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The author argues that we must stop and take a look at what our insistence on human labour as the basis of our society is doing to us, and begin to search for possible alternatives. We need the vision and the courage to aim for the highest level of technology attainable for the widest possible use in both industry and services. We need financial arrangements that will encourage people to invent themselves out of work. Our goal, the article argues, must be the reduction of human labour to the greatest extent possible, to free people for more enjoyable, creative, human activities.

Here Marx's philosophy is dissected from the angle of bourgeois capitalism which he, Marx, sought to overcome. His social, political and economic ideas are criticised. Although it is noted that Marx wanted to ameliorate human suffering, the result turned out to be Utopian, contrary to his own intentions. Contrary to Marx, it is individualism that makes the best sense and capitalism that holds out the best hope for coping with most of the problems he sought to solve. Marx's philosophy is alluring but flawed at a very basic level, namely, where it denies the individuality of each person and treats humanity as “an organic body”. Capitalism, while by no means out to guarantee a perfect society, is the best setting for the realisation of the diverse but often equally noble human goals of its membership.

This book is a policy proposal aimed at the democratic left. It is concerned with gradual but radical reform of the socio‐economic system. An integrated policy of industrial and economic democracy, which centres around the establishment of a new sector of employee‐controlled enterprises, is presented. The proposal would retain the mix‐ed economy, but transform it into a much better “mixture”, with increased employee‐power in all sectors. While there is much of enduring value in our liberal western way of life, gross inequalities of wealth and power persist in our society.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the work-life (WL) experiences of live-in women migrant domestic workers (MDWs), who represent a significant proportion of migrant workers globally. MDWs play a key role in enabling the work-life balance (WLB) of others, namely the middle-class households that employ them. Yet, their experiences have largely been invisible in mainstream WL literature. The authors draw on an intersectional approach to frame the WL experiences of this marginalized group of women at the intersection of being secondary labour segment workers, with significant legal and employment restrictions as migrant workers, who work and live in the same place as their employers.

Qualitative interviews were conducted with 13 women MDWs from Indonesia and the Philippines working in Malaysia. The women talked about the meaning of work as MDWs, how they maintain familial connections whilst working abroad, and how they negotiate their WLB as live-in workers. Thematic analysis of the interviews focused on the intersection of the women’s multiple dimensions of disadvantage, including gender, class and temporary migrant-foreigner status, in shaping their accounts of the WL interface.

Three thematic narratives highlight that any semblance of WLB in the MDWs’ lived experience has given way to the needs of their employers and to the imperative to earn an income for their families back home. The themes are: working as MDWs enables the women and their families back home to have a life; the co-existence of WL boundary segmentation and integration in relation to “real” and “temporary” families; and the notion of WLB being centred around the women’s ability to fulfil their multiple duties as MDWs and absent mothers/sisters/daughters.

The study is based on a small sample of live-in women MDWs in Malaysia, intended to promote typically excluded voices and not to provide generalizable findings. Accessing potential participants was a considerable challenge, given the vulnerable positions of women MDWs and the invisible nature of their work.

Future research should adopt a multi-stakeholder approach to studying the WL experiences of women MDWs. In particular, links with non-governmental organizations who work directly with women MDWs should be established as a way of improving future participant access.

The study underscores the existence of policies and regulations that tolerate and uphold social inequalities that benefit primary labour segment workers to the detriment of secondary labour segment workers, including women MDWs.

Extant WL literature is dominated by the experiences of “the ideal work-life balancers”, who tend to be white middle-class women, engaged in professional work. This study offers original contribution by giving voice to a taken-for-granted group of women migrant workers who make other people’s WLB possible. Moreover, the study challenges WL research by underscoring the power inequities that shape the participants’ marginal and disadvantaged lived experience of work, life, family and WLB.

The Drifters are ten long-term unemployed British men. The Drifters’ unemployment is consensual: the men believe they have chosen to “not work” and rely upon welfare benefits for their socio-economic survival. The purpose of this paper is to present micro sociological analysis of the Drifters’ existences which focuses upon first, exploring why the Drifters’ consensual unemployment has resulted in them experiencing high levels of stigma in their everyday lives; second, analysing the Drifters’ (micro) relationships with (macro) unemployment policies.

Primary, qualitative data were elicited from the Drifters during two phases of fieldwork. In both phases of fieldwork, the author conducted semi-structured qualitative interviews and participant observation-based research with the Drifters to generate data on how the men subjectively experience and account for the intersection of consensual non-work, welfare reliance and stigma in their lives.

In the pseudonymous locale where the Drifters reside (Dramen) displaying a willingness to work is – despite high rates of local unemployment – a social expectation and marker of “respectable” masculinity. By living lives of consensual non-work and welfare reliance, the Drifters violate a localised cultural code and are accordingly stigmatised. Rather than attempting to manage their stigma, the Drifters ritually indulge in secondary deviant behaviours. This amplifies the Drifters’ statuses as reviled agents. The Drifters lack employment options. The Drifters have been able to successfully exploit unemployment benefits. Accordingly, the Drifters’ non-work is somewhat inevitable, rather than lamentable, as many citizens in Dramen believe; and as wider current right-leaning political and media rhetoric relating to unemployment implies.

Examinations into the lives of non-consensually unemployed males exist. However, the lives of males who are unemployed apparently consensually – i.e. out of choice – remain under-researched. This paper functions as a micro empirical corrective, which diversifies the way male unemployment in capitalist societies can be viewed; and which offers a fresh look at how proposed unemployment welfare reform may impact the Drifters and the group in British society which the Drifters represent more broadly.

There is a growing interest in living labs (a research concept in which innovations are co-created with end-users and tested in practice) as a method to test and develop health and social care innovations. However, little is known about their effect on the care organization and care providers’ quality of working life. By using the Flanders Care Living Labs program (Belgium) as a case study, the purpose of this paper is to explore how innovations in a living lab context may affect those issues.

This qualitative study combined data from document analysis, in-depth interviews and focus groups involving 23 care innovation projects. Deductive category application was used for analyzing data.

Outcomes indicate that 22/23 care innovation projects resulted in organizational changes, and that 22 affected at least one care provider’s quality of working life. Surprisingly, no project deliberately intended to affect the care organization and quality of working life. Future care innovation projects should focus on actual innovation and its implications for specific end-users, and on the broader organizational consequences and the possible effect on the care providers’ work.

This is the first study that specifically focused on care innovation’s effect on the care organization and on the quality of working life within a living labs context.

This paper aims to understand how the residents have utilized domestic spaces and furniture during three months' lockdown time for the Covid-19 virus spread measures and to explore how domestic living practices were adjusted which had been the daily urban activities previously.

The research method is a qualitative interpretivist philosophical approach with a quantitative data collection. Short questionnaires were conducted via e-mails with attached links via SurveyMonkey. The sample was the group of people who had been in active urban life before the pandemic and had been actively working at the office spaces.

Separate learning/working spaces were urged at home, at least for the set intervals in the daytime. Production in the kitchen also acted as an interactive production and entertainment. Balconies and terraces were re-discovered and acted as “urban-substitute open spaces”. The living room became the new venue for domestic interaction especially during working-learning breaks, for watching movies, personal care or reading sessions. Computers, tablets and smartphones became the urban activity base due to online meeting applications for social reasons, online shopping, working and learning. The separation of domains at home became essential.

The study only focuses domestic uses of white-collar workers; during the lock-down period, Covid-19 pandemic. Sampling constraints are the employees who were active urban life before the pandemic and working at the office space. Sharing the house at least with one other roommate, sibling or spouse with or without children. Individuals who had not been working outside the home before the pandemic, people aged over 65, retired, permanent home workers, housewives, freelancers and other such demographic structures are excluded from the study.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the first wave lockdown began between early March–June 2020, and millions of people were confined to the dwellings. “Staying home” stood for working-learning-shopping-interacting online, more production in the kitchen, using the living room as a domestic multi-functional venue, spending time on the terraces and balconies as domestic open spaces. The active living in the urban context dramatically shifted to “at-home living”.

The study only focuses on the three months' interval in which strict rules for staying home were enforced in Istanbul, Turkey. Schemas, charts and tables are generated concerning the input. The study challenges the making meaning via praxis of “to dwell” and urban living. Nevertheless, the main questions of housing such as production, social aspects, shared spaces, interaction are re-configured and the substitute urban space is created at home.

This study aims to examine the relationship between the quality of working lives and the perceived stress of health personnel working in a hospital specialized in physical medicine and rehabilitation services.

This descriptive correlational study was conducted with health personnel providing medical, sport and vocational rehabilitation in an education and research hospital. The Quality of Work Life Scale (QWLS) and the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) questionnaires were used to collect data. Descriptive statistics were used for quantitative analysis.

There was a positive correlation between their stress scores on the QWLS and perceived stress on the PSS. The highest score on the QWLS was obtained from the dimension of working conditions (3.47), and the lowest score was obtained from the dimension of stress (1.34). The mean score on the PSS was 33.18 ± 3.29. No significant relationship was found between participants’ scores on the PSS and their demographic characteristics.

There is a need to improve the quality of rehabilitation providers’ working lives by reducing their work-related stress.

As rehabilitation personnel play an important role in protecting and promoting the health of vulnerable groups in the society, it is a main priority to examine the relationship between rehabilitation providers’ perceived stress and the quality of their working lives.

A self‐help guide to achieving success in business. Directed more towards the self‐employed, it is relevant to other managers in organizations. Divided into clear sections on creativity and dealing with change; importance of clear goal setting; developing winning business and marketing strategies; negotiating skills; leadership; financial skills; and time management.