Drawing inspiration from a 2007 United Way Toronto (UWT) report, Losing Ground: The Persistent Growth of Family Poverty in Canada’s Largest City, the goal of the PEPSO project has been to meet the research need of data on trends in precarious employment. Beginning the initiative in 2010, the PEPSO research group has undertaken two comprehensive surveys of employment precarity in Southern Ontario. The results have been published in two major reports and a forthcoming book exploring how employment precarity impacts well-being. PEPSO research has also involved six case studies, each covering precarious employment from a different angle, which have also subsequently published reports and presented their work to wide audiences.
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Contact Us
pepso@mcmaster.ca
OUR MAJOR REPORTS
It's More than Poverty: Employment Precarity and Household Well-being
Published in 2013, It’s More than Poverty discusses the social consequences of Canada’s polarizing income distribution by examining the effects of precarious employment on household well-being.
The Precarity Penalty
Published in 2015, The Precarity Penalty reveals the challenges that many people in precarious employment find with moving into better opportunities, and offers practical solutions for pathways to more stable and secure employment.
Full Report | Summary | News Release | 2014 Survey
See also: York Region Report
Getting Left Behind
The third report in United Way and McMaster University’s PEPSO series on precarious employment examines who gained and who lost as the labour market improved between 2011 and 2017. Getting Left Behind finds that precarious employment has become imprinted on our labour market and the rising tide of economic growth did not lift all boats. When it comes to landing a secure job in a growing economy, a combination of gender, race and having a university degree determine whether or not you’ll get left behind. It concludes with a call for all sectors to take action and ensure that no one gets left behind. Recommendations include expanding decent work through employment standards and ladders to opportunity, creating a floor of basic income and social supports available to precarious workers, and ensuring that background and circumstances are not a barrier to the labour market.
Precarious Employment: Causes, Consequences and Remedies
This edited collection introduces and explores the causes and consequences of precarious employment in Canada and across the world.
OUR CASE STUDIES
CASE STUDY 1: PRECARITY AND ITS IMPACT ON HOUSEHOLD AND COMMUNITY WELL-BEING
The primary work of this case study was the core of the CURA project: two population-based surveys of working-age adults (aged 25-65) in the GTA and Hamilton. The objective of the surveys was to assess the relationship between precarious employment and well-being including individual, family and community well-being.
CASE STUDY 2: RESISTING PRECARITY
This case study investigates various approaches individuals, unions and/or collectives have used to resist or overcome becoming "victimized" by precarious employment. Five distinct examples of collective responses to precarity are being examined.
CASE STUDY 3: PRECARITY IN THE COMMUNITY SERVICES SECTOR
This project explores the impacts of precarity in the context of the non-profit social services sector (NPSS), seeking to answer questions concerning how precarity operates within this unique sector, how those in the sector understand and experience precarity, and promising practices that might provide solutions to this growing dilemma.
CASE STUDY 4: MIGRANT LABOUR – UNDOCUMENTED LABOUR
This case study centers on two research projects on the impact of precarity on the families of migrant workers from parts of the global south who come to work in southern Ontario.
CASE STUDY 5: IMPACT OF HIGH LEVELS OF PRECARITY ON URBAN NEIGHBOURHOOD ECONOMIES AND PARTICULAR POPULATIONS
The objectives of this study were to gain an understanding of how precarious employment is changing the nature of the urban social and economic terrain in select Southern Ontario communities and how precarity in employment is impacting particular identifiable populations and their livelihoods.
CASE STUDY 6: SKILLS MISMATCH AND PRECARIOUS EMPLOYMENT FACED BY RACIALIZED REFUGEE AND IMMIGRANT WOMEN IN TORONTO: RACIALIZATION AND GENDER POLITICS OF CURRENT SHIFTS IN THE LABOUR MARKET
This project investigates systemic challenges faced by racialized newcomer women in securing stable employment in their field.