Bourdieu and the gendered social structure of working time: A study of self-employed human resources professionals

Abstract

This article uses the sociology of Bourdieu to explore the social structure of working time and uses this approach to analyse interview data from 25 self-employed human resources professionals practicing in the UK. Bourdieu’s approach to exploring resources, as forms of capital that are deployed strategically by actors within social fields, is used to compare outcomes for respondents with different working time patterns. The findings demonstrate that self-employed professionals’ uses of resources are affected by distinctive and gendered temporal rhythms within and between social fields. These temporal patterns typically serve the interests of well-resourced (more typically male) actors who structure their lives according to specific routines. Self-employed people with less working time often struggle to synchronize their lives with their environments and so are often at a disadvantage in accessing and using resources. The analysis, which develops novel propositions about the ways in which actors become differentially adapted to the social structure of time, facilitates a more fine-grained and relational appreciation of gendered advantages within self-employed careers, which is likely to have wider applicability and the potential for broader impact.