Organizational restructuring, precarious employment and work intensification: women managers’ experience of work under Neoliberalism

Farrell, Catherine ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1377-4721, Hassard, John and Morris, Jonathan ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4307-5948 2024. Organizational restructuring, precarious employment and work intensification: women managers’ experience of work under Neoliberalism. Economic and Industrial Democracy 10.1177/0143831X241306232

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Abstract

In recent decades there has been a perceptible rise in employment precarity across professions, industries, institutions and economies, including for managerial grades. We contend this emanates from an implicit neoliberal governance agenda promoting deepening career uncertainty amidst transformative digital innovation and radical corporate restructuring. Among the effects of such changes have been managers experiencing longer working hours, greater work intensification, and worsening work-life balance. We argue such effects have been particularly acute for women and notably under the institutional (economic, political and social) constraints of the coronavirus pandemic. Presenting quasi-longitudinal information from three qualitative studies (based on data collected variously in Japan, UK and USA in 2002-2006, 2015-2019, and 2020-2021) we consider not only women managers’ experiences of work since the millennium, but also their occupational prospects for the future. We claim under neoliberalism the enduring interaction of organizational restructuring, precarious employment, and work intensification will continue to effect adversely the equilibrium between women managers’ personal lives and their professional work; given many confront increasing demands of corporate availability and work-related connectivity whilst simultaneously dealing with significant responsibilities for parenting and care.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	In Press
Schools:	Business (Including Economics)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HM Sociology
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
ISSN:	0143-831X
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	20 November 2024
Date of Acceptance:	3 October 2024
Last Modified:	06 Jan 2025 12:30
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/174154

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