Making Sense of Exploitation : Teenage Workers’ Experiences of Unpaid Labour in Low-Wage Service Jobs
Kallos, Anna LU
(2025)
In Work, Employment and Society
- Abstract
This article explores the rationales through which teenage students make sense of and legitimise unpaid labour in low-wage service jobs, contributing to theorising how such exploitation becomes normalised as part of their working lives. Based on 40 in-depth interviews with working school students in Sweden, it focuses on experiences of wage theft and coercive extra shifts, understood as employer strategies to extract unpaid labour time. The analysis identifies three key rationales, shaped by various discourses, through which teenagers made sense of these exploitative practices: framing them as secondary to self-investing in employability, downplaying them as an expected aspect of student jobs, and interpreting them in relation to their... (More)
This article explores the rationales through which teenage students make sense of and legitimise unpaid labour in low-wage service jobs, contributing to theorising how such exploitation becomes normalised as part of their working lives. Based on 40 in-depth interviews with working school students in Sweden, it focuses on experiences of wage theft and coercive extra shifts, understood as employer strategies to extract unpaid labour time. The analysis identifies three key rationales, shaped by various discourses, through which teenagers made sense of these exploitative practices: framing them as secondary to self-investing in employability, downplaying them as an expected aspect of student jobs, and interpreting them in relation to their perceived vulnerability as young workers. These rationales outline a discursive terrain through which exploitative practices became ambivalently accepted as part of working life, with teenage workers often assuming individual responsibility for their conditions.
(Less)
- author
- Kallos, Anna
LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2025
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- epub
- subject
- keywords
- exploitation, subjectivity, teenage employment, unpaid labour, young workers
- in
- Work, Employment and Society
- article number
- 09500170251380738
- publisher
- SAGE Publications
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:105020048212
- ISSN
- 0950-0170
- DOI
- 10.1177/09500170251380738
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- additional info
- Publisher Copyright:
- id
- b183d78e-67ee-4966-bb22-c7247e6b1cc0
- date added to LUP
- 2026-01-15 12:36:53
- date last changed
- 2026-01-15 12:38:03
@article{b183d78e-67ee-4966-bb22-c7247e6b1cc0,
abstract = {{<p>This article explores the rationales through which teenage students make sense of and legitimise unpaid labour in low-wage service jobs, contributing to theorising how such exploitation becomes normalised as part of their working lives. Based on 40 in-depth interviews with working school students in Sweden, it focuses on experiences of wage theft and coercive extra shifts, understood as employer strategies to extract unpaid labour time. The analysis identifies three key rationales, shaped by various discourses, through which teenagers made sense of these exploitative practices: framing them as secondary to self-investing in employability, downplaying them as an expected aspect of student jobs, and interpreting them in relation to their perceived vulnerability as young workers. These rationales outline a discursive terrain through which exploitative practices became ambivalently accepted as part of working life, with teenage workers often assuming individual responsibility for their conditions.</p>}},
author = {{Kallos, Anna}},
issn = {{0950-0170}},
keywords = {{exploitation; subjectivity; teenage employment; unpaid labour; young workers}},
language = {{eng}},
publisher = {{SAGE Publications}},
series = {{Work, Employment and Society}},
title = {{Making Sense of Exploitation : Teenage Workers’ Experiences of Unpaid Labour in Low-Wage Service Jobs}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/09500170251380738}},
doi = {{10.1177/09500170251380738}},
year = {{2025}},
}