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Chapter 12 discusses the world of work from a sociological perspective. Canada can be understood as an industrial society, characterized by mass production, mass distribution, mass communication, and mass consumption. This is enabled by new forms of technology and machinery as well as specialization and the division of labour. In this complex system we see not just different types of work but different categories of work, including the rise of professions, the use of bureaucracy to manage complex organizations, and the McDonaldization of work.
Conflict theorists focus on class distinctions between workers and those who control capital, as well as on unequal class differences under industrialization. They also examine how the changing nature of work is a change in response to new technologies of production and management. Functionalists look at how the stratification of occupational tasks, prestige, and pay serves to allocate resources to valued work, so that jobs which provide a lot of value are well compensated. Feminist analysis identifies stratification in the workplace marginalizing groups, with different outcomes in occupational attainment and unequal earnings along gendered, ethnic, and Indigenous lines. Symbolic interactionists see how different jobs are perceived and how people develop and reinforce identities through their work.
Canada today is a milieu of globalization and neoliberalist principles, of opening markets to competition and global influence. We find that this has positive and negative consequences for workers, depending on their position in the global marketplace. Furthermore, contemporary technology in this environment has the capacity to alleviate routine or boring work; however, it also has the potential to replace human workers and increase workplace inequality by creating a digital skills gap.