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This chapter offers a variety of explanations for some of the facts discovered in Chapter 1. Of particular interest is the male-female differences in the amount of total work — market work plus household production. A theory of the mechanisms by which social norms can affect sex roles in market and non-market productive activities is developed. The chapter then proceeds to consider the welfare implications of coordinating non-market activities within a local or national economy and develops a model that helps to explain some of the findings in Chapter 1 on the timing of market work.

Most studies on the impact of rising female employment on earnings inequality ignore the amount of time that women, and men, devote to unpaid work. Focusing on heterosexual married/cohabiting couples, this chapter assesses women's contribution to couples' total market earnings (from paid work), as well as their contribution to couples' “extended” earnings, where extended earnings is the sum of the value of paid and unpaid work. It shows that hours of non-market work are more evenly distributed across households than are hours of market work; vary relatively little in terms of market value; and are negatively correlated with hours of market work. Thus, higher levels of non-market work in a country have an equalizing effect, with important implications for inter-country rankings of equality that vary according to methods of valuation.

The book’s conclusion argues that the SSA should pursue a “mend it don’t end it” approach to the evaluation of labor market work adjustment issues in SSA adjudication. The conclusion further argues that the suggested alternatives to the current system and statutory and regulatory disability standards are either fundamentally misguided or politically unpalatable and not justified by program facts and trends and American intuitions on the social construction of disability. It urges the agency to resist the temptation, to which it has succumbed in virtually all regulatory changes or proposals, to make its strict statutory and regulatory disability standard even less inclusive. It makes a series of recommendations to fix the current broken system through empirically supported updating and measures to remedy identified deficiencies, inequities, and inconsistencies in the program. a

This chapter describes Swedish developments with respect to output and market work activity. It discusses several aspects of the Swedish institutional setup that repress market work activity. The discussion highlights the role of high tax rates on labor income and consumption expenditures, wage-setting arrangements that compress relative wages, and business tax policies that disfavor labor-intensive industries and technologies. The chapter describes these features of the Swedish institutional setup and provides evidence of their consequences based on Swedish outcomes and international comparisons. The chapter also identifies some noteworthy policy changes since 2006 and their potential effects on market work activity in Sweden.

Labour law doctrine has fully incorporated discrimination, but labour law theory has not. Market ordering is labour law’s villain, but employment discrimination theory often casts market ordering as a victim needing rescue from employers’ irrational judgements or non-economic motivations. This chapter traces the tension by examining the place of bilateral employee–employer relationships in both domains, including alternatives that adopt divergent structural perspectives on, for instance, capitalism and white supremacy. An example of bridging the divide by decentring the market is offered. This occurs through a unified account of direct and indirect discrimination grounded in liberal egalitarian thought. Although addressed to the distribution of economic opportunity generally, the particulars of this account require interventions in discrete employee–employer relationships. Also considered is how the argument’s form—in which idealised market ordering is fundamental neither to the problem nor the solution—might extend to labour law’s concerns with workplace subordination, not only distribution.

The introduction makes it clear that the book’s intention is to display the social representations created by the Rio Favela. The book proceeds to speak of the author’s journey through sociology as she finds her research focus. She recounts favela removal in Brazil, done in the sixties and resourced from the Alliance for Progress, a program funded by the U.S Agency for International Development. It is explained that the removal was uncalled for, and on the contrary, urban improvement is what there a need is for. It is further explained that the working-class housing market should be considered separate from the regular housing market because it has its own set of rules, adapted to working-class residents’ living situation.

New social risks have arisen due to the deepening of global labour division and the invasion of digital technologies into the production of goods and the delivery of services, but also due to changing preferences and individual work capacities over the life course. As these risks are not only connected with unemployment but also with income volatility due to critical life-course transitions (in particular, between family work and labour-market work, lifelong learning and employment), the need to extend unemployment insurance (UI) towards a system of employment insurance becomes evident. This argument is developed by focusing on the investment character of social insurance against the mainstream view of moral hazard related to any insurance, and by providing good practices or opportunities from various European member states.

Economists consider leisure as the residual after subtracting for basic bodily maintenance (sleep, eating, and hygiene) and labor market work. Their definition of leisure is very broad. Where does time spent in household production, such as cleaning and meal preparation, fit? What about commuting time? Aristotle viewed leisure as a lifestyle free from the necessity of work or its accompanying uses of time. The leisured person would use his time for contemplation and self-reflection. More recent commentators debated whether leisure was truly “free” time. Chris Rojek suggests that leisure is imbued with work implications, so it is never completely free time. The book uses the economists’ definition of leisure as a residual, but it will then examine the various uses of discretionary time.