United Kingdom, 1948

He is professor of development studies at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) at the University of London and co-founder of the Basic Land Income Network (BIEN). Between 1975 and 2006, he worked at the International Labor Organization as a researcher on job insecurity and flexibility, and is well known for having created the decent work index. His areas of work focus on the labor economy, labor market policies, unemployment, labor market flexibility, structural adjustment policies and social protection. Currently his studies are based on the emergence of the precarious as a social class and the need to move towards an unconditional basic income and deliberative democracy.

In his best-known book so far, El precariado. A new social class (2011), describes the precariat as an agglomerate of several different social groups, in particular immigrants, young people with training and those who have been left out of the traditional industrial working class. Standing calls on politicians to make ambitious social reforms with a view to guaranteeing financial security as a right. If the politicians do not make the appropriate decisions, he predicts, there will be a wave of violence and an ascent of far-right parties, among other fatal consequences.