Aspiring to Survive: Precariat Constructions of Social Mobility and Social Justice

The student aims to investigate how precarious workers understand and respond to the social mobility agenda advocated by the UK government and how this varies according to their own subjective understanding of their work and social mobility. Using Psychosocial Interviewing and discourse analysis on a range of participants reliant on insecure low income work (zero-hours, temporary workers and self-employed on low income), the research will compare their understanding of key concepts within the social mobility agenda, such as personal responsibility, the acquisition of educational qualifications and the possibility to improve one's living standards. Finally, the research aims to use co-production methods to generate alternatives to the social mobility agenda which precarious workers feel could aid their mobility.