Research Findings

Social scientists are raising alarm about the “end of work” and the “post-work society.”  Whether caused by AI, financialization, gigification, or something else, the future of work is uncertain.  What happens to gender inequality when jobs disappear?  In this post, I imagine four scenarios about men’s and women’s future labor force participation and their implications for feminism and feminist sociology today. 

Of course, not everyone believes that massive job loss is in our future.  Some social scientists believe that AI and automation will increase the number of jobs.  Maybe new jobs will replace those that will be eliminated.  But in this post, I want to take seriously the possibility of massive job loss, asking what it could mean for the future of gender inequality. 

Ask people a blunt question about race, and a striking number will not say yes and will not say no. Presented with the statement that some racial or ethnic groups are born more intelligent than others, or that some cultures are simply better, they reach for the safety of the middle category: “neither agree nor disagree.”

We tend to read that answer as neutrality, the absence of prejudice. In national surveys of 4,137 people in the United States and the Netherlands, published in International Sociology, we found that it is closer to the opposite. The silence in the middle can be an easily overlooked form of what we term “ambivalent racism,” which quietly helps keep inequality in place.

In Australia, as in many other developed market economies, fatherhood ideals are shifting with some fathers wanting to be involved in caring for their children. Access to flexible work, which enables men to make choices about ‘when’, ‘where’ and for ‘how long’ they engage in work-related tasks, is key to supporting this shift. But not all work can or will provide this flexibility.

While scholars contest the flexibility of gig work due to the use of algorithmic management, offers to incentivize worker behaviour, and the fact that the availability of the work is subject to customer demand, on-demand gig work platforms like to portray themselves as enablers of flexible work. For example, one of the largest platforms, Uber, markets itself as offering a flexible  alternative for workers seeking greater control over their schedules.

Uber likes to market itself as the future of work.

In a recent article, we argue that it also belongs to a much older American story: a line that runs from multi-level marketing organizations like Amway, through franchises like McDonald’s, to today’s platforms.

We call that longer history sponsored entrepreneurship. These are business models that invite people to act like independent entrepreneurs while supplying the brand, product, infrastructure, or operating system from above.

Just after midnight in a Hangzhou, China livestreaming studio, a woman sells skincare to an audience of strangers. Her name is Amber-1. She blinks, tilts her head, and holds eye contact a beat too long as she works through her pitch in polished, tireless Mandarin: “This cream is what every girl dreams of. This is our star product. Its ingredients are…” She will keep going until sunrise, because Amber-1 is an AI avatar, and she never needs to sleep.

Viewers notice. “Robotic,” one writes. “Fake,” “AI,” others chime in. They are right, and in this studio it does not matter. By morning, Amber-1 will have sold roughly 60 percent of what her human predecessor sold in the same overnight slot, at a fraction of the cost. Within months, the agency that runs this channel will cut its roster of human streamers from six to two.

In 2025, officials in the Trump administration proposed overhauling the U.S. refugee system to favor White applicants. Their rationale cited a familiar academic claim: that ethnic diversity weakens social trust and community bonds.

But what if that research got the story wrong?

Mario and Emma, two young college graduates in Spain and the U.S., were both unemployed, having trouble making ends meet, and dependent on financial support from their families. They shared similar experiences with “socioeconomic insecurity” (defined as employment precarity and economic instability). But, as they talked to me about their experiences and plans, they revealed very different perceptions of how insecurity textured their lives. For instance, Mario described a sense of being stalled waiting for better conditions: “There’s a lot of plans we can’t make now, and we have to hang on with what we have.” Emma, in contrast, described a sense of being in constant movement, trying to figure out a way forward: “You go with the flow and you make it work no matter what.”

In my recent article, published in Work and Occupations, I sought to understand these cross-national differences. I asked: How do people perceive socioeconomic insecurity? Where do their perceptions come from, and what are the consequences?

We are living in a new Gilded Age. A tiny sliver of the population gets richer and more powerful every day. Most of these billionaires and politicians want what elites have always wanted: to ensure their kids inherit their elite status.

Some will successfully entrench their families in the upper class, and some won’t.  In a new study, I ask how some elite families successfully entrench themselves in the upper class while others don’t. I argue that individual control over vast fortunes does not in and of itself guarantee elite heirs.  Upper-class entrenchment is a collaborative family project that cannot be reduced to wealth alone.

In 2020, more than two million platform jobs were added to the U.S. economy. Workers are drawn by the prospect of flexibility in a job without fixed schedule and the potential to earn money on-demand.  Yet the same apps that promise independence often leave workers dealing with low pay, uncertainty, and long hours.

In a recent article, we argue that this tension, between rhetoric and reality, it is central to how platform work operates.

We call this tension the platform paradox: platforms invite workers to see themselves as independent entrepreneurs while quietly tightening control over how they work, present themselves, and spend their time.

Organizations invest heavily in systems meant to ensure fairness—competency models, structured interviews, standardized performance reviews, and carefully crafted criteria for promotion.

Yet anyone who has spent time inside a workplace knows that decisions rarely follow the prescribed rules. A candidate isn’t quite the “right fit.” An employee “lacks presence.” A manager can’t quite “see” someone in a leadership role. These intuitive, seemingly harmless phrases reveal something deeper about how advantage is sustained.