Nonstandard Work

Challenge of Definition

The term nonstandard in and of itself is relative to a state and definition of “standard” employment; it is dependent upon national and societal contexts. Thus, where standard employment means wage and salary employment, expected to be steady and year round, with a single employer and on the employer's premises, and usually full-time, then nonstandard work arrangements are those that diverge significantly on one or more of these dimensions. For example, in the United States, NSW includes temporary help agency work, on-call and day labor work, and short-term/limited hiring. Some researchers have referred to standard employment as the “standard employment relationship” or “regular employment.”

The definitional challenge is multifaceted. What constitutes standard employment varies according to custom and practice, law, and policy across countries. In some countries with weak regulatory regimes, it also varies across union and nonunion settings and across industries.

This diversity has raised some concerns about ambiguity in the concept. Nevertheless, for much of the post-World War II period, Western industrialized countries have generally shared a pattern of year-round, full-time, steady employment with a single employer as standard employment. Similarly, in the developing world, “newly industrialized countries” and other emerging economies have adopted this norm of employment for large firms and offices of multinational corporations.

Among industrialized/developed countries, there has been one notable pattern of cross-national variation. Countries with less-regulated labor markets—such as the United States and the United Kingdom—experience more within-country and cross-sector variation in the meaning of standard employment and, therefore, in the incidence of nonstandard work. Still, these differences notwithstanding, all industrialized countries hold a norm for standard employment that entails steady employment with a single employer.

Challenge for Policy and Regulation

The reason nonstandard work matters for workers, organizations, and, ultimately, policy is that over time, systems of insurance (health, unemployment) and old-age pension—whether universal systems or those that are employer based—have been predicated on steady employment and an employer duty of contribution. Also, the mechanisms for labor standards protection (wage, hours, and health and safety) and for representation rights at work have been built around the norm of standard employment. As a whole, these systems are referred to as “social protection” systems.

Since the mid-1970s, employment has diversified from the norm of standard employment. This diversification has resulted in gaps in coverage from insurance systems, leaving some workers excluded. When the number of workers in NSW was small, the policy concern was minimal. As NSW has grown and established itself as a steady share of total employment and the variety of NSW arrangements has increased, the challenge for the policy apparatus has become more apparent and compelling. Policy systems have come under pressure to evolve if they are to keep up with employment change and provide an equivalent degree of social protection to all workers, regardless of employment arrangement.

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