Statusinkonsistenz revisited! Prekarisierungsprozesse und soziale Positionierung

Based on results from the author’s own empirical investigations and various findings from research on precarious employment and social mobility, this contribution asserts that more and more individuals from various social classes are now forced to deal with insecure social status, with fragile status combinations, and with fears of status loss. Nonetheless, the effects of what is termed here ‘status turbulence’ on the subjective experience of individuals, their strategies for action, and their expectations for the future, as well as the relationship between precarious life situations and social status, continue to be neglected areas of research. In order to close these gaps, this text argues that the concept of status inconsistency, which has long played a rather marginal role in work on inequality in the social sciences, should be modified to utilise its potential as a tool for qualitative studies of precarious employment from the perspective of the sociology of work. In this way, social scientists can analyse socio-biographical status inconsistencies that have emerged as a result of changes in the world of labour and the introduction of new welfare state policies and investigate their effects on individuals and society.