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 25-36 of 123 items.

Rethinking Financial Behaviour

Rationality and Resistance in the Financialization of Everyday Life

UK and US pension policy expects consistently informed decision-making in finance. Deviating from this is often deemed “irrational”, ignoring uncontrollable factors in individuals’ lives.

Challenging existing policy approaches, this book proposes a fresh perspective on rationality when it comes to financial policy and practices.

Bristol Uni Press
  • ForthcomingHardbackGBP 80.00 Pre-order
  • Currently not availableEPUBGBP 27.99

The Economic Lives of Platforms

Rethinking the Political Economy of Digital Markets

This interdisciplinary collection rethinks the political economy of the digital market by asking what came before platforms and suggesting what might come after them. Addressing themes like internet decolonisation, the book makes a timely assessment of the impact of evolving connections between technology, information, society and markets.

Bristol Uni Press
  • ForthcomingHardbackGBP 80.00 Pre-order
  • Currently not availableEPUBGBP 27.99

Extinction Equilibrium

Economics for Generational Survival

The past two decades have seen a global financial crisis, increasing levels of inequality, a pandemic and the intensification of the climate emergency. As debate rages about how to ensure a fairer society, this book asks where we want to be in 20 years’ time and how we might get there.

Bristol Uni Press
  • ForthcomingPaperbackGBP 27.99 Pre-order
  • ForthcomingHardbackGBP 80.00 Pre-order
  • Currently not availableEPUBGBP 27.99

The Growing Challenge of Youth Unemployment in Europe and America

A Cross-Cultural Perspective

This book provides a culturally nuanced analysis of key issues relating to youth unemployment. Examining the causes and consequences of youth unemployment, it assesses ways forward to promote economic self-sufficiency.

Bristol Uni Press

The Political Economy of Digital Monopolies

Contradictions and Alternatives to Data Commodification

As outrage over the socially damaging practices of technology companies intensifies, this book asks what it actually means to hold a 'monopoly' in the tech world and offers an in-depth analysis of how these corporate giants are produced, financialized, and regulated.

Bristol Uni Press

Work and Social Justice

Rethinking Labour in Society and the Economy

This book examines the urgent workplace challenges we’re facing today with an interdisciplinary and historical analysis that challenges and broadens the scope of existing economic literature. Exploring the current economic proposals to address these issues, it offers ways forward for greater economic social justice and equality at work.

Policy Press

Exiting the Factory (Volume 1)

Strikes and Class Formation beyond the Industrial Sector

Drawing on case studies from Germany, Britain and Spain, this book offers a novel assessment of labour struggles and class formation. Gallas explores key issues around class relations, struggles around waged and unwaged work and labour movements in contemporary capitalism to bring class theory back to labour studies.

Bristol Uni Press
  • ForthcomingHardbackGBP 80.00 Pre-order
  • Currently not availableEPUBGBP 27.99

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

Beyond the Wage

Ordinary Work in Diverse Economies

This volume challenges the idea of wage employment as the global norm, comparing lived experiences of ‘ordinary work’ across conceptual and geographical boundaries and opening up new possibilities for how work, income, identity and care might be woven together differently.

Bristol Uni Press

The Flexibility Paradox

Why Flexible Working Leads to (Self-)Exploitation

Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, flexible working has become the norm for many workers. This volume examines flexible working using data from 30 European countries and drawing on studies conducted in Australia, the US and India

Policy Press

The EU Migrant Generation in Asia

Middle-Class Aspirations in Asian Global Cities

Drawing on a comparative study with individuals who migrated to Singapore and Tokyo in 2010s, this book demonstrates how migration to Asian business centres has become an alternative to a middle-class life in Europe and how the perceived insecurities of life in the crisis-ridden EU result in these migrants’ prolonged stay in Asia.

Bristol Uni Press

Transnational Migration and the New Subjects of Work

Transmigrants, Hybrids and Cosmopolitans

A first in utilising transnational migration studies as a new theoretical framework in management and organization studies, this book presents a much-needed new concept for understanding people, work and organizations in a world on the move while attending to growing inequality associated with work in changing societies.

Bristol Uni Press


Related journals

Work in the Global Economy

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

Special Issue 27.2 Self-employment and social protection in Europe. [Free to Access]
Guest edited by Kevin Caraher and Enrico Reuter

Longitudinal and Life Course Studies

Special Issue 10.2 The Impact of the Great Recession on Younger Workers.
Guest Edited by Jon. D. Miller

European Journal of Politics and Gender

Gendering welfare state analysis: tensions between care and paid work [Free to Access]
Authors: Ciccia, Rossella; Sainsbury, Diane

Critical and Radical Social Work

Entering precarious job markets in the era of austerity measures: the perceptions of Master of Social Work students
Authors: Karki, Karun Kishor; Chi, Monica; Gokani, Ravi; Grosset, Cara; Vasic, Jennifer; Kumsa, Martha Kuwee

Global Discourse

Mothers do not make good workers: the role of work/life balance policies in reinforcing gendered stereotypes
Author: Hampson, Sarah Cote

Families, Relationships and Societies

Working it out: strategies to reconcile work and family among Swedish lone mothers [Free to Access]
Author: Alsarve, Jenny

International Journal of Care and Caring

Learning to care: work experiences and identity formation among African immigrant care workers in the US
Author: Showers, Fumilayo

Policy & Politics

Who cares? The social care sector and the future of youth employment
Authors: Montgomery, Tom; Mazzei, Micaela; Baglioni, Simone; Sinclair, Stephen