Imagined futures in precarious working conditions: A gender matter?

Abstract

Spanish

French

Today younger generations are entering adult life with no expectation of guaranteed employment or secure working conditions. In this article the author explores how employment precariousness in subjects with young children shapes the future projections they envisage for themselves, relating to both professional and family life, and considers the politics of gender diversity in this process of ‘projecting’. By drawing on a detailed narrative analysis of the life stories of 40 Italian parents facing job insecurity, three ideal typical future projections are identified that disclose diverse ways of ‘reacting’ to insecure employment and to their futures. They are described as: hopeful open end; discouraged open end; and confident open end. The analysis shows how these imagined futures depend on – and contribute to produce in terms of processes – forms of precarity and of social reproduction of labour which are different between men and women.

Keywords

Future gender precarious work social reproduction of labour work–family articulation

Introduction

In this article, I draw on an innovative understanding of ‘precarious work’ as a social process that goes beyond the field of production to include traction with the realm of social reproduction and post-wage politics (Alberti et al., 2018; Lee et al., 2011; Moen and Sweet, 2004).

In particular, this article investigates the imagined future of parents in insecure jobs with specific attention paid to gender diversity and by considering precariousness as a social process in which the dimensions of production and social reproduction are firmly interconnected. I argue that future projections constitute an important area of sociological analysis, not only in exploring the plurality of the lived experiences of precarious workers with child care responsibilities, an area scarcely explored to date, but also to comprehend the realm of actions perceived by the subjects as (im)possible to choose from the present day onwards in response to work precariousness. This allows us to see precariousness in its ‘productive form’ (Alberti et al., 2018) in that it permits us to shed light on the relations between production, social reproduction and gender politics (Pugh, 2015). In this way, we shed light on the intricate links between precarity and gender inequalities under neoliberalism that are yet to be explored (Williams, 2019; Williams and Neely, 2015). In fact, as we consider these imagined futures, I suggest that we direct our attention, not only to the cultural, institutional and relational groundings (Mische, 2009), but also to the economic component: in particular, to the unequal division of labour between men and women. It is widely known that women are usually the ones bearing the weight of conservative cultural norms and being in charge of care work and housework (e.g. Dotti Sani, 2014; Evertsson, 2014; Kan et al., 2011; Lyonette and Crompton, 2015). The unequal distribution of production and reproduction work between men and women under neoliberal capitalism is an issue of great interest to social reproduction theory (SRT) (Bhattacharya, 2017). It addresses the conditions and contradictions, in terms of (gendered) human labour, that need to be fulfilled for labour to exist and become productive labour power.

Empirically this article, in light of the theoretical construct of time as a socially constructed product, now consolidated in the literature (e.g. Adam, 1990), reports the results of a narrative analysis of the life stories of 40 Italian parents from couples surviving under precarious work conditions. The subjects are here conceptualized as temporally embedded actors in multiple temporal horizons (Mead, 1932) and the process of projectivity is considered the result of creative, as well as wilful, foresight (Mische, 2009).

The article presents a typology of imagined futures, which are analysed using the multidimensional model proposed by Ann Mische (2009). The typology identified is composed of three forms of future, denominated as: hopeful open end; discouraged open end; and confident open end. Despite their all having open ended projections, in the sense that – in a context in which the family becomes more easily reversible and the job market de-standardizes – the future cannot be planned to any level of certainty by the actors, these forms of imagined future reveal narrative modalities that differ between men and women and are grounded in both the productive and reproductive dimensions of precarization.

This work makes a threefold contribution to the literature. First, it contributes to the studies of job insecurity by studying the processual and reproductive nature of precariousness, and proposing to look at individuals’ projections into the future. Second, it contributes to studies on temporality, by constructing an accurate typology of the imagined futures of parents in precarious work, who have rarely been the subject of analysis. Finally, in relation to both of these fields, the present work shines new light on the processual dynamics of gender politics at work in the projections into the future, grounding the analysis in the forms of social reproduction upon which the current mode of capitalist production is founded.

Temporalities and timing in precarious working lifetimes

As scholars have demonstrated, standard employment relationships involving stable, full-time employment with a living wage and a good level of protection have given way to new, increasingly precarious, non-standard forms of employment (Armano et al., 2017; Kalleberg, 2009, 2018; Kalleberg and Vallas, 2018; Prosser, 2015; Standing, 2009; Vosko, 2010). Extensive research on precarious work has attempted to identify the structural forces that led to the erosion of the Fordist employment regime, on the one hand, and to understand the meaning of precarity as a feature of contemporary social life, on the other, shedding light on its consequences on the quality of work as well as many non-work domains, including individual health and well-being, life-course and family formation, and the community life more generally (Kalleberg and Vallas, 2018). Yet, our understanding of how precarious work affects lived experiences in a processual way by intertwining longstanding social inequalities (Alberti et al., 2018), especially at the micro level of future prospects and the construction of life courses (working and family), continues to be limited.

According to a number of authors, individuals nowadays bear increasing responsibility for shaping their own biographies (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim, 2002; Giddens, 1991), forming a novel relationship with traditional institutions (Woodman, 2009). Without falling into the trap of placing too much prominence on the role of individual agency (e.g. Brannen and Nilsen, 2005), the debate is tightly connected to the notion of ‘flexible careers’ (Lee et al., 2011; McDonald, 2018; Moen and Sweet, 2004) and also with the new conception of precariousness in processual terms and not just employment status alone (Alberti et al., 2018).

The term ‘flexible career’ addresses the limitations in conceptualizations of new forms of careers that do not adequately acknowledge the processes unfolding over a lifetime in a broad life context and the individual as constrained/enabled by family life factors or events beyond the individual’s control (Lee et al., 2011). Specifically, the concept of flexible careers sheds light on processes rather than factors shaping complex career trajectories, which are seen as embedded in entangled life strands of work, personal, family and community life (Lee et al., 2011; McDonald, 2018; Moen and Sweet, 2004). From another strand of research, employment studies are moving towards the exploration of the processual and reproductive nature of precariousness (Alberti et al., 2018). This challenging conceptualization does not limit precarious work to that encapsulated by contractual employment – a status which affects individuals, and that certainly constitutes a central piece of the puzzle connected to the work-centred nature of welfare conditionality (Rubery et al., 2018). Rather, precarious work is regarded as a social process that is linked to contractual employment insecurity as well as to a social form of life, in which production and social reproduction are strongly connected and in which old class inequalities are reproduced under neoliberal capitalism in new ways. As a result of these changes, individuals are confronted with the constant need to make life decisions based on an outlook of change, instability and ‘biographical risk’ in the face of the loss of grip over a future that once seemed more under control (Bradley and Devadason, 2008).

However, the study of how the experience of job insecurity influences projections into the future remains an issue that has received little attention (Carmo et al., 2014; Ylijoki, 2010). Sociology has, instead, shone much light on the effects, in structural terms, produced by the de-standardization of working careers, highlighting for example the postponement of the transition to parenthood (e.g. Blossfeld et al., 2005). Great attention has been paid to the timing of choices and to the purely rational explanations, based on strategies or evaluations of the trade-offs. However, the changing of life course, organized around the career, concerns not only the sequence of occupational positions, as a series of events, but also the respective personal perspectives, both towards the future and the past (Brannen et al., 2013). Rational choice theory, on the contrary, reduces the future to post-hoc rationalizations of action abstracted from the human experience of time (Mische, 2009).

Imagined futures and projectivity

Paying attention to the practice of projecting into the future means viewing imagined futures as something ‘we do’ and not only something ‘we have’ (Nilsen, 1999). The study of the imagined futures rests on a long tradition in sociology that conceives the subject as being temporally embedded and distinguishes between time intended in quantitative terms versus qualitative terms, i.e. as a subjective and plural construct (Adam, 1990; Elias, 1984; Hubert and Mauss, 1909; Mead, 1932; Schutz, 1967, 1978).

Specifically, in this article I will draw on the conceptual work of Ann Mische (2009), one of the rare theoretical dissertations dedicated to the study of the future in sociological research. The author explains nine dimensions of projectivity in order to shed light on the link between the realm – imagined, planned or feared – of the ‘not yet’ and individual’s action: reach, breadth, clarity, contingency, expandability, volition, sociality, connectivity and genre.

Reach refers to the degree of extension that projections have into the short, middle and long term, along with the future scenarios imagined at each stage. As behavioural economists and social psychologists have suggested, some actors might be focused on the immediate future whereas others are directed towards long-term planning, and the time horizons may vary according to socioeconomic class background. Breadth is the range of possibilities considered at different points in time, which can vary from a single possible trajectory to a wide range of alternative outcomes. By clarity, Mische refers to the degree of detail with which the future is imagined. The dimension of contingency is related to clarity. It is the degree to which future trajectories are imagined as fixed and predetermined versus flexible and dependent on local circumstances. Another dimension is expandability, referring to the degree to which future possibilities are seen as ‘increasing’ and ‘opening up’ (such as in youth or at the start of a new career) or ‘contracting’ (as in the case of old age or a terminal illness). Moreover, in the process of projecting, subjects can perceive to have little control and take passive and receptive stances, or they can perceive to purposefully design the future they are striding towards. This relation of motion or influence that the actor holds in regard to the impending future is what Mische calls the volition, and it may vary with social class and educational background (Mirowsky and Ross, 2007). Sociality is a dimension that resonates with Simmel’s work. By ‘sociality’ Mische refers to the degree to which future projections are ‘peopled’ with others, whose actions and reactions are seen as intertwined with our own. Related to sociality is the dimension of connectivity, which is the imagined logic of connection between temporal elements. These ‘links from here to there’ might be made explicit in future projections or remain ambiguous and open to ad hoc improvisational solutions. Finally, the dimension genre is the recognizable narrative form in which future projections are elaborated, which serve as a sort of template for future action. For example, the future may be envisioned as a comedy, a tragedy, or a melodrama.

Mische sustains that the challenge for research on projectivity is not simply to document variation along these dimensions, but to understand the relational dynamics of project formation. This means exploring both how the different social forces shape variation along these dimensions and how the imagined futures can affect people’s decisions, practices and (power) relations, which Maria Islas-Lopez (2008) calls the ‘production of the future’ and the ‘productive future’, respectively. This double aspect of the study of imagined futures is particularly relevant considering the objective of this article that is to identify the relationships between production, social reproduction and gender politics for families with children and in precarious working conditions.

The Italian context

In Italy, the precarization of labour was significantly influenced by the introduction of two major laws established in 1997 and 2003, which resulted in short-term recruitment becoming almost the rule for people entering the labour market, independent of their level of education (INPS, 2017). Therefore, a whole new generation passed into adult life that has had to embrace precarious labour conditions (Ba’, 2019). It has been shown that the percentage of couples where both partners hold unstable working conditions or are in search of work has grown over the last two decades in Italy, reaching approximately 4% of couples in 2010 (with or without children), a proportion that, albeit not high in absolute terms, is higher than those for other European countries (Grotti and Scherer, 2014).

Sociologically, the phenomenon is of crucial importance due to the adverse consequences and the connected risk of social and economic exclusion that precarious work is having on people performing child care responsibilities (Ba’, 2019; Fraser, 2017; INPS, 2017). This is particularly true in social contexts, as in Italy, in which work precariousness often represents a trap from which it is difficult to escape (OECD, 2011).

Moreover, the Italian labour market deregulation has not been accompanied by any real adjustments to the welfare system in response to the new social risks associated with flexibility (Berton et al., 2012). At the time of the interviews (from 2012 to 2015), the effects of the economic crisis were being strongly felt in Italy and the rate of unemployment was high (ISTAT, 2013). In particular, female participation in the labour market was (and still is) much lower than the European average (ISTAT, 2013, 2018).

Finally, at the institutional level, family policies are best characterized as ‘unsupported familialism’, where family is the main care and welfare provider, and the few traditional forms of in-work benefits, such as paid leave or corporate services, are often not accessible to people in precarious working conditions (Saraceno and Naldini, 2011).

Data and methods

This article presents some results taken from a narrative analysis aimed at exploring, at the micro level, the decision-making processes around work–life balance (WLB) of the new generations of parents experiencing precarious working conditions in Italy (Carreri, 2016). The sample is identified by its theoretical significance and is composed of subjects in dual precarious couples who risk not being able to sustain themselves through the labour market or social protection in the medium-term (Berton et al., 2012) and who also have young children (under 11 years).

The sample is made up of 23 heterosexual cohabiting couples in which both parents are highly qualified and transit between ‘non-standard’ jobs. In particular, they are employed in the field of scientific research and socio-educational services as temporary workers, occasional collaborators, research fellows, or dependent self-employed workers. Some of the interviewees are multiple job holders. All the contract types identified share the key features of precarious work: temporary employment, little or no level of protection or contractual social security, high flexibility, and limited organizational autonomy. The research also covered respondents transitioning between temporary jobs and those looking for jobs. The participants can be considered children of the unfinished ‘gender revolution generation’ (Gerson, 2010) since they are all university-educated and with an average age of 35 years. It is a generation that, by assimilating the cultural achievements of social movements, aspires to build equal gender relations, in which both partners can pursue their own professional aspirations and be equally in charge of care work (Gerson, 2010).

Table 1 reports the respondents’ characteristics and provides an indication regarding how paid work, housework and child care work are divided between the 23 couples (denominated A to W). The couples are divided into three groups: the most numerous group (13 out of 23 couples) is made up of couples that are equal earners, in which the partners contribute more or less equally in economic terms; the second groups is less numerous (8 couples) and is composed of couples in which the male is the prime breadwinner; and finally the third group of couples are those in which the female is the main breadwinner (only 2 couples), thus contributing the most economically. In all the male and female breadwinner couples, it is the women who bear the majority of the housework and child care responsibilities. Instead, in the couples classified as equal earners, more innovative behaviours can be found with regard to the division of the domestic work load. Nonetheless, even if the work distributions are more highly variable for this group, it is still the women in these couples who tend to bear more of the costs of the social reproduction of labour.

Table 1.

Participants’ characteristics.

Partner	Gender	Employment status	Intra-couple division of paid work	Intra-couple division of housework	Intra-couple division of care work	Number of children
A_Marco	Male	In the process of changing employment status (for one with a fixed term)	Female breadwinner	Female responsibility	Female responsibility	1
B_Mary	Female	Unemployed	Male breadwinner	Female responsibility	Female responsibility	2
B_Mattia	Male	Fixed-term work contract	Male breadwinner	Female responsibility	Female responsibility	2
C_Cristina	Female	Member of a cooperative + occasional work	Male breadwinner	Female responsibility	Female responsibility	1
C_Thomas	Male	Fixed-term work contract + occasional work	Male breadwinner	Female responsibility	Female responsibility	1
D_Barbara	Female	Scholarship	Equal earner			2
E_Elena	Female	Fixed-term work contract	Equal earner	Female responsibility	Female responsibility	1
F_Claudia	Female	Project-based work contract + occasional work	Equal earner	Female responsibility	Equal responsibility	1
F_Paolo	Male	Fixed-term work contract + occasional work	Equal earner	Female responsibility	Equal responsibility	1
G_Monica	Female	Fixed-term work contract	Equal earner	Female responsibility	Female responsibility	4
G_Cristiano	Male	Research grant	Equal earner	Female responsibility	Female responsibility	4
H_Giada	Female	Member of a cooperative	Equal earner	Female responsibility	Female responsibility	1
I_Anna	Female	Member of a cooperative + occasional work	Equal earner	Female responsibility	Equal responsibility	1
J_Gabriella	Female	Research grant + self-employed	Equal earner	Equal responsibility	Equal responsibility	1
J_Carlo	Male	Dependent self-employed	Equal earner	Equal responsibility	Equal responsibility	1
K_Aurora	Female	In the process of changing employment status (going into a scholarship)	Equal earner	Female responsibility	Equal responsibility	1
K_Nicolò	Male	Temporary work contract + self-empoloyed	Equal earner	Female responsibility	Equal responsibility	1
L_Lara	Female	On-call contract	Equal earner	Female responsibility	Female responsibility	1
L_Iacopo	Male	Dependent self-employed	Equal earner	Female responsibility	Female responsibility	1
M_Carlotta	Female	Scholarship	Equal earner	Equal responsibility	Female responsibility	1
M_Federico	Male	Scholarship	Equal earner	Equal responsibility	Female responsibility	1
N_Erika	Female	In the process of changing employment status (going into a scholarship)	Equal earner	Male responsibility	Male responsibility	3
N_Giovanni	Male	Fixed-term work contract + occasional work	Equal earner	Male responsibility	Male responsibility	3
O_Juliana	Female	Unemployed	Male breadwinner	Female responsibility	Female responsibility	2
O_Diego	Male	Dependent self-employed	Male breadwinner	Female responsibility	Female responsibility	2
P_Marta	Female	Unemployed	Male breadwinner	Female responsibility	Female responsibility	2
P_Pietro	Male	Fixed-term work contract	Male breadwinner	Female responsibility	Female responsibility	2
Q_Emma	Female	Fixed-term work contract	Female breadwinner	Female responsibility	Female responsibility	1
Q_Fabio	Male	Unemployed	Female breadwinner	Female responsibility	Female responsibility	1
R_Silvia	Female	Unemployed	Male breadwinner	Female responsibility	Female responsibility	1
R_Luca	Male	Fixed-term work contract	Male breadwinner	Female responsibility	Female responsibility	1
S_Monia	Female	Unemployed	Male breadwinner	Female responsibility	Female responsibility	2
S_Bruno	Male	Occasional work + on-call work contract	Male breadwinner	Female responsibility	Female responsibility	2
T_Luisa	Female	Dependent self-employed	Male breadwinner	Female responsibility	Female responsibility	1
T_Francesco	Male	Working without a contract	Male breadwinner	Female responsibility	Female responsibility	1
U_Chiara	Female	Dependent self-employed	Equal earner	Equal responsibility	Female responsibility	2
V_Tania	Female	Unemployed	Male breadwinner	Female responsibility	Female responsibility	1
V_Roberto	Male	Fixed-term work contract	Male breadwinner	Female responsibility	Female responsibility	1
W_Giulia	Female	Occasional work	Equal earner	Equal responsibility	Equal responsibility	1
W_Emilio	Male	Dependent self-employed + occasional work	Equal earner	Equal responsibility	Equal responsibility	1
TOTAL: 40 parents

In some cases, it was not possible to interview both partners in the couple due to their unavailability or because the subject had in the meanwhile found permanent work. In total, 22 mothers and 18 fathers shared their stories with me. These home-based individual qualitative interviews were all performed in the same city situated in Northern Italy and lasted 1 to 2.5 hours. During the interviews, respondents were asked about their work and family choices in the reconstruction of the past and present and in the projection of themselves into the future. To investigate imagined futures, I asked questions such as: What are your plans or expectations regarding work, family and your community life? Do you think you will need to downsize or sacrifice a prospect? And what prospects does your partner have? In your opinion, is it possible, in precarious working conditions, to make plans for the future? How do you feel about this aspect?

In this article, the analysis of the texts focuses on the epilogue of the stories. What the respondents reported was not the object of the analysis; it was rather how they concluded their stories (Riessman, 2008). After having fully transcribed and anonymized the interviews, the analysis was carried out in several steps with the support of the qualitative analysis software Atlas.ti. First, I found three forms of future projections, and then I adopted the abovementioned multidimensional model proposed by Ann Mische (2009) for their analytical analysis. I used its dimensions as codes in order not to test the model, but to analytically unpack the patterns identified and only extrapolate the conceptual categories of temporality that were the most suitable for the interpretation of the text. Finally I tried to understand whether any links existed between the imagined futures and the social, cultural and economic conditions in which the texts were produced (Riessman, 2008).

Hopeful open end

In the epilogues of the stories defined as hopeful open end, the subjects projected towards the future by describing their hopes, which did not regard actual plans or projects, but rather the dreams they hoped to realize. What characterizes this type of epilogue is the presence of a number of expectations, especially in relation to work.

I hope that I will have work in the future, that new opportunities will arise. I will clearly have to work hard to find new work, etc., and I realize that it will not be simple, but, well, I hope that I’ll be able to do it. (H_Giada)

In terms of expandability (Mische, 2009), the future possibilities depicted by subjects are thus seen as ‘growing’. Even if the subjects did not rely totally on their hopes, they expressed their desire for them to occur, considering a series of reasons linked to their previous work experience, to their hard work and the investments made to date, or as a result of opportunities that could arise from their network of contacts cultivated (Bourdieu, 1997). In the hopeful open end epilogue, the dimension of connectivity (Mische, 2009) is present as far as the subjects hold on tightly to their past experiences in order to look to face job insecurity. In this process, the imagined logic of connection ‘from here to there’ is more ‘expected’ than ‘planned’ and remains ambiguous.

With regard to work in educational institutions, I never know what hours I will have until about one month before. I can hope, let’s say, that [I will work] in these institutions each year between January and May, considering that it has been like that for the last three years. This is however what I hope for and not at all certain, in the sense that they usually call me. The same goes for the summer. When I finish the contract at the end of May, all in all, I can expect that they will also ask me to work in July, seeing as they run courses in July. However, and I repeat, I never know where I am until one month before. (F_Claudia)

In this form of epilogue, in which words such as ‘hope’, ‘wish’ and ‘expect’ are used, the projection that the narrator makes into the future is constrained by a series of ‘ifs’. The contingency dimension of the future projection, defined as ‘the degree to which future trajectories are imagined as fixed and predetermined versus flexible, uncertain, and dependent on local circumstances’ (Mische, 2009: 700), is very strong in this type of epilogue. In fact, the endings are linked to certain contingences that, in the subjective prospective, could or should take place. Sometimes it also occurs that the choices made with regard to family, such as the decision to have a second child, are made depending on a minimal number of conditions in the professional sphere. Below is the example of Emma, who, in reporting her future perspectives regarding family, makes the decision to have another child depend on the possibility that her husband, who at the time of the interview was unemployed, finds a job with a fixed-term contract, or the possibility that she receives a promotion and becomes a tenured teacher, something she has been hoping for some time.

We would very much like to have another child, however, obviously, at the moment our hands are tied in the sense that even if I wanted to become pregnant next year, I can’t, not until my husband finds a job, even one with just a fixed-term contract – it’s not like I’m asking for who knows what – I wouldn’t feel right about it; as afterwards it would really be. . . I don’t know, right now, what I mean is that I would be very worried, and so we will wait. But, even then, it’s not like I can wait forever because at 36 years of age, well, I can’t exactly have a child at 45 can I, what do you think? [. . .] The hope is that sooner or later I will get a tenured position, seeing as I’m second in line, and I really hope I get it, if not this year then perhaps the next, because at that point I could bear it. (Q_Emma)

The future projections are tightly linked to the life courses of other subjects in the family network. Here the sociality dimension becomes evident, which refers to the fact that the future projections are ‘peopled’ with others whose actions are seen as intertwined with our own (Mische, 2009).

In the hopeful open end the subjects try to see the future as opening up, grasping onto, however, a series of events that are expected but not planned, and that are constructed on the basis of past experiences and linked to the potential choices of other people in their network. Importantly, the subjects have no control over these events. Thus, in this form of epilogue, which is adopted more by the women, the self of the narrator is a slightly detached, it is less self-centred and their capacity to self-direct their own life course is low.

Of the men interviewed, this form of imagined future was only adopted by those who found themselves in a particularly insecure situation compared with that of their partner or by those who had not developed any alternative strategies, having invested everything in a single and little marketable profession. This final condition is well expressed by the concept of breadth (Mische, 2009), which refers to the range of alternatives considered as possible in different moments of a person’s life. For example, Paolo told me with a certain level of concern that he was unable to see any alternatives to his profession as musician, in which he had invested all of his life to date, and when projecting into the future he hoped that his wife would find a satisfactory job that would permit them a certain level of serenity, especially economically. He was very aware of the economic burden he carried and his greatest hope was that he would not become ill, not having any form of financial protection, otherwise, he said, ‘we will really be in trouble’:

Regarding the future, I hope that my wife will be able to find work. I would be really happy for her to have this; it would also relieve some of the pressure on me. I hope she finds something that she enjoys and is happy doing, if possible anyway; and I hope my orchestra manages to receive some subsidies, and that the conditions of my contract will be improved, and I really hope that I don’t get ill. Perhaps this is the thing that I hope for most of all, because if I do we will really be in trouble. (F_Paolo)

Discouraged open end

In the discouraged open end form, the loss of one’s grip over the future becomes extreme. Importantly, this form of (lack of) future projection by the respondents was only adopted by women. In this type of epilogue, the women ‘minimize’ or play down to the extreme their capacities to direct their own life courses, and they have little trust in their future, as if their investments in education and their past work experience had become unusable. In terms of expandability (Mische, 2009), the future possibilities are seen as ‘reducing’ or even almost non-existent. Importantly, this perception seems to be linked to social reproductive labour and, in particular, to having care responsibilities:

Nobody will ever take you on if you have children. Never, not for any position in the world. When you have lots of children nobody wants to employ you. (P_Marta)

The negative consequences of precariousness seem to be exacerbated by the pre-existing inequalities between the two genders. Whereas in the case of the hopeful open end, the respondents, although not going into any detail about their actual plans, cultivate hopes through which they are able to project into the future, in the discouraged open end, any future horizons of the women are cancelled and they convert their perceptions into an apparently ad infinitum of the present (Nowotny, 1994).

Interviewer:

With regard to the future, do you have any plans or expectations regarding work or family? Considering a long-term prospective, what do you see?

Mary:

I prefer not to think about it, absolutely not, and anyway I’d have to say, oh well, I’d have to study, to invest, invest time and money that won’t ever be returned, so why should I bother in the first place? And then where will I be? In the same place I am now, because there isn’t any work, that’s the problem.

Interviewer:

Do you prefer to think on a day-to-day basis then?

Mary:

I’d say so, perhaps it’s not nice, but it’s true, that’s just the way it is; it’s awful but that’s just how it is. (B_Mary)

The degree of extension of this kind of projection, i.e. the temporal dimension entitled reach by Ann Mische (2009), is abolished as if there were no temporal horizons to look towards. The life stories with this type of epilogue do not contain any plans or hopes; they are stories in which the capacity of the subject to act on the future holds less weight (Brown and Michael, 2003). In terms of volition (Mische, 2009), the women look towards their impending futures with disillusion and consequently renounce any attempt of trying to ‘intervene’.

Interviewer:

With regard to the future, what do you see?

Erika:

I’m somewhat discouraged because, on the one hand, I’m performing some interesting research [. . .], but on the other, I don’t see any future in it, because who would be interested in keeping me on? [. . .] My professor has retired [. . .] Everything still has to be sorted out, there are hypotheses for some job positions but I haven’t got much hope in them, so at the moment there are no prospects. (N_Erika)

It is possible to indentify some recurring characteristics in the group of women who close their life stories with a discouraged open end: they are women who, on the one hand, have seen periods of unemployment and/or have worked without any written contract; on the other hand, they are women who manage the majority of the housework and care responsibilities (with the exception of N_Erika). Thus, we are dealing with women who have already gone through difficulties in their lives with regard to work and see their futures with a certain level of despair, and with carrying the costs of the social reproduction of labour for other members of the family. In the light of a more processual understanding of precarization (Alberti et al., 2018), the analysis shows that the stories that display this type of ending are expressed by women with an evident sense of frustration:

So I’m here, still trying to get life started at almost 40 years of age, and still looking for some form of stability, you see, and all I see is. . . yes, that I haven’t achieved anything, anywhere. . . (O_Juliana)

We don’t know whether we’ll ever be able to draw a pension, and we don’t know where we’ll be in a year’s time, and this, at least for me, is extremely stressful. (N_Erika)

Confident open end

The confident open end is characterized by strong volition, intended as the relation of influence that the actor holds with regard to the impending future (Mische, 2009), and from a more extensive temporal prospective into which the subject is able to self-project. The respondents address their futures with a certain level of ‘trust’ and ‘tranquillity’ – these are the most recurring words used – operating a series of strategies, sometimes alternative, that align with their educational and professional journeys made until now.

Rarely did the women involved in this research offer endings characterized by such volition. The future projection of Gabriella, however, does offer one such example:

I have a plan B, in the sense that if they hadn’t renewed my contract, or if at any time in the future it isn’t renewed, the hospital is always asking me to increase my hours [. . .] and there the pay is good as a free-lance professional. [. . .] If I don’t have this job next year, I can increase my hours in the hospital [. . .]. Also because at university, well, the times are as they are, so if all things are well, they may offer you, if you win it, a research grant [. . .], and at the age of 25 it’s one thing, but at 36 it’s a bit different. . . So, let’s say, this is plan B: to centre everything on clinical work, so working as a VAT-registered free-lancer. (J_Gabriella)

These confident open endings were expressed by women who, with respect to their partners, were more qualified or had achieved a more stable professional standing. This result, in addition to confirming the significant impact that the level of education has on the perception of control, as a central resource upon which to build a life course (Mirowsky and Ross, 2007), seems to go in the direction indicated by bargaining theory, according to which the women are able to remain in the job market, even after childbirth, if they display resources that guarantee them greater power to negotiate with their partner (Lucchini et al., 2007).

Importantly, the female imagined futures of this type correspond to the only cases in which the distribution of housework and care work is shared equally between the partners. The women who close their stories with a confident open end do not only hold a stronger position in the job market than their partners, but they can also count on the fact that the social reproductive labour that reproduces a family and a household is equally distributed between the partners (couples J and W).

If, for the women, the confident open end is more of an exception, for the men it represents the most common ending, with the narrator expressing a confident outlook and seeing his future with a certain level of (apparent) tranquillity:

I don’t think we will have these problems any more by next summer, because in December, i.e. in a month’s time, I will leave for India for 20 days; I will be taking a group of people on a trip that I organized through the association. It’ll be a nice little earner for me, almost 4000 euros for just 20 days, plus, obviously, all the organizational work I’ve done. So, probably. . . this is the first time I’m doing the trip with a group, and if it isn’t a complete disaster, I will do another in June and another in September. This way I will cover the summer, let’s say; and my wife with, well. . ., her project is developing well and so she will receive a lot of job offers, as well as doing [a] wedding with the other project she has, so, in my opinion, this year will be a bit hard, but then it’ll just be a few more months and then we can relax a bit. (W_Emilio)

I’ve been working in this company for nearly two years now, and I see a lot of possibilities for the future, much more. . . let’s say, longevity: in the sense that I know that they have, for example, career plans for workers [. . .]. So, I can visualize a much better future for my children, that is for sure. (P_Pietro)

Even if these endings express the will of the subjects to control their life courses, and in terms of expandability their future possibilities are seen as increasing (Mische, 2009), all this occurs within scenarios that are not clearly defined. The degree of clarity and detail with which the future is imagined is nevertheless small because of their insecure work contracts, as Cristiano explained to me when talking about his academic career:

With regard to work, work prospects, well, I’ve always tried to live in the present, seeing as you can’t know what will happen next; sure, I feel relaxed enough to say that I will obtain more research grants. However, the law states that this can’t exceed six years [. . .]. Plus, there is the uncertainty linked to the fact that you just don’t know, because perhaps the new government makes new rules and everything changes again, and so it’s just impossible to make predictions because the same laws continue to change. (G_Cristiano)

Whereas in the hopeful open end, the future hangs on a series of events that the respondents hope will occur, in the case of the confident open end the respondents exhibit a greater level of perception of being able to direct their life courses or at least believe that many future possibilities exist and that they will be able to cope well enough. The men I interviewed regarded their futures with a certain level of confidence and did not notice the weight of the costs of social reproduction, as expressed by Cristiano: ‘I feel relaxed enough’.

Genres of future or gendered futures in the process of precarization?

This article makes a contribution to the recent debate that has opened up on the understanding of ‘precarious work’ (Alberti et al., 2018; Lee et al., 2011; McDonald, 2018; Moen and Sweet, 2004) and it highlights how precarization is a retrospective/prospective temporal process in one’s lifetime. Specifically, I argue that the future projection one envisages for oneself provides an important field of analysis for understanding both the productive and reproductive dimensions of precarization as social process and also the gender asymmetries within which the process is embedded.

Secondly, this article contributes to studies on temporality, by constructing an accurate typology of three different futures imagined by parents in precarious work (Carmo et al., 2014; Ylijoki, 2010). Importantly, the narrative analysis illustrates how the multidimensional model by Ann Mische (2009) can be applied to unpack the typical ideal future projections and identify their specific temporal dimensions. In the hopeful open end the future possibilities are seen as ‘increasing’ but constrained by a series of circumstances that are expected, but not planned, by the subject and that are linked to the past experiences and life courses of other members of the family network. The expandability dimension is thus tightly linked to the dimensions connectivity, contingency and sociality (Mische, 2009). In the discouraged open end, the opposite is true, and the future possibilities are seen as ‘diminishing’ or even almost non-existent as if there were no temporal horizons upon which to gaze. In fact, the women who formulated this type of epilogue seemed to renounce any attempt at ‘participating in’ their own futures (Brown and Michael, 2003). In this case, the dimension expandability links to the annulment of the dimension’s reach and volition (Mische, 2009). Conversely, what characterizes the confident open end is the stronger volition of the subject and a more extensive temporal prospective into which the subject is able to project. Despite the lack of clarity and detail, a greater perception of the respondents to be able to direct their own life course shines through. The investigation of time and temporality is central in the study of temporary labour (Neilson and Rossiter, 2005) and, more generally, it appears to be a promising research path especially today, as we are all experiencing a serious situation of uncertainty due to Covid-19.

Moreover, this article makes a third contribution as it sheds new light on gender politics at work in the projections into the future, grounding the analysis on the forms of social reproduction upon which the current mode of capitalist production is founded, as recently underscored by social reproduction theory (Bhattacharya, 2017). It is argued that, rather than talking about genres of future, it seems more correct to speak about gendered futures in the process of precarization, characterized by very different levels of quality of work life and capacity to ‘act’ on the future, which are crucial aspects in shaping decisions in the present. In this way, this article further expands on previous research on gender and precariousness (McDonald, 2018; Pugh, 2015; Williams, 2019; Williams and Neely, 2015). Specifically, the analysis reveals different perceived levels of an individual’s control between men and women that are grounded in both the productive and reproductive dimensions of precarization. This result is particularly evident in the most extreme modalities of future projection – the confident open end and the discouraged open end – which serve as a sort of template for the potential (or lack thereof) to act in the future in response to job insecurity.

The first is adopted by most of the men who do not feel the weight of social reproductive labour because it is being carried out by their partners and they therefore feel free to invest time and energy in their professional lives, bowing to the request of the current job market for flexibility. Only in the two cases in which the housework and care work were equally distributed between the partners were the women able to project into the future with confidence.

Conversely, the discouraged open end was only adopted by women and specifically by those who had already gone through periods of unemployment, who had worked under contracts offering less protection, and/or who had worked illegally at some point in their lifetime (Moen and Sweet, 2004). Importantly, not only are these the women who pay a greater price for the discontinuity of paid work and for the lack of protection, but they are also the women more burdened with the costs of social reproductive labour than all other family members (Lyonette and Crompton, 2015). To make temporary and flexible work produce value under conditions of capitalist production, the reproduction of the worker and their children, in the absence of an adequate system of protection and assistance, is achieved through gendered and uncompensated labour that reproduces a family, a household, and the workforce. This article underlines the need to look at precarious work under neoliberalism by going beyond the rhetoric of personal choice and individual responsibility (Mrozowicki and Trappmann 2020; Vallas and Prener, 2012), expanding the focus beyond the domain of work to include the household divisions of market and domestic work in order to problematize gendered future projections and to promote a new discourse about gender equality and collective responsibility for social reproduction.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to the two anonymous reviewers for their suggestions and useful comments. A special thanks also to all the women and men I interviewed for telling me their stories.

Funding

The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Anna Carreri

Author biography

Anna Carreri is research fellow at the Department of Sociology and Social Research of the University of Trento, Italy, and affiliated with the Research Centre SEIN – Identity, Diversity & Inequality Research, University of Hasselt, Belgium. Her research is conducted mainly through qualitative methods from an intersectional and critical perspective. Her main research interests are work-life issues, precarious work, and quality of working life in relation to changes in the labour market and the new forms of work organization. Currently, she is involved in research concerning gender inequalities in academic careers.

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