This paper examines the wage premium to computer use in Sweden in the early 1990’s. I use simple regression model and interaction terms in my paper to examine the effect of computer use at work. Although the data is only one-year cross-section data, my results clearly show a wage premium to computer use in Sweden. There are also interesting findings in my paper by using Swedish data. From the results, I find wage premium to be related to intensity of computer use at work.

The global food industry continues to grow through mergers and acquisitions. The consolidation of grocery chains has necessarily led to increasingly large, heavily industrialized food processing firms. These manufacturers rely on large-scale, automated and mechanized production technologies to deliver controlled, consistent, and safe products to retailers. Using Bravermans (1974) deskilling thesis, and Standings (1992) three-part definition of skill as the basis for investigation, this research explores the effects of technological changes on the skills of food workers and focuses on the baking industry. The primary research site is the in-store bakery of a Co-op grocery store in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Observation took place over a two-week period, and semi-structured interviews were conducted with the bakers in the facility. Other research sites included two large-scale industrial bakeries in western Canada and a flour milling facility in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. The bread-making processes involved at the research sites are compared, and the impact of the technologies on the skills of workers at each site is discussed. The findings from the research support Bravermans deskilling thesis that bakers in the industrialized food system are experiencing deskilling. This erosion of skills is not only a result of the technological changes, but also, more importantly, the result of the social relations of production. The research also explores Human Resources and Social Development Canadas Essential Skills program. The findings of the research support the argument that the Essential Skills program is a classification scheme that is rooted in scientific management, and can serve to marginalize workers employed in non-knowledge-based occupations. Discussion of the findings also points toward the need to investigate different forms of ownership and their role in preserving the skills and knowledge of workers.

The global food industry continues to grow through mergers and acquisitions. The consolidation of grocery chains has necessarily led to increasingly large, heavily industrialized food processing firms. These manufacturers rely on large-scale, automated and mechanized production technologies to deliver controlled, consistent, and safe products to retailers. Using Bravermans (1974) deskilling thesis, and Standings (1992) three-part definition of skill as the basis for investigation, this research explores the effects of technological changes on the skills of food workers and focuses on the baking industry. The primary research site is the in-store bakery of a Co-op grocery store in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Observation took place over a two-week period, and semi-structured interviews were conducted with the bakers in the facility. Other research sites included two large-scale industrial bakeries in western Canada and a flour milling facility in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. The bread-making processes involved at the research sites are compared, and the impact of the technologies on the skills of workers at each site is discussed. The findings from the research support Bravermans deskilling thesis that bakers in the industrialized food system are experiencing deskilling. This erosion of skills is not only a result of the technological changes, but also, more importantly, the result of the social relations of production. The research also explores Human Resources and Social Development Canadas Essential Skills program. The findings of the research support the argument that the Essential Skills program is a classification scheme that is rooted in scientific management, and can serve to marginalize workers employed in non-knowledge-based occupations. Discussion of the findings also points toward the need to investigate different forms of ownership and their role in preserving the skills and knowledge of workers.

This is a study about the social work profession and the changes which now is being implemented, influenced by efficiency and digitalization. How social services works with financial assistance for those who can’t earn their own living is changing. The traditional street-level bureaucracy with face to face-meetings is being replaced by a more digital work method: “Trelleborgsmodellen”, where the bureaucrat doesn't meet the client during the assessment of the need of financial assistance. The data for the study was collected via three focus groups held in Trelleborg, Gotland and Lidköping. The result showed that bureaucrats in Lidköping and on Gotland had a fear that important details could go missing with the removal of the face to face-meeting. That fear was not present in Trelleborg, were they instead talked about all the benefits that they saw with a simplified, fast and effective administration process. That simplified process is a result of deskilling, the need for education in social work doesn't exist anymore in Trelleborg.

The aim of my research has been to explore, in the area of probation, the influence of the shift away from traditional social work values towards an emphasis on punishment, enforcement and the management of risk. In particular my focus has been on how this shift has influenced the methods by which practitioners undertake their role, with an increasing focus on risk assessment removing them from the principles engendered within their professional disciplines and further away from an empathetic and meaningful relationship with their clients. I examine the consequences of this shift through the ways in which criminal justice legislation, policy and practice have developed and impacted upon particular categories of offenders. The theoretical orientation of my work involves a dual focus on the deconstruction of the client and the practitioner. The former is redefined from welfare citizen to carrier of risk and criminogenic needs, while the latter is fragmented and deskilled into an operator of routine risk assessment and prediction techniques. I argue that an important outcome of these procedures is the deployment of a concept of 'pre-emptive criminalisation'. My research work, which is the basis of this submission, comprised three components: a comparative study of three mental health White Papers, a research study of the working of OASys (the Offender Assessment System) and a study of the effectiveness of risk assessment in the parole process. The research techniques involved mainly the reading of policy documents and the content analysis of OASys reports. My findings, detailed in my various publications, include an argument that the effectiveness of risk predictions involve precisely the type of high level practitioner skills now being undermined by deskilling and also illustrate the role of such risk predictors in the pre-emptive criminalisation of clients. The thesis concludes with an acknowledgement of the limitations of the type of research I have conducted and suggestions for directions in which it might be further developed.

Social scientists and food studies scholars have shown an enduring interest in how food is produced in our largely industrialized food system. However, there has been little research about the organization of labor on industrialized farms. These sites of production are mostly privately owned and hidden away from researchers and journalists, who are often perceived as critics or activists by farmers and other agriculturalists. My dissertation fills this gap by focusing exclusively on industrialized contract broiler farms. Contract broiler farming is a model where farmers agree to raise chickens for meat for a set amount of time, at a rate of pay based on the ratio of feed to chicken weight at slaughter. Farmers invest in the built infrastructure to execute this process, but the company they contract for is mostly in control of the upstream and downstream supply and processing chains that depend on the production of the broiler chicken for their continued functioning. I use archival, interview, and ethnographic data to detail the history of broiler farming, the emergence of contracting, and what the experience of it is like today. The most significant and novel part of this project is my ethnographic data collected over six months spent working on two broiler farms contracted with one of the largest firms in the US. To date, no other researchers have been able to gain this level of access. In this dissertation, I begin by exploring the role of management, detailing how the structure of the farming contract and ambiguous supervisory oversight facilitates farmer’s compliance with company demands. Then, utilizing agricultural and labor scholarship on deskilling in the labor process, I explore how poultry farming has become deskilled, robbing farmers of autonomy, the opportunity to agitate for better labor conditions, and ultimately eroding the intimate knowledge necessary to execute successful animal husbandry. Finally, I explore the games farmers play at work. While these games obscure how surplus value is appropriated from the farmer by the contracting firm, they also demonstrate farmer’s resistance and acquiescence to their deskilling and loss of autonomy.

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In this paper, I investigate changes in the job market composition during Sweden’s “Golden Age” between the end of WWII and the 1974 oil crisis to examine to which degree this reflects an earlier job polarization than previously thought and validates that era’s anxieties about automation. Drawing from individual income and occupational data from a representative sample of the Swedish population from the year 1940, 1950, 1960 and 1970 and using the Historical International Standard of Classification of Occupations (HISCO) to make the data sets comparable, I demonstrate a general decrease in the share of blue-collar professionals and a general increase in the share of white-collar professionals, as well as a transition from unskilled to semi-skilled and skilled jobs. This indicates skill-biased technological change as the underlying force in the Swedish economy at the time, refuting Gustavsson’s (2017) previous findings regarding an early Swedish job polarization as well as general claims about deskilling. Lastly, using Acemoglu’s (2017) framework for enabling and replacing technologies, I argue the degree to which the pervasiveness of enabling technologies helped shape the Swedish Golden Age has been underappreciated, carrying lessons for our current era of generation-defining technologies and contemporary discussions surrounding automation.

In many cases, the need to survive has been the reason for many individuals to leave their country and to start anew in a foreign land. Indeed, migration has played its role as one of the solutions to struggle against poverty among many migrants. Nevertheless, migration can also be an excellent way to improve or develop one’s linguistic, professional and cultural competencies. And one way of doing this is to be part of the au pair cultural exchange program. The interest to be an au pair as well as the interest to have an au pair has been the subject of colorful debates in Denmark, and pushing politicians to make an action due to reports of abuse by many host families. Where the au pair program will end up is still a question hanging up in the air. This study is about the journey of many young and educated Filipino migrants who have decided to embark on the au pair expedition. The theme is anchored on deprofessionalization and deskilling. Transnationalism, civic culture and cultural citizenship, and media are the central theories of the study. Feedback from the participants indicates that there is a need to shift the discussion and focus. It is also important that the au pairs’ knowledge and skills are recognized. The study recommends further research on how participatory communication can be utilized or applied to engage all the stakeholders: au pairs, host family, social organizations, sending and receiving countries, and mass media, in finding long term solutions. The ‘cultural exchange or cheap labor’ argument must not be ignored; however, debates should not be limited to this alone. Most of the au pairs are educated. Recognition of such qualifications must be done to create a new arena for discussions. Oftentimes, many au pairs themselves do not see this side of their background as something valuable. From a communication for development perspective, behaviour change- the au pairs should not see themselves as domestic workers, but as educated migrants, and this must be promoted and advocated, so that au pairs and members of the host society can acknowledge this unknown aspect of these unsung migrants. They are education migrants; it is only right and logical that the au pairs are supported to enhance their qualifications. Deprofessionalization and deskilling must be avoided.

Les immigrants qualifiés rencontrent plusieurs obstacles sur le marché du travail au Québec. Parmi les plus importants, selon les employeurs, on note leur manque d’expérience québécoise. Le Programme d’aide à l’intégration des immigrants et minorités visibles en emploi (PRIIME), géré par Emploi-Québec, veut combler cette lacune en offrant aux immigrants une expérience québécoise dans leur domaine de qualification. Cette recherche a donc pour but d’examiner dans quelle mesure un programme d’immersion professionnelle tel que le PRIIME permet une meilleure intégration des immigrants qualifiés dans leur domaine et de voir si celle-ci se poursuit à la suite du programme. L’approche qualitative permet de mieux comprendre les différents points de vue : employeurs, immigrants et intervenants au PRIIME. On observe que la participation des immigrants au PRIIME permet de réduire leur degré de déqualification en emploi, mais pas complètement. Ainsi elle permet souvent de retrouver un emploi lié au domaine de formation, mais en dessous du niveau de qualifications des immigrants. Le PRIIME rend également possible un maintien en emploi, sauf que l’effet n’est observé qu’à court terme. De plus, la participation au programme ne suffit pas pour que l’immigrant soit en mesure de contrer les obstacles à l’intégration professionnelle, car les quatre volets principaux du PRIIME sont très rarement appliqués ensemble dans une entreprise. Finalement, dans la perspective des marchés transitionnels de travail, la participation au PRIIME représente une « transition critique » offrant aux immigrants une meilleure intégration professionnelle à long terme. En somme, nous concluons que le PRIIME réduit uniquement le degré de déqualification des immigrants en les rapprochant de leur domaine de formation. Toutefois, il ne tient pas compte du niveau d’éducation de la personne. Même avec le PRIIME, plusieurs immigrants se voient forcés de recommencer leur carrière. / Skilled immigrants are currently facing a number of obstacles on the Quebec labour market. Amongst the most notable is the “lack of Quebec work experience”; as often brought up by employers. Professional immersion programs such as the Employment Integration Program for Immigrants and Visible Minorities (PRIIME), put forth by Emploi-Québec, targets this barrier and gives immigrants a chance at a local experience in their field of qualification. This research therefore aims to examine to what extent professional immersion programs such as PRIIME allow for a better integration of skilled immigrants within their field and, whether or not this integration continues subsequent to the end of the subsidy. A qualitative approach will help better understand the different perspectives of employers, immigrants and stakeholders of the PRIIME. It has been found that the participation of immigrants in the PRIIME reduces the degree of deskilling in employment, but not deskilling as a whole. It does allow immigrants to find an employment within their field of training. However, this employment remains below their qualifications. The PRIIME also allows for employment-retention, but the effect observed is based on the short-term. What is more, participation in the PRIIME does not allow the immigrant to counter integration barriers and obstacles mainly due to the fact that the four principal components of the PRIIME are rarely all used within a company. Finally, if applied in a paradigm of Transitional Labour Markets, participation in PRIIME represents a "positive transition” for immigrants that allows for better integration in the long run. In sum, we conclude that the PRIIME reduces the degree of deskilling of immigrants by facilitating entry into a position within their original field of training. However, the program fails to take into account the level of education of the immigrants. PRIIME or not, immigrants will often be forced to start over their careers.