Policy Press

The future of work, finance and the economy

The future of work and the availability of sustainable jobs are key global social challenges.

Addressing UN Sustainable Development Goal 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth and Goal 9: Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure, our list provides in-depth research into topics from the role of trade unions in the 21st century to the impact of AI and machine learning. Key series in this area include Feminist Perspectives on Work and Organization and Organizations and Activism.

We are proud to support Futures of Work, an online space for radical critiques of the changing world of work. Edited by Harry Pitts, Katie Bales and Huw Thomas, Futures of Work is a free-to-access magazine that connects academic and public commentators in order to discuss the pressing issues of our time.

Bristol University Press and Policy Press are signed up to the UN SDG Publishers Compact. In The future of work and the economy, we aim to address the following goals:

SDG Publishers compact logoSDG 8: Decent work and economic growthSDG 9: Industry, innovation and infrastructure

Showing 37-48 of 121 items.

Class and Social Background Discrimination in the Modern Workplace

Mapping Inequality in the Digital Age

This book exposes how inequalities based on class and social background arise from employment practices in the digital age. Examining the ways in which digitalisation creates risks of discrimination, the book proposes essential law reform and improvements to workplace policy.

Bristol Uni Press

Shaping Peacebuilding in Colombia

International Frames and Spatial Transformation

This book explores the involvement of the international community in peacebuilding efforts in Colombia since 2016. In particular, it examines how interventions were framed in order to promote and sustain their involvement, and questions whether these frames reflected reality within Colombia.

Bristol Uni Press

Recasting Workers' Power

Work and Inequality in the Shadow of the Digital Age

Drawing on ethnographic studies of precarious work in Africa, this innovative book discusses their implications for labour of how globalisation and digitalisation are drivers for structural change. It explores the role of digital technology in new business models, and ways in which digitalization can be harnessed for counter mobilisation.

Bristol Uni Press

Men Stepping Forward

Leading Your Organization on the Path to Inclusion

How do men interested in gender equality become ‘change makers’ and lead their organisation towards inclusion? This innovative book reveals how they can be centrally involved in creating gender-inclusive cultures in their organisations and suggests practical actions to implement in order to make real changes.

Bristol Uni Press

The Degree Generation

The Making of Unequal Graduate Lives

This book traces the transition to the graduate labour market of a cohort of middle-class and working-class young people. Using personal stories and voices, it provides fascinating insights into their experience of graduate employment and how their life-course transitions are shaped by their social backgrounds and education.

Bristol Uni Press

Sex Work and COVID-19 in the New Zealand Media

Avoid the Moist Breath Zone

New Zealand’s decriminalisation of sex work, and its unusual success in combatting COVID-19, have both attracted international media interest. This accessibly written book uses the lens of news media coverage to consider the pandemic’s impacts on both sex workers and public perceptions of the industry.

Bristol Uni Press

The Creation of Poverty and Inequality in India

Exclusion, Isolation, Domination and Extraction

This book analyses poverty in India as being intimately connected with the advent of caste, untouchability, colonialism, indentured servitude and slavery, and their relation to modern practices. It recommends a slew of bold domestic and international policies to eliminate poverty.

Bristol Uni Press

How to Build a Stock Exchange

The Past, Present and Future of Finance

Exploring the development of stock exchanges, markets and the links with states, in this book Roscoe offers a cautionary tale about the drive of financial markets towards expropriation, capture and exclusion and wonders what the future for finance might be, and how we might get there.

Bristol Uni Press

The Marketisation of Welfare-To-Work in Ireland

Governing Activation at the Street-Level

This book offers Ireland’s introduction of a welfare-to-work market as a case study that speaks to wider international debates in social and public policy about the role of market governance in intensifying the turn towards more regulatory and conditional welfare models on the ground.

Policy Press

Employer Engagement

Making Active Labour Market Policies Work

Active labour market policies aim to assist people not in work into work through a range of interventions including job search, training and in-work support and development. While policies and scholarship predominantly focus on jobseekers’ engagement with these initiatives, this book sheds light for the first time on the employer’s perspective.

Bristol Uni Press

Work and Alienation in the Platform Economy

Amazon and the Power of Organization

Drawing on interviews with Amazon workers and original empirical data, this book explores how different working conditions estrange and alienate workers, and how, despite these, workers find ways to organize and express their agency. This is an important analysis of work on the digital shop floor for the scholars of platform economy.

Bristol Uni Press

Precarious Urbanism

Displacement, Belonging and the Reconstruction of Somali Cities

This book explores relationships between war, displacement and city-making. Focusing on people seeking refuge in Somali cities after being forced to migrate by violence, environmental shocks or economic pressures, it highlights how these populations are actively transforming urban space.

Bristol Uni Press


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Launching in 2021: Work in the Global Economy is an interdisciplinary peer-reviewed journal that promotes understanding of work, and connections to work, in all forms and dimensions.
Join the mailing for the latest news from Work in the Global Economy

Journal of Poverty and Social Justice

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Longitudinal and Life Course Studies

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European Journal of Politics and Gender

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Critical and Radical Social Work

Entering precarious job markets in the era of austerity measures: the perceptions of Master of Social Work students
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Global Discourse

Mothers do not make good workers: the role of work/life balance policies in reinforcing gendered stereotypes
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Families, Relationships and Societies

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International Journal of Care and Caring

Learning to care: work experiences and identity formation among African immigrant care workers in the US
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Policy & Politics

Who cares? The social care sector and the future of youth employment
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