Precarious Work and the Distribution of Social Risk

The problems faced by people in precarious or insecure work are often described in terms of risk. This derives from the observation that difficulties are not confined to the material consequences of actually losing one’s job, but include a cluster of issues linked to the existential state of precarity. For example, the impossibility to make long term life plans, or to engage politically in a civic community seems to be attached more to the risk of losing job and having to change one’s life plan and changing places, rather than the actual loss of occupation. For these reasons, the so called ‘precariat’ is characterised in terms of risks and opportunities that certain workers have compared to other workers who hold more stable jobs, rather than in terms of material disadvantage, such as differences in salary. In discussions of social justice it is therefore important to bring in the issue of the distribution of risk. This paper argues, first, that there is a plausible representation of the precariat as affected by some social risks (opposed to risk deriving simply by natural circumstances or choice). Precarious work is a burden to some people to the benefit of others. Second, the paper asks what counterbalancing measures of social security are required in order to counterbalance inequalities and socialise risk. In different countries, the ongoing reform of the labour market has been accompanied by different kinds of welfare state reform, featuring a number of different combinations of flexibility of the labour market and social security (or “flexicurity” systems). The third part of the paper critically discusses how some of those different welfare reforms interpret duties of social justice. It proposes that a focus or redistributions of freedom rather than redistribution of risk can offer a more accurate picture of the sort of welfare issues that such reforms should address.