Zukunft der Arbeit und soziale Nachhaltigkeit

Sustainable Development

2004

146

Sustainable development is based on the integration of four dimensions: the economic, the environmental, the social and the institutional. For the economic dimension in particular, growth has been considered an essential element of sustainable development. This paper discusses the relationship of social, environmental and institutional sustainability objectives to economic growth and derives social and environmental criteria for growth to be sustainable. One of the most sophisticated sustainability studies developed for Germany is introduced, demonstrating the need and the possibility to reconcile economic, social, environmental and institutional objectives. Integrated politics taking into account all four dimensions when drafting policy plans are a necessary precondition for this behalf. Based on two sustainability scenarios with a different emphasis (growth, integration) five core action zones for policy making are identified. The criteria derived can be used as yardsticks assessing policy proposals at an early stage regarding their impact on key sustainability objectives. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.

Section: Social Sustainabilitymentioning

confidence: 99%

Reconciling sustainability and growth: criteria, indicators, policies

Sustainable Development

2004

146

“…It not only provides the most important source of income; the entitlement to social security payments is based on earlier participation in the workforce, and the social contacts in the workplace are also essential for individual well-being. This means that new concepts of social sustainability need to discuss new models of the welfare state and a new role for paid labour as one element of what was called 'mixed work', with community work, caring work and work as a self-provider as other elements of equal relevance (Brandl and Hildebrandt, 2002;Hildebrandt, 2002;Spangenberg, 2003).…”

Section: The Social Sustainability Criteriamentioning

confidence: 98%

Assessing social sustainability: social sustainability and its multicriteria assessment in a sustainability scenario for Germany

Omann

2006

IJISD

Social sustainability is a qualitative criterion, which has to be applied to different domains, i.e., the economy, society and the population. It is challenged by current political and economic developments. Based on a German study comprising discourse-derived narratives and extensive modelling, this paper demonstrates how the social sustainability of strategies for sustainable development can be evaluated.For this objective, a simplified form of 'horizontal', i.e., non-hierarchical, explorative Multicriteria Analysis (MCA) is applied. First, the social quality criteria developed by the project are used for the assessment, and secondly, criteria from the literature are applied to the same scenario. The MCA demonstrates that strategies exist, which combine economic and environmental success with social sustainability.The paper illustrates how policy impact can be assessed ex ante and subsequently be monitored. It furthermore demonstrates that -despite their rather divergent phrasing -the existing social sustainability criteria have enough in common to allow for a robust assessment.

“…For further systematization, we propose a concept of work (and thus also of care work) that differentiates according to the cui bono criterion of which persons or groups benefit from the work performed (Brandl, Hildebrandt, 2002;Spangenberg, 2003). We distinguish between: work as a selfprovider, provisioning work for a "family of choice" of friends, relatives and acquaintances with the traditional family often as a subgroup, community work, which includes all activities for (organized) third parties with whom there is no direct relationship, such as citizens' initiatives, environmental and welfare associations, churches and trade unions, and finally paid work.…”

Section: What (Care) Work? Cui Bono?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…While if realized as a self-chosen combination of work and income forms and hours, mixed work can contribute to the quality of life, it can also be an expression of social hardship, for example when a single mother is forced to perform all forms of work in parallel and alone. Especially provisioning and nursing work as part of mixed work is very often stressful, unpleasant, externally determined and little recognized, and is composed differently in different biographical phases (Brandl and Hildebrandt, 2002). The fact that it is still predominantly demanded of women has become even more apparent in the pandemic (Giurge et al, 2021).…”

Section: Mixed Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Who Cares (For Whom)?

Lorek

2022

Front. Sustain.

The debate about care has intensified in the COVID-19 crisis. A consensus appears to be emerging that care work—mostly provided by women—is not only essential to our societies, but also undervalued, reputationally as well as—for the paid work—regarding its remuneration. As care is essential for the cohesion of societies, there is an urgent need to improve the situation. However, care comes in too many forms for general recommendations for improving the situation to be effective. Its majority in terms of working hours is unpaid, but the paid part of it in health, caring or education, is indispensable for any society built upon a division of labor. Finally, not every activity is work, and not every work is care—thus leisure activities are not necessarily care work. Care can be motivated by a plethora of reasons, and take a diversity of forms. To allow for effective suggestions for improvement to be formulated, we deem it necessary to more systematically distinguish different classes of care (each class of course being an ideal type including a wide range of activities). We suggest doing so by first using the “potential third party” criterion to distinguish work and non-work activities, secondly classify work according to the beneficiaries (which is closely linked to but not the same as organizational characteristics), and thirdly characterize the specific role of care work in these categories. The beneficiaries also reflect the motivation held by agents why care work is undertaken, although rarely any motivation comes in isolation. Starting from the proximate causes, the first class of care is caring for oneself, be it in terms of health care, hygiene, or the self-production of consumer goods, both short and long lived. The second class we suggest is caring for the family (native and chosen family including friends). It again includes caring for their health, but also their household (either the common one, or the one the caretaker is managing for the care receiver). It often includes nursing the elderly, disabled or young children, but can also be a kind of neighborhood support, from joint gardening to mutual help in building or renovating a flat or house. Extending the reach of care even wider, we come to care for the public good, with the community from village or city district to higher levels being the beneficiaries. This includes the volunteers working with environment, development, feminist, trade unions, food banks or belief organizations. Finally, there is a whole range of professional care activities, with the possibility to take over any of the previously mentioned activities if there is a financial benefit to be expected, or one is offered by (government) subsidies. We observe a permanent process of substituting professional, exchange value oriented care work for voluntary, use value based care, and vice versa. This dynamic, in combination with the ongoing changes of technology, social security systems and work organization in the remunerated work sets the framework conditions which will determine the future of care, commercial and societal. However, such trends are no destiny; they can be shaped by political interventions. Whether or not a professional or voluntary approach is preferable, depends on the assessment criteria applied which in turn represent political, ethical and cultural preferences.