Mobility Strategies of Precarious Employees and the Formation of Precarious Habitus

Abstract

This article considers the social mobility trajectories for vulnerable employees involved in precarious employment. The authors define two types of justifying involvement in precarity — forced or voluntary choice. Forced choice of precarity is more typical to elderly employees (to Soviet generations). Precarity as a necessity comes as the result of labor market structural transformations, devaluation of certain professions — for example, working-class and engineer jobs — and leads to downward social mobility into the precariat. Most of the interviewed precarious employees of elder generations negatively evaluated their current social standing and were nostalgic about the state of social welfare. Voluntary involvement in precarity is more common among younger employees of post-Soviet generations. Young employees justify their “voluntary” choice of precarious employment by a flexible timetable, an interesting job, opportunities for self-development, a short commute, etc. However, as the interview analysis shows, precarious workers of post-Soviet generations do not make such a choice voluntarily: rather their choice is affected by the operations of social structures. Mobility of young employees within the low-resource networks, which easily allow for finding and swapping precarious jobs, confines them inside the precariat and limits their opportunities for upward social mobility. The authors conclude that precarious employment forms a specific habitus and an individualistic subjectivity among vulnerable employees. Short horizons of planning, perception of precarity as “normal” (“everybody lives like that”) and a specific lifestyle with a limited set of social opportunities — these are the key traits of a precarious habitus. This article is based on material from 75 biographical interviews with precarious employees, aged between 23 and 58 years, residing in large industrial centers of Russia — Yekaterinburg and Samara.