Call for abstracts on “The Digitalization of Work” ESPAnet Vienna - Deadline 4th April 2022
Scholars researching digital work are welcome to submit their abstracts for the first ESPAnet stream on the “Digitalization of Work: platform workers’ experiences and social policy responses to platform work in Europe” - Stream 10 of the ESPAnet (European Social Policy Association Network Annual Conference) Vienna, 14-16 September 2022. Please submit your 500 words abstract by the 4th April 2022 here .
Conference website: https://www.espanet-vienna2022.org
Submission website: https://espanet-vienna2022.exordo.com/login
Stream description
Legal and sociological analyses have thrown light on how digital work destabilizes employment relationships, but only recently scholars are beginning to investigate how the digitalization of work influences the welfare state. This stream investigates how the digitalization of work affects the experiences of digital/platform workers, the coalitional dynamics among social policy actors and the responses from social protection and labor market policies. The increasing use of digital technologies in productive processes and the diffusion of platform work exacerbate existing social risks and create new political dynamics in social-policy making. The stream invites empirical and theoretical submissions in two areas:
The digitalization of work poses new challenges for workers and labor market/social protection policies through the risk of technological unemployment, the increased ‘dualization’ of the labor market, the widespread use of bogus self-employment and the diffusion of digitally-enabled workplace surveillance. We welcome analyses looking at: i) the experiences of workers involved in digital and platform work and/or affected by AI/technological changes; ii) the existing gaps in social protection and labor market policies for these workers; iii) how welfare states respond to these gaps and to the ‘future of work’, in both national and European social policy (e.g., the European Commission’s legislative initiative on platform workers).
Classic issues in the politics of social protection and labor market reforms (such as power resources, employers/workers relations) can be re-examined through the lenses of digitalization. We welcome studies examining how broadly defined platform work: i) challenges established social partners (e.g. with platforms replacing employers) and incites new forms of workers’ mobilisation (e.g. the so-called ‘rider unions’); ii) introduces new dynamics of party representation; iii) influences the voting behaviours of the ‘losers of automation’ or their attitudes towards the welfare state.
The stream encourages the submission of multi-disciplinary and interdisciplinary papers that deal with platform work and social policies. We welcome contributions adopting comparative as well as case-study designs, employing a variety of methodological approaches (quantitative, qualitative or mixed methods) and considering different actors involved in this area (e.g., workers, governments, parties, social partners, riders’ unions).
Chairs:
Lorenza Antonucci (School of Social Policy, University of Birmingham) l.antonucci@bham.ac.uk
Matteo Marenco (Faculty of Political and Social Sciences, Scuola Normale Superiore) matteo.marenco@sns.it
