American Idle

Late-Career Job Loss in a Neoliberal Era

AvAnnette Nierobisz,Dana Sawchuk

Inbunden, Engelska, 2025

Del i serien Inequality at Work: Perspectives on Race, Gender, Class, and Labor

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Beskrivning

In American Idle, sociologists Annette Nierobisz and Dana Sawchuk report their findings from interviews with sixty-two mostly white-collar workers who experienced late-career job loss in the wake of the Great Recession. Without the benefits of planned retirement or time horizons favorable to recouping their losses, these employees experience an array of outcomes, from hard falls to soft landings. Notably, the authors find that when reflecting on the effects of job loss, fruitless job searches, and the overall experience of unemployment, participants regularly called on the frameworks instilled by neoliberalism. Invoking neoliberal rhetoric, these older Americans deferred to businesses’ need to prioritize bottom lines, accepted the shift toward precarious employment, or highlighted the importance of taking initiative and maintaining a positive mindset in the face of structural obstacles. Even so, participants also recognized the incompatibility between neoliberalism’s “one-size-fits-all” solutions and their own situations; this disconnect led them to consider their experiences through competing frameworks and to voice resistance to aspects of neoliberal capitalism. Employing a life course sociology perspective to explore older workers’ precarity in an age of rising economic insecurity, Nierobisz and Sawchuk shed light on a new wrinkle in American aging.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum:2025-05-13
Mått:152 x 229 x 20 mm
Vikt:426 g
Format:Inbunden
Språk:Engelska
Serie:Inequality at Work: Perspectives on Race, Gender, Class, and Labor
Antal sidor:206
Förlag:Rutgers University Press
ISBN:9781978835870

Utforska kategorier

Mikroekonomi inom Ekonomi och Ledarskap
Sociologi inom Samhälle och politik
Sociala grupper och identitet inom Samhälle och politik

Mer om författaren

ANNETTE NIEROBISZ is a professor of sociology and the Ada M. Harrison Distinguished Teaching Professor of the Social Sciences at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota. This is her first book.DANA SAWCHUK is a professor of sociology at Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Canada. She is the author of The Costa Rican Catholic Church, Social Justice, and the Rights of Workers, 1979–1996.

Recensioner i media

"American Idle focuses on an underexamined, yet critical, group of the unemployed: those later in life. It’s engagingly written and provides important insights into later-life unemployment. The authors’ findings are all elegant and conceptually rich contributions to our understanding of the unemployment process for older Americans." - Sarah Damaske (author of The Tolls of Uncertainty: How Privilege and the Guilt Gap Shape Unemployment in America) "American Idle's use of a life course approach to examine older adults' unemployment experiences is unique and fills a gap in the unemployment literature. The topic is timely, given the graying of the U.S. population, and the writing is engaging."- Dawn Norris (author of Job Loss, Identity, and Mental Health (Rutgers University Press))

Innehållsförteckning

1 “Broke, Unemployed, Downsized Again”2 Hard Falls and Soft Landings3 Generations at Work4 In God We Trust5 “Here’s Where I Am, Here’s Where I’ll Stay”6 Silver Linings and Positive Thinking7 Where Are They Now? And What Can We Do?Appendix A Studying Late Career Job Loss in the “Land of 10,000 Lakes”Appendix B Tables 1 and 2AcknowledgmentsNotesBibliographyIndex1 “Broke, Unemployed, Downsized Again” 12 Hard Falls and Soft Landings 133 Generations at Work 284 In God We Trust 465 “Here’sWhere I Am, Here’sWhere I’ll Stay” 646 Silver Linings and Positive Thinking 827 Where Are They Now? And What Can We Do? 98Appendix A: Studying Late-CareerJob Lossin the Land of 10,000 Lakes 117Appendix B: Tables127Acknowledgments133Notes 137Bibliography 165Index 000