EWS PREWO. A LONGITUDINAL AND COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE ON PRECARIOUS JOBS AND IN-WORK POVERTY

Researchers from Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Germany suggest organizing a number of workshop on the themes precarious work (PW) and in-work poverty (IPW) in order to reflect on the optimal ways to conduct research on these phenomena in a Nordic and Europe an perspective. While a working poor person can be understood as person living in a household with an income below some internationally or nationally agreed poverty line, i.e. with an income that is not sufficient to earn a living for oneself and ones f amily members, precarious work can be understood as employment that is uncertain, unpredictable, and risky from the point of view of the worker. Working poverty and precarious jobs are phenomena that previously affected a very limited proportion of the populations of the European welfare states. However, recent research as well as reports from the EU and ILO indicates that working poverty and a precarious job situation may affect a larger than expected or even growing proportion of the working populatio n in many European countries. Still, the evidence concerning European trends when it comes to the proliferation of precarious work and in-work poverty is mixed not least due to the fact that defining and measuring these phenomena in a comparative perspe ctive is difficult. Some researchers even argue that definitional chaos engulfs the concepts of working poverty and precarious work. Thus critical R&D challenges in relation to this topic relates to: The two concepts themselves (PW and IPW), how they ar e interrelated, measurement of these two phenomena, relevant sociological theory, already available quantitative and qualitative data, relevant quantitative and qualitative methods for their study, existing and potential political remedies to meet these c hallenges, finding research funding for comparative research.