'Working to live, not living to work': low-paid multiple employment and work-life articulation

Abstract

This paper critically examines how low-paid workers, who need to work in more than one legitimate job to make ends meet, attempt to reconcile work and life. The concept of work-life articulation is utilised to investigate the experiences, strategies and practicalities of combining multiple employment with domestic and care duties. Based on detailed qualitative research, the findings reveal workers with 2, 3, 4, 5 and even 7 different jobs due to low-pay, limited working hours and employment instability. The study highlights the increasing variability of working hours, together with the dual fragmentation of working time and employment. It identifies unique dimensions of work extensification, as these workers have an amalgamation of jobs dispersed across fragmented, expansive and complex temporalities and spatialities. This research makes explicit the interconnected economic and temporal challenges of low-pay, insufficient hours and precarious employment, which creates significant challenges of juggling multiple jobs with familial responsibilities.