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service (services)

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(noun) Action or work by an individual or group that is bought, sold, or traded to satisfy the needs or wants of another individual or group.

Syllabification: ser·vice

Audio Pronunciation

– American English

– British English

Phonetic Spelling

International Phonetic Alphabet

Plural: services
In economic matters, the term “service” is typically pluralized (services) and coupled with “goods” and written as “goods and services“.

“The ‘credential inflation‘ that occurred over the last third of the twentieth century was a product of the tremendous expansion in postsecondary education that occurred in many of the more developed industrial or ‘postindustrial’ societies in the post–World War II (1939–1945) era. Jobs previously filled by people possessing only high-school diplomas (for example, insurance salespeople) were increasingly filled by those with college diplomas or undergraduate university degrees. The proliferation of employment opportunities in the ‘service sector‘ combined with the contraction of the manufacturing labor force increased labor market competition for ‘white-collar‘ jobs requiring reasonably high levels of literacy or numeracy” (Smith 2008:166).
“The service sector includes a mixed bag of occupations ranging from hairstylists, to insurance agents, to sales clerks, to computer programmers—all having to do in some way with processing either information or people or both. Instead of being a field hand on the farm or a machine operator in the factory, the typical worker in America is now a sales clerk in a department store” (McNamee and Miller 2013:127).

McNamee, Stephen J., and Robert K. Miller, Jr. 2013. The Meritocracy Myth. 3rd ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Smith, Murray. 2008. “credentialism.” Pp. 166–67 in International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. 2nd ed., edited by W. Darity. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA.

Encyclopædia Britannica. (N.d.) Britannica Digital Learning. (https://britannicalearn.com/).

Ferrante, Joan. 2011a. Seeing Sociology: An Introduction. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Ferrante, Joan. 2011b. Sociology: A Global Perspective. 7th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

Macmillan. (N.d.) Macmillan Dictionary. (https://www.macmillandictionary.com/).

Marsh, Ian, and Mike Keating, eds. 2006. Sociology: Making Sense of Society. 3rd ed. Harlow, England: Pearson Education.

Oxford University Press. (N.d.) Oxford Dictionaries. (https://www.oxforddictionaries.com/).

Scott, John, and Gordon Marshall. 2005. A Dictionary of Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press.

Taylor & Francis. (N.d.) Routledge Handbooks Online. (https://www.routledgehandbooks.com/).

Wikipedia contributors. (N.d.) Wiktionary, The Free Dictionary. Wikimedia Foundation. (http://en.wiktionary.org).

Wiley. (N.d.) Wiley Online Library. (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/).

ASA – American Sociological Association (5th edition)

Bell, Kenton, ed. 2013. “service.” In Open Education Sociology Dictionary. Retrieved September 17, 2024 (https://sociologydictionary.org/service/).

APA – American Psychological Association (6th edition)

service. (2013). In K. Bell (Ed.), Open education sociology dictionary. Retrieved from https://sociologydictionary.org/service/

Chicago/Turabian: Author-Date – Chicago Manual of Style (16th edition)

Bell, Kenton, ed. 2013. “service.” In Open Education Sociology Dictionary. Accessed September 17, 2024. https://sociologydictionary.org/service/.

MLA – Modern Language Association (7th edition)

“service.” Open Education Sociology Dictionary. Ed. Kenton Bell. 2013. Web. 17 Sep. 2024. <https://sociologydictionary.org/service/>.