Sponsor
Department of Sociology
Sarah Damaske is the Roy C. Buck Professor of American Institutions and Sociology, Labor and Employment Relations, and Women’s Studies at Pennsylvania State University, where she serves as the Associate Director of the Population Research Institute.
"The Tolls of Uncertainty: How Privilege and the Guilt Gap Shape Unemployment in
America"
In the Tolls of Uncertainty, Sarah Damaske argues unemployment is an institution— like workplaces, families, or schools—that both generates and reproduces inequalities. The unemployment institution exacerbates existing inequalities both through structural inequalities and through gendered and classed responses to the changes wrought by unemployment. Moreover, despite broad class distinctions in unemployment experiences, Damaske finds a gendered “guilt gap” that impacts everyday decisions from household labor to healthcare. Ultimately, Damaske contends the unemployment institution normalizes and legitimates employment precarity and the inequalities of today’s economy.
Department of Sociology