Kincaid, R., & Reynolds, J. (2023). Unconventional Work, Conventional Problems: Gig Microtask Work, Inequality, and the Flexibility Mystique. The Sociological Quarterly, 1-23. https://doi.org/10.1080/00380253.2023.2268679

Gig work platforms often promise workers flexibility and freedom from formal constraints on their work schedules. Some scholars have questioned whether this “formal flexibility” actually helps people arrange gig work around non-work commitments, but few studies have examined this empirically. This paper examines how hours spent in microtask work – a form of gig work with high formal flexibility – influence work-to-life conflict (WLC) relative to conventional work hours, and how these relationships differ by workers’ gender and financial situation. Fixed-effects regressions using panel data from workers on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk platform (MTurk) suggest that microtask work hours are just as closely associated with WLC as conventional work hours. Moreover, microtask work disadvantages the same groups as conventional work (i.e. women and financially struggling workers). Only financially comfortable men seem immune from microtask hours’ association with WLC. This suggests that the benefits of gig work’s formal flexibility are often elusive. We argue that platforms like MTurk promote a flexibility mystique: the illusory promise that gig work empowers workers to set their own schedules and earn decent income without disrupting their personal/family lives. The gig economy’s expansion may thus do little to bring work-life balance to the masses or alleviate inequalities at the work-life nexus.

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The Accidental Equalizer: How Luck Determines Pay After College by Jessi Streib

A startling discovery—that job market success after college is largely random—forces a reappraisal of education, opportunity, and the American dream.

As a gateway to economic opportunity, a college degree is viewed by many as America’s great equalizer. And it’s true: wealthier, more connected, and seemingly better-qualified students earn exactly the same pay as their less privileged peers. Yet, the reasons why may have little to do with bootstraps or self-improvement—it might just be dumb luck. That’s what sociologist Jessi Streib proposes in The Accidental Equalizer, a conclusion she reaches after interviewing dozens of hiring agents and job-seeking graduates.

Streib finds that luck shapes the hiring process from start to finish in a way that limits class privilege in the job market. Employers hide information about how to get ahead and force students to guess which jobs pay the most and how best to obtain them. Without clear routes to success, graduates from all class backgrounds face the same odds at high pay. The Accidental Equalizer is a frank appraisal of how this “luckocracy” works and its implications for the future of higher education and the middle class. Although this system is far from eliminating American inequality, Streib shows that it may just be the best opportunity structure we have—for better and for worse.