Unpaid labour and precarity

The ‘hidden subsidy’ to production

Bibliographic Data

ID24228403
AuthorsValeria Pulignano (0000-0002-6466-491X, KU Leuven), Lorenzo Cini (0000-0002-5381-4361, University Federico II of Naples, Italy)
Year2026
Publication date2026-10-11
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueCritical Sociology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0896-9205 • E-ISSN: 1569-1632
PublisherSAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/08969205261494971
OpenAlexW7217464204
LanguageEN
References cited33

This article theorises the structural interdependence of unpaid labour and precarious employment through the concept of the ‘hidden subsidy’ to production. Drawing on labour process and feminist theories, we conceptualise unpaid labour as necessary labour performed without remuneration, including activities required to sustain occupational participation or perform paid work beyond formal employment. We argue that precarious employment facilitates the displacement and normalisation of such labour, whose temporal, material and relational costs may be absorbed through individual, household and social-reproductive resources. These resources thereby function as a ‘hidden subsidy’ to production, sustaining employment without entering employers’ calculations of labour costs. Drawing on 65 interviews with ballet dance and residential care workers, we identify two configurations: occupational investment , through which dancers bear present costs to sustain uncertain future employment, and occupational obligation , through which care workers extend their labour to compensate for organisational shortages. We show how unequal capacities to absorb these costs connect production and social reproduction.

ballet dancers · Care work · Feminist theory · labor costs · labour process theory · precarious employment · residential care staff · Social reproduction · Unpaid work · Employment, Labor, and Gender Studies · Labor Law and Work Dynamics · Political Economy and Marxism

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