Open AccessSocial insecurity of freelance workers: objective position and subjective perception
Author(s) -
Галина Георгиевна Карпова,
Анастасия Сергеевна Убогова,
Анна Александровна Федосеева
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
inter/interakciâ. intervʹû. interpretaciâ
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2687-0401
pISSN - 2307-2075
DOI - 10.19181/inter.2019.19.4
Subject(s) - vulnerability (computing) , social position , perception , qualitative research , value (mathematics) , position (finance) , social psychology , sociology , social vulnerability , scale (ratio) , psychology , demographic economics , public relations , social relation , political science , business , geography , social science , economics , computer security , cartography , finance , neuroscience , machine learning , psychological resilience , computer science
This article is devoted to the social vulnerability of freelance workers and the way it is represented in dierent dimensions of precariousness. According to the previous studies, we identifed the categories of social insurance (fnancial, juridical, lack of social guaranteesand lack of personal well-being) and the most common indicators within each. We conducted a qualitative research using in-depth semi-formal interviews with 21 employees older than 18 years, who are engaged in freelancing at the moment or had such experience in the last couple of years. The number of informants included employees for whom freelance is one of the main sources of income for at least one year. During the interview, the informants were speaking about the subjective assessment of social precariousness and also answered to some questions aimed at identifying the objective features of the precious situation in employment status. In the analysis of subjective assessments of social precariousness, it was revealed that informants cannot be divided into categories according to the degree of precariousness, because they can experience social vulnerability in one or several areas at the same time. According to the results of the study, we propose to consider precariousness as a certain scale from 0 to the maximum value of the insecurity parameters. This approach will take into account the importance of subjective assessment of freelancers’ position, while the dichotomy “precariat — free agent”, which is mostly shared by researchers, does not consider the complexity of this social phenomenon.