The Handbook for the Future of Work
1st Edition
Will be published approx. on 22. June 2026
Book
Paperback/Softback
424 pages
978-1-032-35591-7 (ISBN)
Description
The Handbook for the Future of Work offers a timely and critical analysis of the transformative forces shaping work and employment in the twenty-first century.
Focusing on the past two decades, the handbook explores how technological advancements, automation and a shifting capitalist landscape have fundamentally reshaped work practices and labour relations. Beyond simply outlining the challenges and opportunities of automation, the handbook integrates these emerging realities with established discussions of work. Importantly, it moves beyond dominant technology-centric narratives, probing into broader questions about the nature of capitalism in a time of crisis and the contestation for alternative economic models. With contributions from established and emerging authors, based in institutions around the world, the handbook offers a systematic overview of the developments that have sparked radical shifts in how we live and work, and their multifaceted impacts upon social relations and identities, practices and sectors, politics and environments.
The handbook is unique in its exploration of the potential for economic transformations to reshape the centrality of work in our social and political imaginaries. A useful resource for students and researchers, the handbook serves as an essential guide to this new intellectual landscape.
Chapter 9 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives (CC-BY-ND) 4.0 license.
Focusing on the past two decades, the handbook explores how technological advancements, automation and a shifting capitalist landscape have fundamentally reshaped work practices and labour relations. Beyond simply outlining the challenges and opportunities of automation, the handbook integrates these emerging realities with established discussions of work. Importantly, it moves beyond dominant technology-centric narratives, probing into broader questions about the nature of capitalism in a time of crisis and the contestation for alternative economic models. With contributions from established and emerging authors, based in institutions around the world, the handbook offers a systematic overview of the developments that have sparked radical shifts in how we live and work, and their multifaceted impacts upon social relations and identities, practices and sectors, politics and environments.
The handbook is unique in its exploration of the potential for economic transformations to reshape the centrality of work in our social and political imaginaries. A useful resource for students and researchers, the handbook serves as an essential guide to this new intellectual landscape.
Chapter 9 of this book is freely available as a downloadable Open Access PDF at http://www.taylorfrancis.com under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivatives (CC-BY-ND) 4.0 license.
Reviews / Votes
"Develops a sophisticated approach that explores the ongoing interdependencies between pasts, presents and futures of work as these play out at the intersection of technological advancements, geopolitical realignments and evolving worker demands. In doing so, this book opens-up rather than closes-down the future of work - both as a topic for research and an opportunity for contestation."Professor Susan Halford, University of Bristol
"A rich, insightful and provocative examination of disruptive histories and futures of work. The interdisciplinary, international approaches challenge established boundaries of analysis and explanation. Emerging working practices, differentiated experiences, global political challenges and environmental concerns shape the kaleidoscopic understanding of change and the potential role for agency in that process. A welcome pleasure and provocation to read - you will learn something and it will make you think again."
Professor Jacqueline O'Reilly, ESRC Centre for Digital Futures at Work, University of Sussex
"This handbook provides an innovative and valuable antidote to mainstream and strictly quantitative analyses of work and employment in the 21st century. Moving beyond technological determinism and unreflective speculation, it is critical, inter-disciplinary, theoretically rich, substantively diverse, and ultimately indispensable for scholars wishing to understand the present and future of work."
Professor Michael Samers, Department of Geography, University of Kentucky
"Ambitious, open-minded, and comprehensive, The Handbook for the Future of Work offers a catalogue of emerging realities for working people. Intrigued by technological change and troubled by socio-ecological crises, the volume insists on the possibilities of different trajectories. Spanning continents, sectors, and intellectual viewpoints, this is a truly remarkable effort."
Professor David Jordhus-Lier, Department of Sociology and Human Geography, University of Oslo
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Taylor & Francis Ltd
Target group
College/higher education
Postgraduate and Undergraduate Advanced
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Illustrations
6 s/w Tabellen, 6 s/w Zeichnungen, 4 s/w Photographien bzw. Rasterbilder, 10 s/w Abbildungen
6 Tables, black and white; 6 Line drawings, black and white; 4 Halftones, black and white; 10 Illustrations, black and white
Dimensions
Height: 244 mm
Width: 170 mm
Thickness: 23 mm
Weight
712 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-032-35591-7 (9781032355917)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
Julie MacLeavy | Frederick Harry Pitts
The Handbook for the Future of Work
E-Book
12/2024
1st Edition
Routledge
€68.49
Available for download
Julie MacLeavy | Frederick Harry Pitts
The Handbook for the Future of Work
Book
12/2024
1st Edition
Routledge
€309.10
Shipment within 10-20 days
Julie MacLeavy | Frederick Harry Pitts
The Handbook for the Future of Work
E-Book
12/2024
1st Edition
Routledge
€68.49
Available for download
Persons
Julie MacLeavy is a Professor of Economic Geography at the University of Bristol, UK specialising in feminist political economy, economic transformations and new forms of work. She is the Theme Lead for the 'Innovation, Transition, Change' challenge within the new Academic Research Hub for the Prevention of Gambling Harms at the University of Bristol, co-Editor-in-Chief of Geoforum and Treasurer of the Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers) Economic Geography Research Group. Julie is the co-editor of The Handbook of Neoliberalism (Routledge) and author of Enduring Austerity: The Uneven Geographies of the Post-Welfare State (University of Bristol Press), which examines how austerity policies create an uneven landscape of work and welfare opportunities across different communities.
Frederick Harry Pitts is a Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of Exeter's Cornwall Campus in his hometown of Penryn, where he is also the Director of Business Engagement and Innovation for Humanities and Social Sciences. He is a Co-Investigator of the Economic and Social Research Council Centre for Sociodigital Futures, a Fellow of the Institute for the Future of Work, Secretary of the British Universities Industrial Relations Association and an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at University of Bristol Business School. He is the author or coauthor of five previous books, most recently Marx in Management and Organisation Studies: Rethinking Value, Labour and Class Struggles (Routledge).
Frederick Harry Pitts is a Senior Lecturer in Politics at the University of Exeter's Cornwall Campus in his hometown of Penryn, where he is also the Director of Business Engagement and Innovation for Humanities and Social Sciences. He is a Co-Investigator of the Economic and Social Research Council Centre for Sociodigital Futures, a Fellow of the Institute for the Future of Work, Secretary of the British Universities Industrial Relations Association and an Honorary Senior Research Fellow at University of Bristol Business School. He is the author or coauthor of five previous books, most recently Marx in Management and Organisation Studies: Rethinking Value, Labour and Class Struggles (Routledge).
Content
Part I: Introduction 1. An Introduction to The Handbook for the Future of Work Part 2: Futures of Work in Context 2. The future of work: A history 3. What is the fourth industrial revolution? Towards a critical theory of the future of work 4. Financialisation of work futures Part 3: Automation, Technology and the Future of Work 5. The political economy of labour and technological disruptions in capitalism 6. Automation and the future of work 7. Resisting determinism(s): Unpacking cognitive technology and automation Part 4: Platforms, Platform Labour and Gig Work 8. Platform labour and gig work futures: Uncovering women's hidden digital labour 9. Non-labour platforms and their effects on work in specific sectors: a major gap in recent research on work and employment 10. Fighting the algorithm: The rise of activism in the face of platform inequality Part 5: Identity and Difference in the Future of Work 11. A future of racial capitalism: Reproducing coercion through new digital labour in South Africa 12. Disability and the Future of Work 13. Work, wealth and the future: Evolving class structures and social mobility in a changing world of work Part 6: Gender, Care and Social Reproduction 14. Gender and The Future of Work in the Affective and Agile Economies 15. Queering the Future of Work: Queer and trans temporalities for (re)thinking work and social reproduction 16. Care and the Future of Work Part 7: Sectoral Case Studies 17. Services are the future of work 18. Industry 5.0 and the future of work in manufacturing in Australia 19. A means to an end? The role of technology in growth and post-growth futures of agrifood work in a European context Part 8: Labour Market Transitions and Insecurity 20. Young Workers: Understanding labour market transitions and improving job quality 21. Considering the futures of unpaid work 22. Navigating self-employment in the evolving landscape of work: reflecting on the past and anticipating the future Part 9: Mobilities and Geographies of Work Futures 23. Global production and the future of work: Past, present and futures of just-in-time 24. Reshaping the geography of work: Remote worker migration and regional dynamics in the post-pandemic era 25. Resisting precarity in city-regions Part 10: Policy and the Politics of Work Futures 26. Industrial relations and the futures of work: efficiency, equity and voice in the 21st century 27. Welfare policy: the role of social protection and active labour market programmes in the future of work 28. Politics and the future of work: Routine work, automation risk and redistributive preferences in the age of populism Part 11: Environment and the Future of Work 29. Green jobs, just transition and the future of work 30. Energy transitions and the future of decent work in Asian garment factories 31. Thermal Futures of Work: Intertwined economic and environmental trajectories under climate change Part 12: Conclusion 32. Conclusions and future challenges: The end of work and the end of history