Karin Sardadvar

Low-Paid but Satisfied? How Immigrant and Ethnic Minority Workers in Low-Wage Jobs Make Sense of Their Wages

A ‘good job’ consists of the concepts of wages as an economic compensation, job status as a social status, and job satisfaction as a subjective psychological criterion, and it represents individual accomplishments in the labour market in regard to workers’ entire life (Bang and Lee, 2006). Job satisfaction in particular depends on objective working conditions as well as subjective factors (among others, Easterlin, 2001; Frey and Stutzer, 2002 for a review; Diener et al., 1999; Clark and Oswald, 1994, 1996; Poggi, 2010). As a rule, jobs characterised by low wages and low status are associated with a low level of job satisfaction (Eurofound, 2013b). However, this is not always the case.

Schwere Arbeit machen Männer Deutungen von Differenz und Strukturen der Ungleichheit in der Reinigungsbranche

Building upon an interpretative research approach, I present empirical findings on the social construction of difference in the Austrian cleaning sector. I argue that gendered interpretations of cleaning work and processes of (stereo)typing migrants on the micro level shape organizational processes in companies and are reflected in structural segmentation on sector level. I discuss findings on how work is being gendered, investigate the perspectives of war refugees from former Yugoslavia and analyze stereotypes on migrants in the sector and their consequences for organizational logics and employees’ working conditions.