Erin Hatton, Ph.D.

I am an associate professor of sociology at the State University of New York at Buffalo. My research is centered in the sociology of work, while also extending into the fields of race and gender, social inequality, culture, labor, law, and social policy.

My first book, The Temp Economy: From Kelly Girls to Permatemps in Postwar America (Temple University Press, 2011), weaves together gender, race, class, and work in a cultural analysis of the temporary help industry and the rise of the new economy. The Temp Economy won an Honorable Mention for the Distinguished Scholarly Monograph Award from the American Sociological Association's Labor & Labor Movements Section.

My new book, Coerced: Work Under Threat of Punishment (UC Press, 2020), analyzes four very different--and unusual--groups of workers:  incarcerated, workfare, college athlete, and graduate student workers. Drawing on more than 120 in-depth interviews across these four groups, in this book I uncover a new form of labor coercion and analyze its consequences for workers in America.

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I am also editor of the book Labor and Punishment: Work In and Out of Prison (UC Press, 2021). This interdisciplinary volume examines the multiple and multi-directional intersections between the carceral state and labor and employment in the U.S. today. 

RECENT & FORTHCOMING

THE TEMP ECONOMY

"This landmark study is essential for experts and laypersons seeking to understand the twentieth century's wide-scale transformation of work."

 -Irene Padavic, author of Women and Men at Work

"This book is a must-read for students of organizations, occupations, and work; labor markets and unions; sex and gender; and economic sociology." 

-Contemporary Sociology

"A detailed, lively, and convincing account. I appreciate this book not only for the content but also for the fine example of how to write qualitative analysis."

-Work and Occupations

"This interesting book is useful for scholars interested in gender, work and occupations, labor organizing, the economy, and research methods... The book is ideal for showing the explanatory power of content analyses."

-Gender & Society