Young and old at risk Comparative trends in “non‐standard” patterns of employment in Canada and the United Kingdom

Abstract

For many years, the majority of workers in the industrialised West have shared a similar employment life‐course – one based on full‐time permanent work. However, over the last decade the number of such opportunities have started to decline and many more workers are participating in “non‐standard” forms of employment. Using data from the UK’s Labour Force Survey, and the Canadian General Social Survey, this paper traces the trends in “non‐standard” employment over the 1989 to 1994 period. The findings illustrate that, although the majority of workers are still in full‐time permanent jobs, an increasing proportion are engaged in “non‐standard” employment. The paper suggests that certain groups are more likely to be involved in “non‐standard” employment than others, and that increasingly these tend to be made up of workers at one end or other of the working age spectrum.