Division of Labor

Division of labor refers to the separation of work into specialized tasks and occupations performed by different individuals, groups, or regions, and to the social relations this creates. Adam Smith’s example of the pin factory argued that specialization increases productivity, though he also noted its numbing effects on workers. Emile Durkheim’s The Division of Labour in Society treated it as a source of social solidarity, contrasting the mechanical solidarity of similar individuals in simple societies with the organic solidarity of interdependent specialists in complex ones, and he warned of anomie when the division is forced or unregulated. Karl Marx saw the division of labor under capitalism as a source of alienation, class division, and exploitation, and Max Weber examined specialization within bureaucracy. Harry Braverman argued that scientific management deepened the separation of conception from execution. Feminist scholars, including Ann Oakley and Heidi Hartmann, analyzed the gendered division of labor in households and workplaces, and Immanuel Wallerstein and others described an international division of labor between core and periphery. Talcott Parsons and Herbert Spencer also discussed differentiation. The division of labor remains central to research on work, inequality, gender, globalization, and social order.