Social inequality

• As a sociologist who studies how people think and feel about work, I’ve been struck by the unflattering cultural narrative that has intensified around work in recent years.
• A Wall Street Journal headline from November 2023 summarized the sentiment aptly: “Why is Everyone So Unhappy at Work Right Now?”

• Some interpreted the tumult in the labour market as evidence that workers were simultaneously fed up and empowered to seek better working conditions.
• But not all commentators have bought into this narrative.
• If the portrayal of the Great Resignation — especially its purported personal causes — tainted work attitudes, then widespread discontent should be apparent.

Americans’ perception of work

• The distance between the two represents the perception glitch.
• That’s a 30-point perception glitch.
• Thirty-two per cent of workers describe their own work as highly stressful, but 69 per cent believe that most Americans are in highly stressful jobs.
• Underpaid: When you think about the pay you get for your work, do you feel you are underpaid, paid about right, or overpaid?
• That’s a 39-point perception glitch.

‘Everything is terrible but I’m fine’

• They could also reflect a cognitive bias in which we pay attention to negative information about others, revealing our tendency toward individual optimism but social pessimism.
• My research with Paul Glavin, a sociologist at McMaster University, has started to measure the consequences of the “unhappy worker” narrative.
• And yet, after years of negative rhetoric, a mindset shift towards believing work isn’t a necessary evil couldn’t hurt.

Scott Schieman receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

• For the event, the company is highlighting its Plant-Based Butter and its Açaí, Passion Fruit and Brazil Nut Oils.
• André Sabará, Commercial Director of Concepta Ingredients, highlights the importance of being present at an event of this size, held in London, which is expected to welcome more than 30,000 professionals from the food and beverage industry.
• During the event, Concepta Ingredients will also present the Bio Abundance Program, which reinforces its commitment to Brazilian forests.
• Brazilian biodiversity products are the result of various projects based on forest conservation and contribute directly to community development.

• The Investment Readiness Program has played an integral part in strengthening the social finance ecosystem in Canada."
• "We are so grateful to the Government of Canada for the generous contribution from the Investment Readiness Program.
• The Investment Readiness Program conducted a successful pilot program from 2019 to 2021, investing $50 million in 680 social purpose organizations across Canada.
• The Investment Readiness Program was renewed in 2021 with the investment of an additional $50 million, which was distributed to 460 social purpose organizations across Canada.

• They have placed the blame on the informal occupation of abandoned buildings, a phenomenon known as “hijacking”.
• They have also blamed immigrant populations who, they say, are the primary residents of such buildings.
• To solve the problem, they argue, hijacked buildings should be expropriated and redeveloped by the private sector.
• The rhetoric by politicians and city officials treats the latest tragedy as a freakish problem of hijacked buildings occupied by migrant populations.

A pervasive problem

• Yet this problem is not limited to hijacked buildings.
• As these cases show, eradicating “hijacked” buildings would not have solved failures to comply with fire regulations in legally occupied buildings in the city.
• Nor would eradicating “hijacked” buildings remove the risk of fire posed to low income groups across the city as a whole.
• But the shack dwellers movement Abahlali Basemjondolo successfully challenged this initiative in the Constitutional Court.

Disposable lives

• According to the geographer Martin Murray, shack fires underscore the disposability of the lives of the poor.
• South Africa’s acute levels of inequality and poverty mean that some people can afford to buy their way out of risks while others cannot.

Helping without eradicating

• Government does indeed have a vital role to play in promoting the right to decent housing for all.
• A good example is the City of Johannesburg’s recent inclusionary housing policy that obliges developers to include affordable housing in all projects.
• These and many other measures – rather than the impulse to “eradicate” – are the basis through which society cares for vulnerable people.