Each year, ASA’s president chooses a theme on which to focus some of the programming for the ASA Annual Meeting—a tradition that ensures our meetings reflect the rich diversity of perspectives and subject matter in our discipline. President-elect Adia M. Harvey Wingfield has chosen the theme “Reimagining the Future of Work.” Her conception of the theme is below.
Reimagining the Future of Work
The ASA 2025 Annual Meeting theme, Reimagining the Future of Work, highlights both the present and future of work in our diverse, tech-driven, global economy. Work is a central aspect of social life and a core social institution upon which societies are built. Yet the structure and conditions of work are rapidly changing in ways that have far-reaching implications.
Multiple external shifts are reshaping how, why, when, and where we work. From AI replacing human labor to the rise of remote work to the growth of fissured workplaces, work no longer resembles the more rigid, fixed model of the past. Workers no longer necessarily have to report to a location, answer to a supervisor, or even be directly employed by a company in order to earn wages. At the same time, work is profoundly more coercive and uncertain, with many workers lacking predictable schedules, healthcare and retirement benefits or disability protections, the ability to pursue other jobs in their industry should they resign current employment, or even wages that allow a basic standard of living. Furthermore, ongoing changes to the models of how we work will necessarily impact other aspects of social life–families, educational institutions, culture, and even our politics. The rise in remote work is already affecting the structure and division of household labor, and “issue focused” campaigns, such as the Fight for $15, have implications for understanding contemporary social movement activity and political organizing.
What does all this portend for workers? We already know that the erosion of the manufacturing industry, union membership, and public policy that protects workers’ rights has contributed to some of the destabilization workers face. So do the shrinking social safety net, major resource disparities between organizations, and the consistent devaluation of care work. Yet when we look to the future, we also know that the labor force is becoming increasingly racially diverse, with a large contingent of both millennial and Gen Z workers, and rapid technological advances are fundamentally altering the very foundation of how we work in ways that we have yet to fathom completely. At the same time, a renewed interest in collective organizing and labor activism, along with rising wages for workers in low-wage jobs, suggests some room for cautious optimism. When we envision the future of work, what does sociology show us? Is it a dystopian future of exploitation and entrenched economic inequality? A more optimistic model where affirming, decent, rewarding work is available to all who want it? Something in between? Or something completely new and different?
Sociology not only gives us the theoretical and empirical tools to look into this future, but sociologists also provide some insights into the paths ahead. We, too, are workers, with widely varying degrees of autonomy, funding, and security. The increasing political authoritarianism that prohibits discussion of certain topics; draconian cuts to social science, humanities, and interdisciplinary departments; and the persistent dismantling of tenure protections are all illustrative of the future that awaits us and workers in many other fields and industries. In keeping with this theme of Reimagining the Future of Work, we invite sociologists in industry, academia, secondary education, government, and everywhere else to consider our own work through a sociological lens and to use the tools of our discipline to forge the future.
Adia M. Harvey Wingfield
Washington University-St. Louis
ASA President-elect
