Coping with precarious working conditions in household contexts: Lifestyle patterns, social situations, biographical histories

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In the social sciences, an extensive and reliable body of research on the forms and consequences of precarious employment has emerged in recent years. Much less is known about the social contexts in which precarious work takes place. Especially households, as living environments and economic units, warrant considerably more attention by sociologists. Although debates on social policy issues frequently invoke the compensatory powers of families, social networks, and spatial environments, there is nonetheless an immense lack of systematic research on their effects as stress-mitigating or stress-inducing factors. As long as the significance of such effects has not been studied systematically, identification of insecure labor participation is potential to jeopardize and socially exclude individuals will be inadequate. The goal of the research proposal submitted here is the systematic examination of household contexts by investigating both employment relationships and living conditions. The study will address the coping strategies of households that are confronted with precarious employment realities. The research project will consequently focus on households and families, as social institutions of daily life and economic activity, in times of increasingly precarious employment. The ways in which different types of households that are permanently or recurrently confronted with precarious employment conditions function as economic units is the central question in this study. Does the household constitute a resource that helps to overcome the difficulties associated with precarious working and living situations, or does it instead reinforce the negative impacts of precariousness? What roles do external sources of support play in household planning or management of the household, when external refers here to relatives or close social relationships as well as public infrastructure and government transfers? Do changes in ways of living and household structures lead to an increasing significance of family ties or social networks in coping with precarious social situations? To answer these questions, biographical narrative interviews with members of households will be conducted for different household constellations that have relied exclusively and for longer periods on precarious employment. The project will center on interviews with all household members aged sixteen and over and persons living outside the household that play a substantial role in supporting it. The emphasis is thus shifted from individual biographies to households and families, their common history, and their lifestyle patterns and coping strategies. The project will broaden the perspective on the social implications of precarious employment to consider precariousness as a collective challenge in household contexts, rather than an individual problem.