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Call for papers: New Work - New Problems? Gender Perspectives on the Transformation of Work
Conference of the Gender Studies Committee of the Swiss Sociological
Association and the Lucerne
University of Applied Sciences and Arts (LUASA)
7
th
-8
th
September 2023
Lucerne – Zentralstrasse 9
Conference language: English
Keynote 1
st
day: Prof. Lena Hipp, Ph.D., WZP (Berlin Social Science Center)
Keynote 2
nd
day: Prof. Dr. Karin Schwiter, UZH (University of Zurich)
New work – new problems?
Since the 20
th
century, paid employment has played a
central role in
guaranteeing social integration and livelihoods. In the tradition of Frithjof Bergmann, “new work” indicates
a shift where paid work should serve the workers (and not the opposite) and
provide them with meaning
and satisfaction.
Digitalization, globalization and the resulting flexibilization shape the way we work.
Autonomy at work, self-organization and flexible working patterns are on the upswing as “new work”. We
observe, however, an ambiguous impact on the workers. Precarity, exhaustion and exploitation, thus the
opposite of the ideal “new work”, is what many employees currently experience. Furthermore, new work is
ambivalently intertwined with the question of gender equity: Changing working conditions
and environments
nourish hope for greater gender justice in the context of more egalitarian work cultures. Naturalizing
arguments that women – as better team players – will profit from these changes fall short, since research
has shown that the flexibilization of working conditions has reinforced and normalized the high commitment
employees should
show towards their employer, including working late and full-time. This reproduces the
prototype of the ideal male worker.