Job Quality Complexities

Abstract

This paper draws on feminist and Marxist traditions to develop a framework for analyzing job quality, which incorporates context, social relations, and power. Job quality among small business owners in low-income communities surrounding Cape Town, South Africa is analyzed using data from semi-structured, time-intensive interviews. The results reveal a complicated story of self-employment being a means of expressing creativity, forming identity and community, while simultaneously being characterized by insecurity and harsh constraints.