Sociology 2166A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Deskilling, Skilled Worker, Visible Minority
1 Jan 2020
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Historical trends (implications for skill): scientific management, fordism, said to decrease skill, expansion of managerial, professional, and other planning jobs implies increase, some suggest polarization. Debates: braverman: control of work is increasingly being removed from workers. Two trends: deskilling, skill polarization: bell: labour market change with the expansion of the service economy leads to skill upgrading. More employment in jobs requiring skill (today, service sector is actually associated with sill polarization; its distribution is bifurcated) Debates continued: "knowledge economy argument": with technological change, workforce is more educated. Working now seen to require an intelligence that working did not require in the past: relationship between education and skill is not as clear as it appears, this makes determining skill trends difficult. - also tendency of employers to want to hire most educated workers, regardless of skill demands of job. Skill can increase, while autonomy and control decrease: *evidence about skill trends may support such an explanation.
