Arne L Kalleberg

Biography

Kalleberg received his B.A. from Brooklyn College and his M.S. and Ph.D. (in 1975) from the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He was a faculty member at Indiana University for 10 years, where he served as the Director of the Institute of Social Research. He moved to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1986. Previous administrative roles at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill include Chair of the Department of Sociology (1990-2000), Senior Associate Dean of The Graduate School (2001-2004), Senior Associate Vice Chancellor for Graduate Studies and Research (Interim) (2000-2001), Senior Associate Dean for Social Sciences and International Programs (2004-2007), and Director of International Programs (2007-2008). He has been a Visiting Professor at Universities in Germany, Norway, South Korea, and Sweden.

Research contributions

Kalleberg studies labor force issues at the interface of sociology, economics, and psychology. Much of his work is cross-national, comparative and multi-level, linking societal and organizational institutions and structures to individual outcomes. His contributions to sociology have focused on three main topics.

The Fit between Persons and Jobs

The degree to which peoples’ jobs “fit” or match their jobs has important consequences for individuals, organizations, and societies. When peoples’ jobs match their needs, preferences, and abilities, then they are likely to be relatively happy and satisfied with their work and lives, and workplaces are apt to function fairly smoothly and effectively. On the other hand, when there is a “mismatch” or lack of fit between persons and their jobs, a variety of problems and difficulties are likely to result for the workers, their families, employers and the society more generally. The degree to which jobs “fit” persons depends on their degree of control people have over their employment situations, which in turn reflects their market power and the opportunities available in the labor market.

Kalleberg’s research on this topic is represented by his early work on job satisfaction (Kalleberg, 1977), his comparative studies of organizational commitment and job satisfaction in Japan and the United States (e.g., Lincoln and Kalleberg, 1985) and his more recent book on The Mismatched Worker (Kalleberg, 2007).

Work Structures and Inequality

Institutions are central to sociological explanations of social and economic inequality. Kalleberg’s research has sought to document how different kinds of work institutions, or work structures (occupations, industries, unions, classes) generate inequalities in economic as well as non-economic (such as autonomy and challenging work) rewards. He provided a conceptual framework of how multiple work structures and market combine to produce inequalities in his book with Ivar Berg, Work and Industry: Structures, Markets and Processes (1987).

Kalleberg’s contributions to sociological explanations of labor markets show how institutional structures combine with characteristics of individuals (such as their gender, race, age, education, experience) to produce inequalities. This work is represented by Kalleberg and Sørensen (1979), Althauser and Kalleberg (1981); Sørensen and Kalleberg (1981); Kalleberg, Wallace and Althauser (1981); Kalleberg and Van Buren (1996). His research on occupations shows how they produce differences in wage inequality (e.g., Kalleberg and Griffin, 1980; Mouw and Kalleberg, 2010).

Kalleberg’s research has also shown the potential of collecting information on nationally representative samples of organizations for addressing a wide range of outcomes related to inequality, both at the organizational level (e.g., Kalleberg, Knoke, Marsden and Spaeth, 1996; Kalleberg, Reynolds and Marsden, 2003) and for individuals (e.g., Kalleberg and Reskin, 1995).

Employment Relations

These two strands of Kalleberg’s scholarship—on the fit between persons and jobs and on work and inequality—were joined in his ongoing research program on transformations in employment relations, which are implicit or explicit contractual arrangements that specify the reciprocal expectations and obligations linking employers and employees. Employment relations encompass a wide range of phenomena—including work organization, governance, evaluation and rewards—and so the study of employment relations is central to numerous subjects in the social sciences, including the origins and maintenance of economic inequality and social stratification; the operation of labor markets; mechanisms of skill acquisition and career mobility; recruitment, selection, hiring and promotion processes; and the governance and control of work activities within organizations. As the link between individuals and their employing organizations, employment relations provide a theoretical linchpin connecting multiple levels of analysis: macrostructures such as economic, political, legal and social institutions; mesoscopic (middle-range) aspects of work groups, firms and inter-firm networks; and micro-level features of employment including individual work experiences and rewards.

Kalleberg has written extensively on the causes and consequences of the emergence of nonstandard work arrangements such as temporary, contract, and part-time work in the US, Asia and Europe (e.g., Kalleberg, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2009, 2012; Kalleberg, Reskin and Hudson, 2000). His recent book, Good Jobs, Bad Jobs: The Rise of Polarized and Precarious Employment Systems in the United States, 1970s to 2000s (Russell Sage Foundation, 2011), discusses the rise of precarious employment in the United States as well as the growing polarization of jobs with regard to earnings as well as non-economic rewards such as the control people have over their work activities and schedules, especially in balancing work and family. He has also extended his studies of precarious work to various countries in Asia (e.g., Kalleberg and Hewison, 2013; Hewison and Kalleberg, 2013; Hsiao, Kalleberg and Hewison, 2015).

Awards and recognition

Books

Selected articles