Contingent Employment, Workforce Health, and Citizenship By Marc ...

Chapter 1

Introduction

One of the most important changes affecting work and workers in (non)industrialised countries over the last 2 decades is the spread of contingent forms of work. Contingent employment is a mode of work organisation that is characterised by transitory employment relationships, such as short- or fixed-term contract, part-time, casual/on-call, self-employment, seasonal, and temporary help agency work. It emerged as a significant form of employment in the context of global capitalism—that is, the globalisation of trade, investment, production, and intensified economic competition (Benach, Amable, Muntaner, & Benavides, 2002; Heery & Salmon, 2000), as well as the associated corporate responses to these changes, such as organisational restructuring, downsizing, and outsourcing (Connelly & Gallagher, 2004; Mayhew & Quinlan, 1997; Sparks, Faragher, & Cooper, 2001).