markets, which offer few chances for upward mobility. Through in-depth interviews over a six-year period with women in Detroit, Seefeldt charts the increasing social isolation of many low-income workers.

In More than Medicine, LaTonya J. Trotter chronicles the everyday work of a group of nurse practitioners (NPs) working on the front lines of the American health care crisis as they cared for 400 African American older adults living with poor health and limited means. Trotter describes how these NPs practiced an inclusive form of care work that addressed medical, social, and organizational problems that often accompany poverty.

Mixing personal history, interviewee voices, and academic theory from the fields of care work, the sociology of work, medical sociology, and nursing, Taking Care of Our Own introduces us to the hidden world of family caregivers. By taking a multidimensional approach, Sherry N. Mong seeks to understand and analyze the types of skilled work that family caregivers do, the processes through which they learn and negotiate these new skills, and the meanings that both caregivers and nurses attach to their care work.

Built on well-established attachment research and proven therapeutic approaches, Navigating Avoidant Attachment transforms complex psychological concepts into practical, actionable steps. Using the accessible Temperature Zone framework, you'll learn to read your body's signals and manage connections in ways that feel both safe and authentic.