Employment restructuring and the search for flexibility: The case of non-standard employment in Ireland

This thesis examines many dimensions of employment flexibility but predominantly focuses on non-standard employment or contractual flexibility. It is a broad and comprehensive examination of non-standard employment in Ireland and examines the extent of such employment, the nature and social bases of non-standard employment, the relationship between non-standard employment and other forms of employment flexibility, and the implications of non-standard employment.;Overall, based on the results of this study, non-standard workers in Ireland in general fared better in comparison with studies based non-standard workers in less regulated labour markets such as the USA and Canada. Non-standard employment in an Irish context is a diverse experience and the impact of non-standard employment varies considerably depending on job type, gender and the outcome in question.;The study is based on the Irish version of the 2001 International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) Work Orientations module, which is a national representative sample of the adult population. The results show that non-standard employment in its various forms accounted for almost half of the respondents in the study. Self-employment was the largest category (18%) followed by permanent part-time (10.6%), temporary/seasonal (9.6%) and contract employment (8.3%). Overall the analyses portray a picture of diversity on many levels, from the nature of the jobs themselves, the people in the jobs and the outcomes of such employment and in particular the economic implications. From an economic perspective while standard workers were in a superior economic position relative to their non-standard counterparts, the extent of difference varied with the economic indicator in question and/or the specific comparison between standard and non-standard forms of employment. However, in general respondents in non-standard work arrangements had less opportunities (in terms of income and career mobility), rewards and resources than their standard counterparts which translated into a poorer economic position. In addition to the economic implications there are also clear gender issues inter-woven into the many aspects of non-standard employment, as also are life course and institutional factors.