Monthly Archives: March 2013

Don’t Hire Smokers?

Posted on March 28, 2013 by

Dueling perspective articles in this month’s New England Journal debate whether it is ethical for employers to refuse to hire smokers. Health care employers (including the University of Pennsylvania Health System, which is owned by my employer and the employer … Continue reading →

Posted in Blog posts | Tagged , , | 7 Comments

Is it OK to let people trade in their employment rights for shares?

Posted on March 18, 2013 by

Last October, the UK Chancellor George Osborne announced a new scheme to allow employees to trade employment rights for shares in their company. The idea is that, in exchange for signing away their rights to unfair dismissal, redundancy pay, and … Continue reading →

Posted in Blog posts | Tagged , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

How did Kools become Black, and Marlboros White?

Posted on March 17, 2013 by

In 1971, a team of ethnographic researchers conducted focus groups with 24 African American young men in Chicago to explore the men’s sense of identity as well as their hopes and frustrations. The authors concluded that although the African American … Continue reading →

Posted in Blog posts | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

So should we bother with ‘microclasses’?

Posted on March 14, 2013 by

Earlier in the year I published two blog posts on ‘microclasses’ – the idea that your specific occupation is an important structuring factor for the social world, beyond its position in a broader class. In this post I look back at … Continue reading →

Posted in Articles | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Is there life after work? The welfare state in a future without jobs

Posted on March 2, 2013 by

Peter Frase argues that liberals are wrong to focus on universal employment: “Forget job creation, we need to do more job killing. Cutting the military budget, reining in the financial sector, and dismantling the prison-industrial complex will destroy many jobs. … Continue reading →

Posted in Articles | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments