Freelancers: Social Status, Career Strategies and Professional Development

Abstract

This paper explores the position of freelancers on labor markets and in the Russian social structure. The authors consider the freelancers’ career strategies, relying on interviews with them conducted in 2011. They analyze freelancers as an example of non-standard employment and individualized career. Freelancers understand the personal success as a growth of individual freedom and autonomy. They build their own careers, develop their individual resources (professional, communication, reputation) and accept the risks of unstable employment and independent search of employers. And as a result a freelanсer’s career is not reducible to one profession, the same type of work, or one employer (so-called patchwork career).