This book presents an institutional ethnography of budgeting processes of commissioning contracts within welfare, education, and health ministries as case studies. With the historical surge in the power position of economic globalization organizations and their impact on public sectors’ withdrawal from the role of primary women’s employers, a gap between care worker employees and public sector administrators with respect to skill recognition has emerged in Israel. The book examines precisely how this gap is produced, enacted, and turned into a force that shapes the experiences of women in service and caring jobs. Increasingly more researchers are interested in the unexpected consequences of outsourcing; this account enters the Israel studies researchers’ debate over the extent to which the neo-liberalization of Israel had restructured its welfare orientation. Exposing the operation of service delivery in the gendering of women’s work may thus be intriguing for those participating in this debate. The analysis of the data presented here enables a portrayal of the negotiating and budgeting processes at work, which in turn sheds light on the salience of deskilling and de-professionalization to women’s disenfranchisement.

In Unsettled Labors, Rachel H. Brown explores the overlooked labor of migrant workers in Israel’s eldercare industry. Brown argues that live-in eldercare in Palestine/Israel, which is primarily done by migrant workers, is an often invisible area where settler colonialism is reproduced culturally, economically, and biologically. Situating Israeli labor markets within a longer history of imperialism and dispossession of Palestinian land, Brown positions migrant eldercare within the resulting tangle of Israeli laws, policies, and social discourses. She draws from interviews with caretakers, public statements, court documents, and first-hand fieldwork to uncover the inherently contradictory nature of elder care work: the intimate presence of South and Southeast Asian workers in the home unsettles the idea of the Israeli home as an exclusively Jewish space. By paying close attention to the comparative racialization of migrant workers, Palestinians, asylum seekers, and Mizrahi and Ashkenazi settlers, Brown raises important questions of labor, social reproduction, displacement, and citizenship told through the stories of collective care provided by migrant workers in a settler colonial state.

This incisive Handbook offers a timely and critical analysis of the gendered nature of public sector employment. Bringing together key theoretical, conceptual, and empirical research from around the world, Hazel Conley and Paula Koskinen Sandberg examine the ways in which female public sector workers experience intersectional discrimination in the workplace.

Taking up the concept of vulnerability, this book examines the gendered impact of market-based procurement practices. In recent years, ideological shifts and real managerial constraints have forced states everywhere to rely on private resources to solve public problems. Focusing on instances where the state retains ownership of assets and rights, even if it temporarily devolves its authority to a private entity (profit or non-profit), this book uncovers the ways in which these private actors are not just suppliers of materials goods, but increasingly policy influencers. More specifically, the book focuses on the gendered dynamics within the law, policy, and practice of public procurement and investigates how vulnerability is conceptualized and coded in the process of public acquisition of works, goods, and services from private suppliers. In this book, a series of rich case studies from Africa, the Middle East, and Europe show how vulnerability theory can inform the design of public institutions that are more responsible and responsive to gender-informed demands for social justice. This is the first book to integrate vulnerability theory into public procurement studies in global and comparative perspectives, and it will appeal to scholars and others with interests in gendered dynamics in law and society, international development, public policy, and international political economy.

This collection examines the ongoing shared struggles of diverse groups of women in Canada and beyond focusing on a diverse range of themes to explore the centrality of gender and feminist praxis in western and non-western contexts.

Comprehensive and interdisciplinary, this collection explores the complex, and often problematic, ways in which the news media shapes perceptions of poverty. Editor Sandra L. Borden and a diverse collection of scholars and journalists question exactly how the news media can reinforce (or undermine) poverty and privilege. This book is divided into five parts that examine philosophical principles for reporting on poverty, the history and nature of poverty coverage, problematic representations of people experiencing poverty, poverty coverage as part of reporting on public policy and positive possibilities for poverty coverage. Each section provides an introduction to the topic, as well as a broad selection of essays illuminating key issues and a Q&A with a relevant journalist. Topics covered include news coverage of corporate philanthropy, structural bias in reporting, representations of the working poor, the moral demands of vulnerability and agency, community empowerment and citizen media. The book’s broad focus considers media and poverty at both the local and global levels with contributors from 16 countries. This is an ideal reference for students and scholars of media, communication and journalism who are studying topics involving the media and social justice, as well as journalists, activists and policy makers working in these areas.

This open access book addresses the current debate on extended working life policy by considering the influence of gender and health on the experiences of older workers. Bringing together an international team of scholars, it tackles issues as gender, health status and job/ occupational characteristics that structure the capacity and outcomes associated with working longer. The volume starts with an overview of the empirical and policy literature; continues with a discussion of the relevant theoretical perspectives; includes a section on available data and indicators; followed by 25 very concise and unique country reports that highlight the main extended working life (EWL) research findings and policy trajectories at the national level. It identifies future directions for research and addresses issues associated with effective policy-making. This volume fills an important gap in the knowledge of the consequences of EWL and it will be an invaluable source for both researchers and policy makers.

Job quality matters; it is offered as a solution to an array of social and economic challenges, yet the terminology used to define it is varied. This handbook explores the complexity of job quality, for whom or for what job quality matters most, and the diverse range of its contributions and applications to social, economic, and political concerns.

Bringing together research from critical diversity studies and organization theory, this edited collection challenges unspoken norms and patterns of discrimination in organizational bodies. The authors problematize the management of diversity by focusing on the differentiations between racialized, aged, gendered and sexed bodies. By taking a fresh approach and placing the body at the forefront of power relations, this thought-provoking book seeks to challenge the homogenizing and oppressive dimensions of organizational governance, structure and culture that deny bodily difference. An insightful read for scholars of HRM, diversity management and organization, Diversity, Affect and Embodiment in Organizing encourages an active approach to tackling discrimination and recognizes the diversity of embodied lives.

This volume addresses different aspects and areas of inequality in Israel, a country characterized by high levels of economic inequality, poverty, and social diversity. The book expands on the mechanisms that produce and maintain inequality, and the role of state policies in influencing those mechanisms.