Importance and Meaning of Work in Europe: a French Singularity
LUCIE DAVOINE [email protected] Centre d’études de l’emploi et Ecole d’économie de Paris DOMINIQUE MEDA [email protected] Centre d’études de l’emploi, TEPP (FR n° 3126, CNRS)
DOCUMENT DE TRAVAIL
N°96-2
février 2008 ISSN 1629-7997 ISBN 978-2-11-097666-6
Importance and Meaning of Work in Europe: a French Singularity
Lucie Davoine, Dominique Méda
Abstract International and European data shows the singularity of the French people’s relation to work. More than other Europeans, the French people declare that work is very important in their life, and, in the mean time, that they wish to see the importance of work diminishing in the society. How can we explain this paradox? Understanding the diversity of work values in Europe and, in particular the peculiar situation of France is the main objective of this article. The originality of this work relies in particular in the comparison of the results from different international and national surveys that have been little disseminated or scattered separately. In a first section, we disentangle the many meanings of work importance. Two hypotheses can explain the French situation: on the one hand, high unemployment rate and a strong feeling of job insecurity makes work an essential concern. On the other hand, French people distinguish themselves by higher expectations regarding the intrinsic interest of work and the possibility of self-fulfilling through work. The second section suggests hypotheses to explain why French wish to see the importance of work diminishing in the society. This whish is partly the results of the dysfunctions of French labour market and work organisations: bad social relations, dissatisfaction with working and employment conditions. This whish also reveals a more positive desire of spending more time with family and reconciling work and personal life. Besides, more than others, the French people declare that they suffer from tensions between the different spheres of life. Throughout the article, we emphasized not only differences between countries, but also the differences inside countries, according to the family status and the occupation.
Key words: importance of work in life and in identity, preferences and expectations towards work and employment, satisfaction with job, dynamics of values, reconciliation between work and other spheres of life, European comparisons.
PLACE ET SENS DU TRAVAIL EN EUROPE : UNE SINGULARITÉ FRANÇAISE ?
RÉSUMÉ L’examen des données françaises et européennes montre que les Français entretiennent un rapport singulier au travail. Plus encore que les autres européens, les Français déclarent en effet que le travail est très important dans leur vie, mais plus que les autres, ils souhaitent que le travail prenne moins de place dans leur vie. Comment expliquer ce paradoxe ? L’objectif premier de ce travail est de comprendre la diversité des perceptions en Europe et de proposer des interprétations qui permettraient d’avancer dans la résolution de ce paradoxe. L’originalité de ce travail provient en partie de la confrontation des résultats des diverses enquêtes françaises et internationales sur ces questions, qui restent aujourd’hui épars et peu diffusés. Dans un premier temps, nous analysons les déterminants de l’importance accordée au travail et les sens que peut revêtir cette notion. Deux hypothèses sont mobilisées pour expliquer les réponses des Français : d’une part, le taux de chômage élevé, la prégnance de l’emploi précaire et un fort sentiment d’insécurité de l’emploi ; d’autre part, les attentes plus fortes à l’égard de l’intérêt du travail. Les Français, se distinguent en effet par des attentes de réalisation dans le travail plus intenses que celles de leurs voisins européens. Dans une seconde partie nous tentons de comprendre pourquoi les Français considèrent que ce serait une bonne chose que le travail occupe une place moins grande dans leur vie. Cette situation peut s’expliquer par la moindre qualité des relations sociales en France, ou par des conditions de travail et d’emploi dégradées, mais aussi par le souci des individus de consacrer plus de temps à leur vie personnelle et surtout de mieux concilier leur vie professionnelle et leur vie familiale. Les Français sont d’ailleurs ceux qui déclarent le plus souvent éprouver des difficultés de conciliation, et des tensions entre les deux sphères. Nous soulignons également, tout au long de l’article, que les réponses moyennes des pays ne doivent pas occulter la grande diversité des opinions, liées notamment à la catégorie socioprofessionnelle et à la situation familiale.
Mots-clefs : comparaisons européennes, place du travail dans la vie et dans l'identité, attentes à l'égard du travail et de l'emploi, satisfaction vis-à-vis du travail et de l'emploi, évolution des valeurs, conciliation entre le travail et les autres sphères.
INTRODUCTION1
Ever since they began, European surveys on values have shown that the French attach great importance to work but also that more of them would also want to see work occupy a less important place in their life. How can this paradox be explained? First of all, we will try to understand the logic which may explain the diversity of perceptions in Europe and France’s specific position. In order to do so, we will try to make sense of the various meanings attributed to the importance of work by referring to various theories and analysing the various items developed in surveys. Secondly, we will try to understand why, despite these scores, the French consider that it would be a good thing for work to occupy a less important place in their life. We will be proposing four non-exclusive explanatory hypotheses. Although the primary aim of this work is to put forward interpretations to enable this paradox to be solved, the second is no less important: to list the principal results of French and international surveys which remain today not widely circulated and to make them available. The originality of this work is therefore to be found in the comparison of the results of various surveys. This article is mainly based on three international surveys: the European Values Surveys (EVS), the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) and the European Social Survey (ESS). The specific features of these three surveys are shown in Box n°1. More selectively, analyses will refer to the results of Eurobarometers, the European Community Household Panel and the European Survey on living and working conditions, as well as national surveys: “Travail et mode de vie”, done in 1997 (Baudelot and Gollac, 2002), the survey by the “Observatoire sociologique du changement” entitled “emploi salarié et conditions de vie”, which took place in 1995 (Paugam, 2000); the survey on “Histoire de vie – Construction des identités” that took place in 2003 (Garner, Méda and Senik, 2006). More commercial surveys are rarely accessible to researchers. We will however selectively refer in particular to two surveys done by Ipsos under the aegis of the Institut Chronopost in 2003 (Méda, 2004; Vendramin, 2004) and in 2004 (Delay, 2005) and a survey done in 2007 (Solom, 2007). The validity of international survey is sometimes discussed. Some biases can interfere at different stages of the surveys’ construction (see Heath et al., 2005). The international surveys face some linguistic tricks, when the words connotations are different (cf. the examples of Braun and Scott [1998] and Crompton and Lyonette [2006], when acquirement bias are stronger in some countries (see, for example, Smith [2004] or Johnson et al. [2005]). More and more vigilant, the teams responsible for the survey use recognised procedures to limit the risk of bad translation or misunderstanding. The procedure of « back translation » is now used in many international surveys (Harkness, 1998; Smith, 2004). More fundamentally, the notion of linguistic bias should be discussed: the surveys just retranscribe differences in expression and communication way. They do not construct artificially these differences. When gathering the date, the different traditions of sampling and population covered can also introduce biases. However, the central teams responsible for the international surveys impose stricter and stricter requirements (Jowell, 1998).
1 This article has been written within the framework of the European project SPREW (Social Patterns of Relation to Work) coordinated by the Fondation Travail-Université of Namur : http://www.ftu-namur.org/sprew/fr-index.html. The authors would like to thank Béatrice Delay, Anne N’Diaye, Danièle Trancart, Patricia Vendramin and Aurélie Bur for their constructive remarks.
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To sum up, these international surveys may be fragile, but some real progresses have been made to improve the validity of comparisons: the European Social Survey, the youngest international survey, meets strict requirements (random sample, face-to-face interviews, rigorous procedure of translation). Furthermore, the increase in number of results and their comparisons allow proposing assured conclusions. Following Roger Jowell (1998) advice, we have to stay vigilant, but interpretation of data is now possible. Vigilance and comparison of results constitutes our research strategy to explore work preferences, values and expectations in Europe. The results cover the 27 members of the European Union, but, when analysing the long-term trend, the analysis focuses on the 15 members.
Box n°1: available European and international surveys
Eurobarometer Eurobarometer has been undertaken uninterruptedly every six months since 1974. It is administered by the European Commission and is intended firstly to answer questions from the Directorates General. It involved from its beginnings academics such as Ronald Inglehart whose theory is partly based on this survey. It contains numerous questions on European feelings and on how European construction is seen but also, more selectively, questions on poverty, unemployment or even, which is of more interest to us, precariousness, life-long training, satisfaction or professional mobility. In the following analyses, we have particularly used the results of the special Eurobarometer survey “European Social Reality” done as a backup to the Bureau of European Policy Advisers’ report (European Commission, 2007; Lerais and Liddle, 2007).
European Values Surveys (EVS) The European Values Survey (then hereafter EVS) started in 1981 thanks to a group of researchers led by Jan Kerhofs of Louvain University and Ruud de Moor of Tilburg University (Bréchon, 2002). During the first wave, nine European countries were involved in the survey. Almost twenty years later there are thirty-four (annex 1.1). The survey now comprises three waves: 1981, 1990 and 1999. The EVS questionnaire, a large part of which does not vary from wave to wave, addresses, inter alia, the place of major values such as work, the family or religion but also religious practices, political opinions as well as the importance attributed to each facet of work (wages, security, personal fulfillment, etc.). The interview, which lasts almost an hour, therefore covers numerous subjects and only a few questions are of real relevance for our research. Shortly after the launch of the EVS, Ronald Inglehart, a researcher at the University of Michigan, took the initiative of extending the survey to other continents which gave rise to the World Values Survey (WVS). The questionnaire of the WVS is similar to the EVS one, and there is a small time-lag between the waves of EVS and WVS.
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The International Social Survey Programme (ISSP) The International Social Survey Programme (ISSP), the first wave of which took place in 1985, arose out of cooperation between researchers from four countries, Germany, the UK, the USA and Australia, where there already was a tradition of surveys on attitudes, but the number of participants increased substantially in the 90s to reach 38 countries at the present moment (annex 1.2) Compared with the EVS that focus on values, the ISSP places greater importance on attitudes and behaviour. This survey takes place every year on a different theme every time. Each module is linked to a national survey and the interview lasts about a quarter of an hour if socio-demographic variables are not taken into account. A survey on the meaning of work was undertaken in 1989 (but France did not participate), in 1997 and in 2005. These three waves undoubtedly constitute one of the most complete bases on the relationship to work.
The European surveys on working conditions The European survey on living and working conditions is undertaken every 5 years by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, based in Dublin. The number of countries involved has grown as the European Union has enlarged. The first edition contained some twenty questions and the last about a hundred. The questionnaire does not really cover preferences with regard to employment but conditions of work in its broadest sense: working times, working organisation, income, physical difficulty, stress, possibility of conciliation, the nature of jobs done, feelings of discrimination2. It nonetheless contains several questions on satisfaction with working conditions, income and promotion possibilities.
The European Community Household Panel (ECHP) The European Community Household Panel (ECHP hereafter) is monitored and harmonized by Eurostat. As its name implies, it is a panel comprising eight waves from 1994 to 2001 except for a few countries which joined the European Union at a later date. The aim of the ECHP is to be able to obtain comparable statistics on living standards of households and individuals and on employment. The questionnaire contains one question on satisfaction vis- à-vis the job or the main activity and six questions on satisfaction with regard to one aspect of employment (wages, security, hours, shifts, type of work, conditions of work, distance between the place of work and home). The social, demographic and economic data available for each individual are very complete: there are almost 140 variables at household level and 320 variables at individual level. The sample is important, because almost 10,000 individuals are interviewed. The ECHP, stopped in 2001, is gradually being replaced by a new EU-SILC panel (European Statistics on Income and Living Conditions).
2 See the Dublin Foundation site for further information: http://www.eurofound.europa.eu/ewco/surveys/index.htm. The reports on each survey are available on this site.
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The European Social Survey (ESS) In this scenario, the European Social Survey is the most recent survey. The first wave took place in the autumn of 2002, the second in 2004 and the third at the end of 2006. It covered 22 countries in the first wave (Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK). Estonia, Slovakia, Iceland and the Ukraine took part in the following wave, and the last wave will also contain data on Bulgaria, Cyprus, Latvia, Romania and Russia. The interview lasts a whole hour. Half the questionnaire does not change, the other half, the rotating part, addresses two subjects which are chosen from amongst proposals put forward by scientific teams. For the 2002 wave, the modules selected covered citizenship on the one hand and immigration on the other. The 2004 wave contained a module on health and care on the one hand, and on the family, work and well-being on the other. We find questions relevant to our work in the latter module. The third wave covers well-being and the perception of the life cycle.
1. MEANING AND IMPORTANCE OF WORK: THE SINGULAR POSITION OF THE FRENCH IN EUROPE
Regardless of the surveys considered or the years of the questionnaires, two notable facts can clearly be seen from the European surveys considered: work is seen as important or very important by a majority of Europeans. The French systematically form part of those who affirm most strongly that work is important. To understand why, we outline the various theoretical explanations likely to be referred to and we analyse the various dimensions of the importance attributed to work.
1.1 The importance of work: explanatory framework and dimensions of work
Work occupies a central position in the life of Europeans: only a minority of persons interviewed – less than 20% in almost all countries – said that work was “not very important” or “not important at all” in their life (cf. graph 1). The similarities in Europe nonetheless become apparent as soon as a distinction is made in the degree of importance attributed to work. A majority of the population says that work is “very important” in the majority of countries, with the exception of Denmark, the UK and the Netherlands: only 40% of Danes and Britons say that work is “very important”. This proportion is close to 50% in Germany, Sweden or Finland, but also in the Czech Republic and Estonia. It is much higher in a few continental countries (Belgium, France, Austria), in two countries in the South (Spain and Italy) and in a few new member countries (Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovakia). France occupies a special position in this graph: it differs from the continental and Mediterranean countries by a much higher proportion of inhabitants for whom work is “very important”: this proportion is 77% in France whereas it does not exceed 65% in Belgium, Spain or Austria. France thus finds itself amongst the group of the poorest countries in Europe (Romania, Poland). More than 30 points separate it from the UK and Denmark. This very special position is even more visible if only the Europe of 15 is considered (graph 2).
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Graph 1: The place of work in the life of Europeans
How important is work in your life?
100%
80%
60% Very important Quite important Not important Not at all important 40%
20%
0%
s a a rk in ny d ia en ry a in a a a n n urg d a ni kia ria ni ta and land a Rep. eni Italy a a stri atvia a ma l nl sto bo v v lg Spa u m Malt n Bri Ire i E Greece tua o o France L o Poland t F em Swe Portugal Li Sl Sl A Belgium De Germ zech x Hung Bu R C u Grea L The Nether Source: EVS 1999.
Graph 2: The importance of work in 1990 and 1999
Percentage of people declaring that work is "very important" in 1990 and 1990 in the EU 15
80
69,7 70 64,8 63,0 63,9 61,7 59,2 60 58,0 54,5
49,8 50,3 50,7 50 47,4
39,5 40,1 1990 40 1999
30
20
10
0
n ds d d n e ai n n e ria c ark it a d t ium n m r Italy s g B relan inl rtugal Spain u l en t I F we o Greece A e Fra a S P B D etherla Germany N Gre e Th Source: EVS 1990 and 1999.
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1.1.1 The explanatory frameworks: composition, culture, context
How can such differences within the European Union be explained? How, in particular, can France’s special position be understood? We have several hypotheses to choose from. These differences could be due to a simple effect of composition. The population structure per age group, the proportion of the working population, or even the level of qualification and the profession are effectively sources of similarity. For example, women at home and people who have undertaken higher studies state less often that their work is very important. Conversely, employers, the unemployed and the self-employed attribute more importance to work (see annex 2). Yet, these categories are to be found very unequally in the European countries: education levels are for example higher in the Nordic countries, and women participate less frequently in employment in the Southern countries (Davoine and Erhel, 2007). However, even taking the different effects of the composition of the population into account, differences from country to country remain significant. France, in particular, continues to differ substantially, attributing greater importance to work (see annex 2). Consequently, how can differences between countries be interpreted? Are they cultural differences which could be linked, for example, to the predominance of Catholicism or Protestantism? Literature even refers to other cultural traits to explain the relationship to work. In psychology and management in particular, the cultural dimensions highlighted by Geert Hofstede are systematically used to try to explain the relationship to work (see for example Parboteeah & Cullen, 2003). In his later works, Geert Hofstede proposes summarizing cultural differences in five dimensions: the degree of acceptance of an inegalitarian distribution of power, the degree of stress vis-à-vis uncertainty and ambiguity, the degree of individualism, the development of insurance and competition or, on the contrary, of modesty and self-help, the orientation towards the long or short-term (Hofstede, 2001). For each of these dimensions, differences are clearly perceptible within Europe. For example, French and Belgian people are more likely to accept a power distance, whereas the closeness with the hierarchy is appreciated in Denmark, Sweden, Austria, and Finland. Concerning the second axis, the workers in France and on the Southern countries are more likely to suffer from uncertainty which do not frighten Nordic people. The dimension called “individualism” distinguishes Europe from the rest of the world, which is less individualistic. On the fourth dimension, Europe is more diverse: for example, the propensity for modesty and help is higher in Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands, Finland and Portugal. On the last dimension, the Asiatic countries show a high score for long-term orientation, compared to the rest of the World, including Europe. According to Geert Hofstede, the constructing cultures are still accurate, and can explain some actual differences in attitudes and behaviours. However, he recognizes that cultures can evolve and that some differences in attitudes can be explained by institutional and economic context, rather the cultural roots. Is this culture-based hypothesis backed up by the surveys considered? The stability of differences between countries over time can be a sign of the cultural nature of the present work orientations. Regardless of the year, work is considered to be less important in the UK, Denmark and the Netherlands than in France for example3 (cf. graph 2). The special
3It should be noted that the French interviewed in 1990 seem to attribute less importance to work than in 1999, which could be explained by a slight modification in the French language questionnaire. In 1990, the questionnaire explained the meaning of each phrase: - Very important (the core of your life) - quite important (an essential part of your life)
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Eurobarometer ordered by the European Commission on the occasion of the Bureau of European Policy Advisers analysis on European social reality (European Commission 2007) confirms that the French attribute more importance to work than the majority of their neighbours: 92% of them said that work is important, for an average of 84% in the EU25. A split between protestant and catholic countries seems to be taking shape: contrary to what Max Weber teaches us, work seems less important in many protestant countries (Denmark, UK, Netherlands, Germany, Finland) and more important in catholic countries (France, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Austria), with the exception however of Ireland. But the effect of the individual practice of a religion must be clearly distinguished in the work relationship from the effect of belonging to a country or a group to a given religion. At individual level, religion clearly has an impact on the relationship to work (cf. annex 2): compared with atheists, interviewees who said they were christian or muslim attribute more importance to work and within this category protestants are amongst those who attribute the greatest importance to work. We find here certain elements of Max Weber’s analyses. He showed in The Protestant Ethic and The Spirit of Capitalism how the fact of considering that duty is accomplished in temporal affairs and constitutes the highest moral activity of Man in this world, is a product of the Reform and how protestant asceticism created “the only norm which was decisive for its efficacy: the psychological motivation by which work as a vocation constitutes the best, if not the only, means of ensuring a state of grace”4. At the general level however, countries with a protestant tradition are not those where work is considered to be the most important confirming once more Weber’s analyses: “All- conquering capitalism does not need this support since it is built on a mechanical basis (…) In the United States, at its very birthplace, the pursuit of riches, stripped of its ethical and religious meaning, tends today to be associated with purely agonistic passions which frequently confers on it the character of a sport”5. Other phenomena seem to enter into account, as we will see below: wealth and secularization. Countries with a protestant tradition are effectively the wealthiest and are those in which religious beliefs are less significant. The sign that other explanations are required in order to understand European heterogeneity, in particular the level of development of countries measured by their GDP or its variation, is the fact that there are significant variations in opinions relating to work between several waves of survey in one and the same country: hence work was considered to be less important in 1999 in Scandinavian countries, the UK and in Ireland than in 1990. Between the two dates, economic conditions improved substantially in these countries. The importance of work would not therefore appear to be unrelated to the economic context or its variations. This is the hypothesis put forward by Ronald Inglehart (1990), whose name is associated with the theory of post-materialism developed just after May 68 based on perceptible generational differences in European countries (Inglehart, 1971). Although Inglehart recognises Max Weber’s contribution and the persistence of old cultural divisions in modern societies partly
- not very important (your main preoccupations are elsewhere) - not important at all The meaning of the first phrase (“very important”) may seem stronger when it is stated that it would be the core of one’s life. In the English-language questionnaire (in 1990 and 1999) and in the French-language questionnaire in 1999, the wording in brackets was missing and the meaning of the phrases therefore weaker. 4 P. 220. 5 P. 221.
11 Documents de travail du Centre d’études de l’emploi based on religious differences, he adopts an implicitly evolutionist and, to a large degree, materialist perspective. In the tradition of Marx, he considers that economic development has “systematic and to a large degree foreseeable” consequences (p. 20) on a country’s culture and its values (Inglehart and Baker, 2000). Borrowing certain concepts from Daniel Bell, he detects three stages of evolution for society: in the agrarian society men have to struggle against nature, in the industrial society the competition against nature involves techniques and the organisation of work and lastly in the post-industrial society survival is no longer a concern. More precisely, in more recent works, Ronald Inglehart and Wayne Baker proposed to classify countries by using two axes or two dimensions: a first dimension, which marks the passage of a pre-industrial society to an industrial society, contrasts traditional and religious values with lay and rational values. The second dimension contrasts preoccupations of survival with those of individual expression and the quality of life. It corresponds to a transition towards a post- industrial society. The use of the World Value Survey, via an ACP, allows them to find both of these axes, which sum up 70% of the difference between the average replies of each country, and to draw up a cultural map showing 65 countries. The vertical axis (traditional/secular- rational values) contrasts countries depending on the importance attributed to respect for authority, religious faith and national pride. It distinguishes, on the one hand, Africa and Latin America from the western world, the former countries of the soviet block and that part of Asia which is most developed on the other. The horizontal axis (survival/self-expression values) contrasts on the one side countries of the former soviet block and southern Asia and on the other protestant Europe (Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Finland) and the Anglo-Saxon countries (New Zealand, the UK, Canada, Australia, USA and Ireland). The inhabitants of countries in transition and the countries of southern Asia give priority to economic and physical security compared with personal fulfillment and the quality of life favoured by the inhabitants of Anglo-Saxon or protestant countries. On both axes, catholic Europe (Belgium, France, Austria, Italy, Spain and Portugal) occupies a median position. France, Belgium, Italy and Austria are however closer to protestant Europe. Conversely, the USA is relatively distant from it; it shares with protestant Europe post-materialistic (or self-expression) values but differentiates itself from them by more traditionalist, less lay values. A regression on aggregate data confirms that economic (GDP, share of agriculture, industry and services) and historical (language, religion) factors both explain the value differences observed between countries. These analyses have been widely published and often serve as an analytical framework for the study of values in more specific areas (work, family, political opinions), at least in political sciences. For our purposes, if we follow Ronald Inglehart, economic evolution would tend to modify the meaning given to work and three stages could then be distinguished. Firstly, that of the tradition, work comes within the scope of a system of belief and respect for authority. Work then corresponds to an “ethic of duty”, an obligation vis-à-vis society. The second stage corresponds to the development of individualistic and rational values: work then has an instrumental value and it is sought for the security and the income it provides. This is also the working hypothesis of John Galbraith which he tested via a survey done between 1962 and 1964. Serge Paugam recalls the results of this survey which highlighted the fact that “the affluent worker” was characterised by a very instrumental relationship to work: “What counts above all for him is recompense for his work and not its intrinsic value (…). Work then corresponds to an ordinary task to be accomplished, not for self-fulfillment in doing it but in order to attain aims concerning consumption and well-being”.
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The wealthiest countries would be characterised by “post-materialistic” values, economic security no longer being a priority with the quality of life and subjective well-being becoming major values. In this perspective, work should above all enable individuals to fulfill themselves. The end of the XXth century could thus be marked by the rise of post- materialistic hopes: the individual no longer hid behind the group, his fulfillment became a central value (Inglehart, 1990; Beck, 1984; Giddens). This tendency, which affects the most diverse fields of society, could also be found in the work sphere, as argued by Hélène Riffault, who saw the rise of a more personal concept of work: “Although the exercise of work has for long been a sign of social adherence as well as a moral duty, it seems that today Europeans tend to consider it above all as a means of expressing their potentiality and as a way of personal fulfillment. Although this vision of work is not new it tends to override all other aspects of work and in particular the more social aspects, like the norms relating to the obligation to work (…). The establishment of this view of work goes hand in hand with economic development. This leads the individual to relativize material satisfactions, insofar as they are largely acquired, and to look at all areas of his/her life, including work, for possibilities of self-expression such as the liberation of creative capacities, the assumption of responsibility or the exercise of the right to free speech. Work today tends to be filled more with expectations relating to personal fulfillment and less felt as a social norm than was the case 20 years ago.” This interpretation, which highlights the role of the economic context, remains of course simplistic and mono-causal. It will form a framework for analysis which will need to be tested and qualified. In other words, and to use an image that Inglehart proposes in conclusion, economic development pushes societies in the same direction but they follow parallel trajectories, marked by history, in the framework of a phenomenon of pathway dependence. Ronald Inglehart underlines in this way the persistence of religious and historical divisions. Furthermore, the path to modernisation is not linear since U-turns are possible, as proven by the trajectory of countries in the former soviet block which went back to traditional values. Other factors enter into account in order to structure values. In particular, the most stimulating critique of Ronald Inglehart’s scheme covers, we think, the need to place values in their institutional context (Haller, 2002). This context can also shape expectations and preferences: for example, will social protection not lessen the importance of work? In this perspective, preferences and values are endogenous, they are shaped by the institutional context. To understand the diversity of work preferences in Europe, we shall look at the typologies of institutional model, in particular the work on the different Worlds of Welfare State (Esping-Andersen, 1990) and the work on the diversity of capitalism (Amable, 2003) is again6. Furthermore, the effect of the level of national wealth remains uncertain, in particular on materialistic expectations. Some writers have underlined the fact that the capitalist system created and maintained a constantly renewed need for consumer goods (Haller, 2002). One may want high wages and a safe job because one is concerned by questions of security, survival or in order to finance conspicuous consumption. It is not certain that contemporary European societies will in future be less materialistic. Conversely, does the intrinsic interest in work not constitute a need, even in societies where questions of survival have not been completely resolved? Maslow’s typology remains a subject of discussion in organisational psychology.
6 For a detailed presentation of the universalist, culturalist and institutionalist school, as weel as the convergence between these research traditions, see Davoine, 2007.
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Finally, the development of post-materialistic values can have contrary effects on the importance attributed to work in life. Once the needs for security have been satisfied, work can of course assume less importance and leave individuals the choice of fulfilling themselves in other spheres (leisure, politics or family). However, in searching for fulfillment in the work sphere, individuals who place greater importance on post-materialistic values may attribute a higher value to work since the latter is not only and simply a source of income. In other words, in already industrialised societies, economic growth may have a dual impact: work is less important, or it remains important but for different reasons. By looking at these controversial issues and questions, we may perhaps be able to understand the French peculiarity.
1.1.2 The various dimensions of work
This historical sequence whose virtues are also heuristic (because they provide an analytical schedule making it possible to analyse the position of different countries on an evolutionary scale of meanings) is not fundamentally far removed from other theoretical developments, of a philosophical or sociological nature, which have been put forward these last few years in order to understand changes and differences of meaning attached to the term “work”. We outline three in particular which have the advantage of highlighting the various constituent dimensions of the concept of work the effect of which could possibly be isolated in surveys.
Work as a duty
Max Weber’s work, as we have said, has particularly highlighted the dimension of “task” or duty acquired by work over the last few centuries. Weber showed how the Reform radically changed the western way of viewing work and how Luther’s translations firstly (and then the theoretical elaborations of the Calvinists) made it possible to interpret work as man’s most important task on earth by following several stages. At the start of his reformist activities, writes Weber, Luther thought that secular work - although required by God - was part of mankind’s nature. “But work would take on more and more importance for Luther (…). Not only did monastic life lack value in his eyes as a means of justifying oneself before God but it shielded man from the duties of this world and thus appeared to Luther to be the product of the egoism and hardness of the heart. On the other hand, the exercise of professional work was for him the external expression of love for one’s neighbour”7. But this justification would itself soon disappear: it would leave in its place the affirmation, repeated with growing fervour, that in all circumstances doing one’s temporal duties was the only way of living which pleased God. “Accomplishing these duties, and it alone, is God’s will and consequently all lawful work has absolutely the same value in God’s eyes”. The more Luther was to become involved in worldly affairs, continues Weber, the more he would emphasize the significance of professional work: “which led him to consider more and more professional work as a special order from God to the individual to fulfill the concrete task assigned by Providence”. But for Luther, the concept of Beruf remained traditionalistic: “Man must accept his task as being given to him by divine decree and he must live with it. Orthodox Lutheranism went much further and defended the idea that professional activity was a task, even more, the task assigned by God. Ascetic Protestantism would take this idea even further: what had remained a purely intellectual hypothetical suggestion became for the
7 P. 91.
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Calvinists a characteristic element of their ethical system: love for one’s neighbour was expressed firstly in the accomplishment of professional tasks given by lex naturae. Work, in the service of impersonal social utility, was thus recognised as exalting the glory of God. Lalive d’Epinay (1994), commenting in particular on the way in which translators have radically changed the initial meaning of texts8, defends the idea that at the start of the 20th century work continued to be perceived essentially as a duty and an effort. “At the start of the 20th century, the revolution produced its effects, leading to the generalization of the labour market, the expansion of the wage-earning class and the development of the working class. The industrial society established itself and was organised around economic activity which made the people, for better or for worse, industrious. This was when Weber wrote the lines in his celebrated essay “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism”: “the puritan wanted to be industrious and we are forced to be so (…). The idea of accomplishing one’s duty via work now haunts our lives, like the specter of religious beliefs long since gone”. From Northern Italy to Scandinavia, from Czechoslovakia to the USA, a work and duty ethic now reigns which is a veritable vision of man and the world. Let us propose a summary: - the human being is defined ontologically speaking as a being governed by duty; work – i.e. mercantile work – is the first of the duties, a means par excellence for the proper accomplishment of other duties; - the concept of duty is closely associated with the principle of individual responsibility (or freedom), vis-à-vis oneself and one’s family in the present and in future; - individual responsibility leads to the adoption of rational behaviour, i.e. effort, work, anticipation, savings; - hence the individual’s fulfillment consists of finding his/her proper place in society, it involves assuming a precise function and social roles. According to this vision of the world, the community is a superior principle to the individual of which it is the finality. The individual is above all defined by duties, the only fundamental right being the right to work. Society on the other hand has rights vis-à-vis individuals. The subordination of the individual to society, the sacrifice of oneself to the community is justified by the fact that society ensures the individual’s security and above all by the idea that, transformed into one gigantic factory, society is in the process of producing tomorrow’s prosperity”9. Jean Paule Willaime (2003), commenting on Weber’s idea that work value would be secularized (since “all-conquering capitalism no longer needs this support as it is built on a mechanical basis”) and in wondering how religious motivations had been replaced, gave this reply: “work is always considered as an important duty, even as a vocation. There has indeed
8 Psalm 90 tells of the vanity of life for whosoever exile separates from God: “the days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet it is their strength labour and sorrow”. What was rendered by the translator Osterwald correctly as “sorrow” was translated by Luther as “work” (and yet that which was precious was but pain and work). Although the Reformer’s translation is, at a pinch, acceptable, it translates a word with a strong negative connotation by a neutral, weak term. The Reformer’s translation became the accepted one but, over the course of time, this verse has become removed from its scriptural context and transformed into a sentence worded as follows: what is most precious. In a long life, it is effort and work. The alchemy has succeeded; the mistranslation is sealed”. This formalization was made possible by the theoretical re-working which began with Saint Augustine (it became possible to compare the divine opus with the work of monks) and ended in a veritable about turn with the Reform, and more particularly with Calvinism whose effects have been clearly shown by Weber. As Lalive d’Epinay, echoing Weber, recalls by showing the re-interpretations of Psalm 90, the translations of Luther’s Bible would result for the concept of work in a complete change of meaning. 9 Lalive d’Epinay, “Significations et valeurs du travail, de la société industrielle à nos jours” in Traité de sociologie du Travail, M. De Coster and F. Pichault, De Boeck University, 1998.
15 Documents de travail du Centre d’études de l’emploi been secularization but it remained internal to the work value. It is the latter which moved us on from the concept of work as a religious duty to a vision of work as secular duty”. Although work was considered at one time and certainly is still considered so by some individuals, more or less intensely in certain countries, as a duty, other dimensions may also be more or less present. Investigations of a philosophical or sociological nature make it possible to distinguish different meanings in the concept of work which co-exist today and which help individuals to envisage their relationship with work.
From work as a “production factor” to work as the “essence of man” and to work as a “system for distributing income, rights and protection”
In “Le Travail. Une valeur en voie de disparition”, Méda (1995) proposed distinguishing three stages or three periods in the construction of the concept of work, each having witnessed the introduction of a new layer of interpretation or meaning which had in a way th become sedimented over the previous centuries. The XVIII century saw the success and the formalization of the first dimension, particularly in the works of Smith, after several centuries of theoretical preparation in which work, until then scorned, was recognised as having a value. Work was then defined as “that which creates wealth”. This is our actual “production factor”. It nonetheless continues to be considered as a punishment, a sacrifice, economists would say a “disutility”. th With the XIX century a second period began during which a second layer of meaning, radically different from the first, was added on to the first (but did not replace it): work was considered as the creative freeing of man, the transformational and negative power of man enabling him both to obliterate nature and make the world in his image and thus express and transform himself. First expressed in Hegel’s philosophy, this concept finally found form in Marx’s The Manuscripts of 1844, where work appears as the human activity par excellence, that which allows man to express himself best both in his genre and in his singularity: “let us suppose”, writes Marx, “that we are productive as human beings: each one of us could assert himself doubly in his production, himself and the other. 1. In my production, I would realise my individuality, my particularity; I would experience, in working, the pleasure of an individual manifestation of my life and in contemplating the object, I would have the individual joy of recognising my personality as a real power, concretely perceptible and exempt from any doubt (…) 3. I would be conscious of serving as a mediator between you and humankind, of being recognised and felt by you as complementary to your own being and as a necessary part of yourself, of being accepted in your spirit as in your love”(10). Work is not a disutility: “to consider work simply as a sacrifice, therefore a source of value, as a price paid by things and attributing a price to things depending on whether they involve more or less work, is to adhere to a purely negative definition (…). Work is a positive, creative activity (11). Once it is no longer alienated, work will become the primary vital need. th The XX century is the one which saw the development of a third layer of meaning with the establishment of the wage-earning society: the various rights set up to protect workers would be centered on the link with wages (the very one which would have to be abolished if work was to be liberated): right to work, right to social protection. Of course, as Habermas wrote,
10.. Marx (1844), Economy and Philosophy, Lecture Notes, § 22, in Œuvres, Économie, tome II, p. 33, La Pléiade, Gallimard, 1979. 11. Marx, “Work as Sacrifice and as Free Labour” in Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, outline 1857- 1858, Œuvres, Économie, tome II, pp. 290-292, La Pléiade, Gallimard, 1979.
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“the citizen receives compensation in the shape of rights in his role as a user of the bureaucracies established by the Welfare State and by purchasing power in his role as a consumer of goods. The lever for pacifying class antagonism is therefore the neutralisation of the conflictual material still to be found in the status of salaried employment”12, but work is therefore transformed into employment and it is therefore appreciated not only for the income or the expression of self it provides but also for the rights to which it gives access. This genealogy, which sees in our current concept of work the result of many theoretical re- workings and the co-existence of a plurality of meanings, provides a pattern for attempting to untangle the various dimensions covered by the notion of importance attributed to work. When people say that work is important, are they referring to the instrumental dimension of work (work as the activity providing an income and increasing national production, the “work as a production factor”), to the expressive dimension of work (I express myself and I change the world in which I am, this is the “work as the essence of man” dimension) or work as a job (work is important because it gives me access to social rights, this is work as the “system of distribution of income, rights and protection”)?
Homo oeconomicus, homo faber, homo sociologicus
Sociology has produced three very similar typologies whose heuristic vocation is identical, for example that which Paugam (2000) proposes in “Le salarié de la précarité”13 by distinguishing three paradigms: homo faber, homo oeconomicus and homo sociologicus. “Homo faber refers of course to the act of work itself and the fulfillment it provides for the person doing it, in that it enables him/her to assert him/herself in a precise task (…). Homo oeconomicus implies a more instrumental attitude to work. Satisfaction depends then on his/her remuneration according to a market (…). Homo sociologicus postulates that all work is done in a social framework: the quality of the relationships between men and the recognition they obtain from it constitute an essential factor of satisfaction”. These theoretical remarks make it possible to understand why, as Paugam writes, “wage- earners are so attached to their employment, sometimes to the point of accepting inferior working conditions and wages. Employment provides them in reality with more than a wage. It gives them social rights and a position in the hierarchy of status derived from the Welfare State and therefore a social identity”14. This theoretical framework gives us an initial analytical scale which enables us to understand better the concept of the importance of work. To say that work is important without going into more detail means nothing: when people say that work is very important, do they mean that it is essential in order to live as a provider of income, as a supplier of income (economic dimension of work as a production factor where it is reduced to this best effort dimension with a view to something else), do they on the contrary wish to signify that work is a duty that must be accomplished or that via work I express and fulfill myself and that it constitutes a fundamental dimension of my humanity (work as the essence of man and the mark of my singularity which must therefore be exercised not with a view to something else – obtaining
12 J. Habermas, La technique et la science comme idéologie, in La technique et la science comme idéologie, Denoël, 1973, p. 65. 13 S. Paugam, op.cit. 14 P. 62.
17 Documents de travail du Centre d’études de l’emploi an income – but by virtue of the satisfaction which the activity itself gives). Consequently, all the dimensions of expression and relationship permitted by work become essential. Lastly, to declare that work is important may be interpreted as agreeing with the current norm which is that without work participation in social life is diminished and that having a job is having a place in society as well a series of rights. As explained by Lallement: “The most worrying fact is perhaps that, as we look at the the surveys in more detail, certitudes weaken to the point that it scarcely seems relevant to try to decide one way or another in favour of a conclusion which is as simple as it is unilateral. The main reason is due to an ongoing misunderstanding arising out of the extensive use of the word "work". In the Value surveys referred to previously, the variety of terms proposed to assess work is remarkable to such an extent that it is difficult to reach a simple interpretation of results which are too global" (Lallement, 2001). In the following sections, we try on the one hand to see whether the results of the surveys confirm the explanatory hypotheses referred to above and on the other to highlight the most important dimensions of work in the French case. Can the fact that work is considered to be more important in France than in other countries be explained by the fact that the ethic of duty is more developed there or should we see the effect of a particularly poor employment situation compared with other European countries, in particular with regard to the rate of unemployment and worries linked to job insecurity? Or, a third hypothesis, must one interpret these results as the sign that expectations centered on work are particularly strong in France, marked especially by the hope that work becomes a place where one can express oneself, enabling social links to be created and therefore by post-materialistic dimensions? We will be looking successively at these three hypotheses.
1.2. What is the significance of the importance attributed by the French to work?
According to the surveys, it seems that France occupies a median position with regard to the work ethic. Part of its singularity can be explained by its high rates of unemployment and the related concerns for the future. France is about average with regard to having an instrumental relationship to work. Most of the French singularity seems to be related to the strength of the post-materialistic expectations centered on work.
1.2.1 “The ethic of duty”: France about average
We saw previously that although the ethic of duty has profoundly marked western societies th over the course of the last few centuries certain authors say that the XX century would rather seem to be the epoch of its decline. Work was considered less a duty to be accomplished than a means of obtaining a wage enabling the individual to fulfill him/herself and being a condition for full integration into society. What trends can we see when we read the surveys available? What is happening in Europe? Does France occupy a special position in this scenario? Graphs 3 to 5 show the results of a series of questions in EVS 1999 on the work ethic as a duty15: countries are shown in the light of the proportion of people who were “in full agreement” with the phrase proposed in the questionnaire.
15 These questions are unfortunately not available in the previous waves of the EVS.
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Graph 3: Work and duty
Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? "Work is a duty towards society".
100%
80%
60% Disagree strongly Disagree Neither agree, nor disagree Agree 40% Agree strongly
20%
0% . a n y a ia ia d a al ds in ce ri rg g a an taly ak lan ani ede Rep mark I an ou tu tu w Sp inland m Latvi lgium Malta ov lga b r er i S Ireland F Greece Estonia en Fr e loven Polan th L Ger zech D B Sl S Hungary Bu Romania Po C uxem Great Britain L The Ne Source: EVS 1999.
The feeling that work is a duty to be accomplished is still largely held and shared by more than half of all Europeans (cf. graph 3). In Portugal and Denmark, more people agree that work is a duty vis-à-vis society. This seems to echo the idea that Danes are particularly “civic” (Algan and Cahuc, 2006). They become involved in their work (Svallfors et al., 2001; Hult and Svallfors, 2002). Taken overall, the French population seems no more sensitive to the work ethic than its Anglo-Saxon neighbours for example. If one takes account of the percentage of people simply agreeing with this idea, France is close to the UK. Furthermore, a quit high proportion of French also accept that “people should not be obliged to work if they do not want to” (graph 5) and that it is not humiliating to receive money without having worked for it (graph 4). The feeling of helping others or of being useful to society also does not seem to be particularly important for the French: less than 20% consider that the possibility of helping others by working is important in a job whereas this proportion is almost 40% in Portugal, Ireland and Spain. In other words, the work ethic as a duty vis-à-vis society is not particularly prevalent in France. However, a minority of the population states very firmly its sensitiveness to the work ethic. With regard to the concept of work as a “duty vis-à-vis society”, the French effectively differ with a relatively high percentage of people “totally in agreement” with this idea (graph 3). This French specificity disappears when taking into account the percentage of people “in agreement”. Likewise, a relatively substantial proportion (more than 20%) of the French are “totally in agreement” with the idea that it would be humiliating to receive money without working (cf. graph 4). This proportion is lower in the other countries of the EU15 (with the exception of Italy) and in particular in the Netherlands, the UK, Denmark and Sweden but the French specificity is attenuated if the proportion of people “in agreement” with this idea is included. In other words, the work ethic is still well and truly present and substantially confirmed by a relatively large minority of the French population although this result can in no way suffice to explain the importance which work has for a large majority of French people.
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Graph 4: Receiving money without working
Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? "It is humiliating to receive money without having to work for it".
100%
80%
60% Disagree strongly Disagree Neither agree, nor disagree Agree 40% Agree strongly
20%
0%
l y g ds en y d a ta ce ia ia r d ain d ga an an ep. via l e n an itain p l R at a gar ou Italy rl r S m e M n b e Islande r Ir ch L Gre love France Polan h Swe Finland e e Estoni BelgiumS SlovakiaLituan m t Portu DenmarkG Hu xe RomaniaBulgaria Ne Cz u e Great B L Th Source: EVS 1999.
Graph 5 : Not having to work if you do not want to
Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? "People should not have to work if they don't want to".
100%
80%
60% Disagree strongly Disagree Neither agree, nor disagree Agree 40% Agree strongly
20%
0%
k n d . d y y g e n in ly ep n c tai a a an a ar aria ium n ands mar i p Ita R venia l tonia g a rl rtugal Latvia r rel S Malta in s rm lg oland Sweden o B I ch lo F E e Greece u Fr omania P the Den P ze S G SlovakiaHun B Lituania Belg R e eat N r C G Luxembour The Source: EVS 1999.
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Graph 6: The importance of the social link with work
% of people déclaring that the possibility of helping other people is "very important" in a job
50
45
40,2 40 38,6 37,5
35
29,4 30 26,2 1989 25 23,7 1997 22,0 20,7 21,1 2005 20 18,7 16,0 15
10
5
0
d k n n l n rs t) in r e ia e ta taly d tr la i I pai tuga n Wes rlands us S r Fi France e A Ireland o y ( t Br enma Swe h P Fland n a D Gre rma e Net h Ge T Germany (East)
Source: ISSP 1989, 1997, 2005.
Graph 7: The importance of being useful to society
% of people declaring that being useful to society is "very important" in a job
60
50 45,2
40,0 40,5 40
1989 30 28,1 1997 2005 21,2 21,4 21,5 19,5 20 18,4 15,1 12,4
10
0
l d rs t) rk ia n n ds e a ain aly tr la n t It pai n m ri us S rtuga and Wes France n B A Ireland o Fi Sweden y ( P Fl n De a reat rm G The Netherla Ge Germany (East)
Source: ISSP 1989, 1997, 2005.
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1.2.2 French society worried by unemployment: a hypothesis which does not fully explain the French singularity
Is the special position of France a manifestation of the stronger weight of unemployment? In this perspective, the economic context measured by indicators such as GDP per inhabitant or the level of unemployment would partly explain the French position. If we refer to the replies given in the two waves of EVS, there is a correlation between the level of GDP and the importance attributed to work. Graph 8 shows that the poorest countries (like Ireland in 1990, Italy in 1990 and Spain in 1999) attribute more importance to work than the wealthiest countries (Germany in 1999 or Denmark in 1999). One can thus trace a straight line showing this correlation. This relationship cannot however explain the French situation. Without being in the group of the most prosperous countries, France in 1999 was relatively wealthy. It can therefore be found in the right-hand part of graph 3, but it is very far from the straight line which symbolises the correlation between the degree of importance attributed to work and GDP. The importance which the French attribute to work does not therefore seem to be explained by its level of wealth in 1999. What about the link with unemployment? The correlation between importance attributed to work and the unemployment rate is clear at European level: in those countries affected by mass unemployment, the inhabitants more often than not consider work to be “very important” (cf. graph 9). In countries with a high rate of unemployment, the prospect of losing their job or of not finding another one seems to worry the inhabitants more and for them work then becomes a priority. In 1999, the date for which the ECHP and the EVS are available, a correlation can furthermore be established between dissatisfaction vis-à-vis job security and the importance attributed to work in a country (cf. graph 10).
Graph 8: Importance of work and level of national wealth
Source: EVS 1989, 1990, 1999 and Eurostat for GDP/inhabitant (expressed in inflation-adjusted prices and in euros).
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Graph 9: Importance of work and unemployment
Source: EVS 1990, 1999 and Eurostat for the unemployment rate.
Graph 10: Importance of work and job insecurity
Source: EVS 1999 for the importance of work and ECHP, wave 6 for satisfaction vis-à-vis job security.
The correlations highlighted in graphs 8 and 9 are still valid when the structure of the population is taken into account (levels of qualification, professions, status of activity). The effects of the unemployment rate and GDP are both significant (cf. annex 3). Work will be considered all the
23 Documents de travail du Centre d’études de l’emploi more important when it is lacking and greater importance attributed to the balance between various activities when one has a stable job and an assured income. The French survey on “Travail et Modes de vie”16 (Baudelot and Gollac, 2002) gives such a result. In response to the question: “What is more important for you in order to be happy?”, 46% of respondents said health, 31% the family, 27% work, 25% friends and 20% money. Slightly more than one quarter of respondents therefore referred to work (or the job: having work, a job, being in employment…), but the categories facing the most difficult working conditions, the lowest wages and the highest risk of unemployment made work one of the essential conditions of happiness. The word “work” or one of its synonyms was quoted by 43% of blue-collar workers compared with 20% of heads of enterprises, executives and those in the liberal professions. For men, the social situation as measured by the socio-professional category (blue or white-collar worker) is decisive. The status of the job is just as decisive: the unemployed (43%) and temporary workers (45%) put forward work much more often as a condition for happiness than the holders of a stable job (31%). “For those who have nothing, work is the minimum, the first step which they aspire to take: in order to be happy, you have firstly “to have”: to have work, employment, a job. On the contrary, the more benefits of all sorts one has (income, family, children, “gratifying” work) the greater the sources of happiness on earth. This is why blue-collar workers, white-collar workers and the unemployed associate happiness and work more, and more directly, than executives” (Baudelot and Gollac, 2002). These results partially clarify France’s special position on graph 1. The French rate of unemployment and the insecurity felt by the French could explain the importance which work has in their eyes. On graphs 4 and 5, France however remains relatively distant from the regression straight lines. In other words, the replies of the French cannot fully be explained by the rate of unemployment and job market insecurity. The “Travail et mode de vie” survey confirms furthermore that this explanation only holds true for part of the French population.
1.2.3 An instrumental relationship with work comparable to that in other countries
The French do not seem to attribute particular importance to wages or job security. They follow the European average whether the question is asked in the framework of the ISSP (graphs 11 and 13) or the ESS (graphs 12, 14 and 15). According to these two surveys, wages and job security (which illustrate the instrumental dimension of work) are much more important in the Mediterranean countries than in the Nordic countries. Two ISSP questions make it possible to measure the instrumental value of work. For almost 30% of the French, work is just a means of earning a living, which puts them above the Danes and the Swedes but below all the others. 60% of the French would continue to work even if they did not need the money. The French once again are in line with the European average (graphs 16 and 17). The instrumental value of work is neither more nor less developed than in comparable countries like Germany.
16 The survey “Travail et mode de vie” is complementary to the survey “Permanente Conditions de Vie des ménages”. It was undertaken by Insee in January 1997 using a representative sample of about 6,000 of the French population in partnership with Dares and the ENS (Ecole normale supérieure). The survey was undertaken at the respondent’s domicile.
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Graph 11: The importance of income according to the ISSP
% of people declaring that income is "very important" in a job
70
61,1 60
50
41,9 40 1989 1997 2005 30 24,9 22,4 19,6 20 16,7 17,7 15,4 15,9
9,6 10
0
s rk n n ly d a ers e ce tria gal itai d land n Ita s u r ra rt rlan wed Ireland Spain e S Fin F Au o th Denm Germany Flan P e N Great B he T
Source: ISSP 1989, 1997, 2005 (cf. annex 4 for the detailed results in 1997 and 2005).
Graph 12: The importance of income according to the ESS
For you personally, how important do you think a high income would be if you were choosing a job? 100% 5,1 7,3 7,5 9,0 13,5 15,3 16,2 16,8 21,4 24,4 31,2 80% 51,0 44,3 41,4 54,8
56,0 69,5 61,7 Very important 60% 52,9 61,5 Important 62,1 60,1 54,1 Neither important, nor unimportant 56,0 Not important 52,6 40% Not important at all
42,5 36,1
20% 25,9
0%
l rk d y g d a in n en ce n g a ce la d tain la u e ma n e man ri ran lgium rt Sp re n i r Ire e F Sw F Austria mbour G D Ge Be e Po Great B Lux The Netherlands
Source: ESS 2002.
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Graph 13: The importance of job security according to the ISSP
% of people declaring that job security is "very important" in a job
90
80 74,1 69,4 70 64,8 62,9 61,1 60 57,9 55,2 53,6 53,9 50,9 50 1989 1997 40 2005 31,9 30
20
10
0
rk rs n al t) in ain e nd nd e ce g a aly st) a t a a n It a m lands ri nl el ra rtu E n r B and i r wed (Wes Sp ( e F I S F o Austria y De h Fl P y Great rman erman e The Net G G
Source: ISSP 1989, 1997, 2005 (cf. annex 4 for the detailed results in 1997 and 2005).
Graph 14: The importance of job security according to the ESS
For you personally, how important do you think a secure job would be if you were choosing a job?
100%
16,0 21,4 31,1 34,8 80% 40,2 43,2 44,8 46,3 50,8 56,9 58,5 58,7 64,0 76,0 60% Very important 54,5 Important 58,8 Neither important, nor unimportant Not important 40% 55,5 Not important at all 56,1 47,5 45,0 43,0 47,6 37,9
37,2 35,0 36,8 28,6 20% 18,3
0%
l n n a a rg n ds e ce nd ri ny g ai ce n d tai ium la st u ou e a e ran g ma rt b Sp re rl Bri el Ire Sw Finland F B Au G Denmarkthe Ger Po em e reat x N G Lu e h T
Source: ESS 2002.
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Graph 15 : The importance of promotion according to the ESS
For you personally, how important do you think a job with good promotions opportunities would be if you were choosing a job?
100% 4,5 6,2 6,9 7,8 12,3 15,6 16,6 19,3 22,5 23,9 25,1 30,5 80% 28,3 45,7 35,2 45,9 42,4 42,7 64,1 44,1 60% 46,2 Very important 50,5 40,7 Important
63,6 55,6 Neither important, nor unimportant 56,8 44,6 Not important 40% Not important at all 38,3 39,7
26,0 20%
0%
rk s n n m g a n e ny u ur ni nd land tai o la ma n ma ve Spai reece n rland i Bri o Ire e e Swed F France Austria mb G D Ger Belgi e Sl Portugal eth reat ux N G L e Th
Source: ESS 2002.
Graph 16: An instrumental relationship?
% of people agreeing the following phrase: "job is just a way of earning money - no more"
70
60
Germany (West) Germany (East) 50 Great Britain Italy Ireland 40 The Netherlands Sweden Spain 30 France Portugal Denmark 20 Flanders Finland Austria
10
0 1989 1997 2005
Source: ISSP 1989, 1997, 2005.
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Graph 17: Work and wages
% of people agreeing the following statement. "I would enjoy having a paid job even if I did not need the money"
90
80
Germany (West) 70 Germany (East) Great Britain 60 Italy Ireland The Netherlands 50 Sweden Spain France 40 Portugal Denmark 30 Flanders Finland Austria 20
10
0 1989 1997 2005 Source: ISSP 1989, 1997, 2005.
The replies of the French to this series of questions on the importance of the extrinsic aspects of work (wages, job security, promotion) correspond broadly to those that one might expect given the economic and institutional situation of France or the composition of its population. This is what tends to be shown by the logistical regression shown in annex and the following graphs. All things being equal, less qualified people attribute more importance to wages and job security. According to this modeling, country effects remain significant and are, to some degree, a residue not explained by our model which was intended to take the effects of composition into account. We therefore compare the country effects and macro-economic indicators via graphs to estimate the effects of the economic and institutional context. The level of income per inhabitant thus seems to affect preferences vis-à-vis wages: wages are less important in the wealthier societies once the level of education or the structure per profession is taken into account in our previous model (cf. graph 18)17. This result confirms Maslow and Inglehart’s theses and relativizes the thesis whereby money is still very important for conspicuous consumption in contemporary societies which remain materialistic. Furthermore, job security is more important in countries where the rate of unemployment is high which seem to be relatively intuitive (graph 19). The institutional context also plays a role, as suggested by Max Haller when he criticized Ronald Inglehart (2002). High unemployment benefits reassure workers who are less worried about job security since the institutional context enables them to be sure of a certain continuity of income (cf. graph 20).
17 It should be recalled that we have not introduced the effect of individual income because it is expressed in national currency for each country.
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Graph 18: National wealth and importance of wages
Source: ISSP 1989, 1997, 2005 and Eurostat for GDP.
Graph 19: Rate of unemployment and importance of job security
Source: ISSP 1989, 1997, 2005 and Eurostat for GDP.
Generous social protection via a redistribution of wealth could also diminish the importance of wages and promotion in the wage-earning hierarchy. This hypothesis is partly validated (cf. graphs 21 and 22): in countries where expenditure for the welfare state is high (Denmark, France, Sweden, the Netherlands and Germany), workers attach less importance to wage and promotions than in countries where social protection is low. Therefore, the value attributed to
29 Documents de travail du Centre d’études de l’emploi the instrumental aspects of work is linked to the institutions of the labour market and of social protection.
Graph 20: Unemployment benefits and importance of job security
Source: ISSP 1989, 1997, 2005 and OECD for replacement rate.
Graph 21: Spending on social protection and importance of wages
Source: ISSP 1989, 1997, 2005 and Eurostat for social protection spending (as % of GDP).
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Graph 22: Spending on social protection and importance of promotion
Source: ISSP 1989, 1997, 2005 and Eurostat for social protection spending (as % of GDP).
The diversity of preferences in Europe is partly the reflection of the heterogeneousness of economic and institutional contexts. On the plans shown here, France can be found very close to the straight line which symbolises the correlation: in other words, preferences of a materialistic nature which can be found in France correspond in full to its economic and institutional situation compared with other countries. Similarly, the relative disinterest shown by Danes in wages, which could pass as a cultural trait, can in reality be explained by a relatively high level of wealth compared with the rest of Europe and generous social protection. Furthermore, the lesser importance which Danish wage-earners attach to security could be explained in large part by generous social protection. It should be clarified straight away that a generous system of social protection, which is sometimes accused of encouraging laziness, does not seem to bring into question the importance of work. Spending on social protection is not really related to the percentage of people considering work to be “very important” (cf. graph 23). In reality, it is less the level of spending which counts than its structure and the principles which govern the Welfare State. The importance attributed to work in each country very often echoes Esping-Andersen’s classifications (1990). In countries with a “Beveridgian” tradition, where social rights are not allocated to workers but directly to the citizens, work is less often cited as “very important in life”. In countries with a “Bismarckian” tradition, where social protection is closely associated with employment, job stability is on the contrary of crucial importance since it gives access to social rights. In more liberal countries, it is less job stability which is sought and more high wages which makes it possible to take out private insurance (Paugam, 2000). The principles of social protection can thus give structure to expectations vis-à-vis employment, even though they are not the sole explanatory factor: Germany with its “Bismarckian” tradition thus attributes much less importance to work than France although the latter is classed in the same category as corporatist-conservative countries (Esping-Andersen, 1990; Amable, 2005).
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Graph 23: Importance of work and spending on social protection
Source: EVS 1990, 1999 and Eurostat for social protection spending as a % of GDP.
Certain national differences seem therefore to refer to a more or less favourable economic situation but the economic and institutional context cannot entirely account for the French specificity concerning the importance attributed to work. A final hypothesis needs to be looked at: does the development of post-materialistic expectations translate, in France more than elsewhere, as the wish to fulfill oneself at work?
1.2.4 The desire for fulfillment at work: a French pecularity?
A few researchers have attempted to test the idea of a decline in the importance attributed to instrumental values and a sharp rise in values based on personal work fulfillment by analysing the result of the EVS or the WVS (De Witte, Halman and Gelissen, 2004; Ester, Braun and Vinken, 2006; Riffault and Tchernia, 2002; Tchernia, 2005) or the WVS (Huang and Vliert, 2003). The theoretical framework elaborated by Maslow and addressed in a comparative context by Inglehart (Inglehart and Baker, 2000) constitutes their main analytical perspective. They distinguish the extrinsic or materialistic “orientations” (workers attach more importance to wages, to prestige or to job security) from intrinsic or post- materialistic “orientations” (workers put greater value on personal fulfillment at work, etc). According to the results of the WVS which cover about fifty countries on all continents, the intrinsic characteristics of work are more important in more individualistic and more economically developed countries whose level of social protection is higher (Huang and Vliert, 2003). At European level, Inglehart’s theory whereby the wealthiest societies place more value on personal fulfillment, is not validated by the previous research based on the EVS (De Witte, Halman and Gelissen, 2004; Ester, Braun and Vinken, 2006). Can we confirm these results? How has Europe developed in the last 15 years? Can we see common trends? Has there been a sharp rise in expectations in terms of self-realisation and fulfillment as societies became wealthier? In this scenario, where is France?
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The importance attributed to the intrinsic interest in work seems relatively stable over the last fifteen years (graph 24), as well as the importance attributed to autonomy (graphs 27 and 28). The French are noticeable by the importance they attribute to the intrinsic interest in work according to the ISSP: almost 65% of the population said this aspect was “very important” in 1997 and again in 2005. This proportion is lower in most other European countries. There are also more French than Swedes or Britons who estimate that the development of their abilities involves work according to the EVS. More than half the French are “fully in agreement” with the idea that work is necessary in order to fully develop one’s abilities (graph 25): this is the highest score in Europe. Less than 20% share this opinion in the UK, Sweden and Finland. Similarly, in France, almost 25% of the population agrees with the idea that “people who do not work become lazy”. This figure is less than 10% in the UK and in Sweden (graph 26), and this gap persists when the proportion of people who are “in agreement” is taken into account. For the French, work appears as very important, i.e. as necessary in order to be able to lead a normal life, to develop and to fulfill oneself. This result confirms the idea that work occupies quite a special place in France whereas the Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian countries do not set such store by it.
Graph 24: The importance of the intrinsic interest in work according to the ISSP
% of people declaring that an interesting job is "very important"
80
70 68,1
58,8 60 54,8 51,0 51,8 48,9 49,1 49,6 49,8 50 46,7 42,7 1989 40 1997 2005
30
20
10
0
l s t) in d rk d s a st) n ain a ce n ders e a a Italy t land n la n Sp rtuga E nl ri m ra W o ( n Fi Sweden B Ire Austria F ther Fla P ny De e a reat N rm G e e Th Germany ( G
Source: ISSP 1989, 1997, 2005 (cf. annex 4 for detailed results in 1997 and 2005).
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Graph 25: Does personal development involve work?
Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? "To fully develop your talents, you need to have a job"
100%
80%
60% Disagree strongly Disagree Neither agree, nor disagree 40% Agree Agree strongly
20%
0%
s a n n d a ia a a a lt e i n nd rk ny ep. ry ria nd a d ta a ium ni tv eni aki a ni a a a nce g Italy v reece v to ugal R M we Spain tua La o s rm rt bourg lg S Bri Finla Irel G enm E e m Poland Fra herla t Bel Li Sl Romania Slo D G Po zech Hung Bu ea Net C Gr Luxe The
Source: EVS 1999.
Graph 26: Work or idleness?
Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? "People who don't work turn lazy".
100%
80%
60% Disagree strongly Disagree Neither agree, nor disagree Agree 40% Agree strongly
20%
0%
s l a a en in d d ia in m a a ta ia ia a ry n n ny n ece ni l nce a nd d ta a e iu ug a tv Italy rm Spa sto M La ra ng Swe Bri Finla Irela e Gr E F Poland loveni u t Litua Belg Port DenmarkBulgar Romani S H Slovaki etherla G rea Czech Rep. G Luxembourg The N Source: EVS 1999.
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Graph 27: The importance of autonomy according to the ISSP
% of people declaring that being independant is "very important" in a job
70
60
Germany (West) 50 Germany (East) Great Britain Austria Italy 40 Ireland The Netherlands Sweden 30 Spain France Portugal Denmark 20 Flanders Finland
10
0 1989 1997 2005
Source: ISSP 1989, 1997, 2005.
Graph 28: Importance of autonomy according to the ESS
For you personally, how important do you think a job enabled you to use own initiative would be if you were choosing a job?
100%
21,5 21,5 23,6 25,0 25,6 27,0 27,0 30,4 33,1 33,3 80% 40,0 43,1 44,6 49,0
60% Very important Important Neither important, nor unimportant 63,3 57,6 65,9 59,7 56,8 Not important 62,2 59,9 48,7 40% 61,8 56,2 Not important at all 49,8 42,2 39,3 32,5
20%
0%
y g d in ds n ce tria ur n a ce n tain n s o la e la nland ri lgium eden Sp re r i rma w Ire ortugal F Fra S Au mb G Ge Be Denmark e P Nethe Great B Lux e h T
Source: ESS 2002.
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Graph 29: National wealth and importance of the intrinsic interest in work
Source: ISSP 1989, 1997, 2005 and Eurostat for GDP.
What are the explanations? Firstly, once again, the composition of the population plays a role, which we model via a probit (cf. annexes 5 and 7). The intrinsic interest in work is of greater importance to young people according to annex 5. Rainer Zoll showed (1999) how much young Germans sought pleasure not "in work" but "at work" (Spaßhaben bei der Arbeit). French surveys confirm this inter-generational difference. According to the Chronopost Ipsos (Delay, 2005) survey, young members of the working population want to invest their energy in work which gives them “pleasure” in the short term and has value in their eyes. This interpretative hypothesis is confirmed by the fact that the interest in and content of work on the one hand, and the possibilities of continuing to learn and enrich one’s know-how on the other, played a part in the choice of their actual job, a role deemed respectively by 89 and 87% of young people to be very or quite important. Similarly, once in a job, young people more than their elders promote interest in and content of work to the rank of “essential” criteria (45% of young people and 35% of older people), as well as the quality of relationships with the hierarchy (41% of young people and 34% of older people) and with colleagues (50% of young people and 43% of older people). Regardless of age, the categories on the bottom rung of the social ladder - less than the classes above them – represent work as a vector for personal fulfillment. The interest in work is furthermore a more broadly highlighted concern by those with higher education particularly amongst young people: it concerns 27% of those with fewer qualifications aged under 30 and 67% of those with higher qualifications in the same age category. At European level, the intrinsic interest in work is also more important for those people at the top of the income scale18 and those who are more highly qualified (cf. annex 5). The more
18 This is individual income. For socio-economic characteristics such as income, the ISSP is based on a national survey. For many countries, income is declared as such, which enables us to calculate the quartiles. For other countries, we have bands of income which we have regrouped in four bands which each regroups almost a quarter of the national population.
36 Documents de travail du Centre d’études de l’emploi highly qualified also attribute more importance to autonomy, to the possibility of being useful to society and to the possibility of helping others. They are less concerned with wages and job security. These results fully confirm the idea that qualifications protect against the risk of having a bad job and give birth to other ambitions more targeted at the intrinsic aspect of work. Preferences also vary from one profession to another. The intellectual professions favour the intrinsic interest in work, autonomy, the possibility of helping others and of being useful to society. Blue-collar workers attribute less importance to these aspects. This individual heterogeneousness could clarify the differences between countries which we saw at the start of this section. For example, the importance of the intrinsic interest in work in Denmark could be explained by the structure of the population, more qualified than in the rest of Europe. Although the effects of composition undoubtedly exist, they can in no way explain all the European differences. According to our results, living in one country rather than in another significantly influences preferences. The “country effects” in our model remain significant in the majority of cases (annex 5). Regardless of whether the “country effects” estimated in our model or the percentage of people stating that each item is important is taken into account differences between countries remain. This is particularly so for the intrinsic interest in work. Here we find a result similar to that of Duncan Gallie (2007). The importance of intrinsic aspects is much less correlated with the level of national wealth (graph 29) than the importance of wages. This conclusion makes it possible to clarify the disappointing results in the literature which sought to test Inglehart’s theory. To date, the literature has not find significant effect of national wealth on the importance attributed to intrinsic or extrinsic aspects: it must be said that this literature was based on a composite index contrasting intrinsic aspects with extrinsic aspects (De Witte et al., 2004). As we have seen, the level of national wealth does not have such a net effect on the importance of intrinsic aspects. Its impact on preferences vis-à-vis wages was more difficult to see via a composite index. Inglehart’s theory is partly verified. Our results underline the fact that the desire to fulfill oneself at work is relatively developed in Europe and is not related to the level of wealth. They confirm Maslow’s critiques which were developed in the 1960s in industrial psychology, for example, in order to underline the fact that the need for fulfillment and meaning existed even though the need for security was not entirely addressed. Similarly, with regard to the idea whereby “you need a job to fully develop your abilities”, the structure of the population plays a role. The older age groups, men, employers, the self- employed, unionized workers and people with low income are more in agreement with this idea (cf. annex 7). Even taking into account composition effects, the French particularity remains significant. Countries are not classified depending on national wealth. It should also be noted that the usual groupings, in terms of Welfare States for example (Esping-Andersen, 1990) are not systematically found. There are as many Danes as Italians who say that you need a job to fully develop your abilities. Similarly, Spaniards do not find it more humiliating to receive money than Britons or Danes. More cultural specificities can explain the differences between preferences, especially preferences vis-à-vis the intrinsic aspects of employment. Firstly, differences in language should not be excluded. The Dutch seem to be somewhat reticent in recognising that an aspect is “very important” since The Netherlands have a negative and significant coefficient in all analyses based on the ISSP with one exception (cf. annex 5). The Portuguese and the Spanish are on the other hand more inclined to accept that a characteristic is “very important”. The results of the ESS confirm this angle: the Dutch rarely say that a characteristic is “very important” in the framework of this survey and the inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula chose this wording much more often than the majority of other Europeans. The UK often has a
37 Documents de travail du Centre d’études de l’emploi negative sign, but Britons said more frequently that job security and promotion possibilities are “very important” in 1997 and this difference is quite significant. For the majority of other countries, the results are more complicated and a systematic biais seems excluded: they can be attributed a negative or positive sign. Consequently, it must be recognised that the French attribute specific importance to the interest in work, which cannot be explained by the characteristics of the working population or by the effects of the context or by a linguistic biais. France is effectively far from the straight line of regression in trying to explain the importance of intrinsic aspects by the level of wealth (graph 29). The importance of intrinsic aspects has to be placed in a more general context concerning the place of work. Work is more frequently an emotional investment in France, which is also highlighted in the IPSOS and Sofres surveys (Solom, 2006; TNS Sofres, 2007). 42% of the French think that they “fulfill themselves often by working”, for a European average of 30% (Solom, 2006). Conversely, the Sofres surveys show that English wage-earners have a “mercantile”, “utilitarian”, even “mercenary” vision of their work – we use here the words brought out by TNS Sofres (2007). We now have a series of indices to qualify this interpretation of the relationship to work by the English. The British obviously say a little more often that work is “just a means of earning a living” (graph 16). However, according to the ESS and the ISSP, they rarely say that wages are “very important”, drawing closer to the Nordic countries (graphs 11 and 12). Our model proves this singularity: compared with the structure of its population, the UK differs by attributing less importance to wages (annex 5). These results cannot be understood without reference here to the place of work: the British are, with the Danes, the people who attribute the least place to work in their life (graph 1). In other words, a gap is created from the world of work which cannot be interpreted as a “mercantile” or “utilitarian” vision but rather a more distant, more pragmatic and less emotional relationship with work. The IPSOS survey supports this idea: when Europeans are asked “what does work mean for you?” almost 40% of the English say “routine”, whereas the French prefer the notion of accomplishment or pride (Solom, 2006). This refers to the approach that a one-dimensional analysis of the relationship to work, marked by opposition between “intrinsic” and “extrinsic” aspects does not fully encompass reality where it neglects the place attributed to work in life. Finally, the national specificities that we have shown can be interpreted as cultural effects even if religion has already been taken into account. They may also come from institutional specificities which change little over time and which we can not show via the indicators we have used for the context, the only ones which were available for a large number of countries and over a long period. It may be, for example, that policies promoting the quality of life at work developed in the 70s in Scandinavia have reinforced the interest which workers may feel in their work (Gallie, 2007). This explanation does not seem to hold true for France where Taylorism is widespread and where, more recently, “just in time” production has been relatively successful (Lorenz and Valeyre, 2005). Although the opposition between expectations vis-à-vis the intrinsic aspects of work (interest, autonomy) and the extrinsic aspects of work (wages, security) has a heuristic virtue, it can in no way cover all of the facets which may be appreciated in work. From this point of view, EVS and ISSP questionnaires are an opportunity to envisage other considerations. If we follow the EVS, workers appreciate and put a value on a good working atmosphere: amongst the aspects which are quoted as important, the work atmosphere is in second place (cf. graph 30). On this question, the preferences of the French do not seem to differ from those of Europeans: for 68% of the Europeans, a good working atmosphere is an important aspect; this figure is 65% in France.
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Graph 30: The importance of the different facets: the results of the EVS
Which aspects you personnally think are important in a job? Percentage of people choosing each aspect
68,5 Good pay 73,9 65,0 Pleasant people to work with 72,0 65,8 A job that is interesting 64,6 46,4 Goof job security 62,3 50,5 A job in which you feel you can achieve something 56,5 50,4 A job that meets one's abilities 56,3 43,2 An opportunity to use initiative 50,1 France Meeting people 43,7 49,0 Europe 15 49,4 A responsible job 47,2 36,0 To have time off at the week-ends 46,8 26,3 A job respected by people in general 41,0 30,2 A useful job for society 40,0 30,7 Good chances for promotion 36,4 11,4 Not too much pressure 31,8 19,9 Generous holidays 28,1
0 1020304050607080
Source: EVS 1999, EU15.
Graph 31: The importance of the possibilities of conciliation
For you personally, how important do you think a job allowed you to combine work/family would be if you were choosing a job?
100%
15,6 90% 18,8 20,6 25,8 26,8 28,4 30,2 33,6 80% 36,8 44,8 45,5 48,6 52,6 70% 66,9
60% 49,8 Very important 55,4 Important 50% 57,0 Neither important, nor unimportant 59,5 52,4 60,7 52,2 Not important 40% 55,7 51,0 Not important at all 38,6 43,0 38,8 30% 40,3
20% 25,7
10%
0%
l rk n in m rg a d n a ds e ce ny a u ri ai ce n n ou st lan p e ma la ra ma lgi S rtug re n r Brit Ire Finland e Swed F t mb Au G D Ger a Be e Po ux Nethe Gre L e h T
Source: ESS 2002.
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When workers are interviewed about the possibility of conciliation, which ESS has done, this aspect of their work is “important” (cf. graph 31). It is even “very important” for almost half the inhabitants of countries in the South, Ireland and Austria. The proportions are smaller in Nordic countries and in France, but how should these replies be interpreted? Reconciling work and family is perhaps very important in the Scandinavian countries and in France but conditions of employment are not perceived as the primary factor encouraging conciliation, this role belonging to public policies. We shall refer to this subject in the next part. The first part attempted to test explanatory hypotheses which might emerge from simply noting European similarities, in particular with regard to importance of work and the meaning which societies give to it (is it a means of earning a living? a duty vis-à-vis society or a source of fulfillment?). This analysis has enabled us to unravel the effects of composition, effects specific to the economic and institutional context as well as the remaining specificities. It demonstrates that the variety of preferences in Europe is partly due to structural differences (levels of education for example), the economic and social situations and policies (economic growth, social protection) and not only to a culture specific to each country. It thus confirms the thesis whereby preferences are formed by the economic and institutional context. Following on from Inglehart’s intuitions, we have been able to demonstrate that material preoccupations (here wages) are less prevalent in the wealthiest societies. On the other hand, post-material preoccupations, to use his terms (here the intrinsic interest in work) seem just as developed in poorer societies once the level of education, which plays an important role, is taken into account. Over and above the economic level, a variable favoured by Ronald Inglehart, the institutional context is a second important dimension in analysing values and preferences (Haller, 2002). The social protection system may thus reassure workers who are less concerned by job security. In this list of values, France, as we have said, occupies a special position. It is one of the countries attributing most importance to work. Amongst the three hypotheses put forward to explain this, the last two seem the most relevant. In point of fact, the majority of the French do not seem to favour an “ethic of duty”. On the other hand, they remain concerned by their purchasing power and their job security. The material preoccupations of the French are partly due to the concerns caused by unemployment. The importance which the French accord to the interest in work and the conviction with which they consider that work is a source of necessary fulfillment are on the other hand a national singularity.
1.2.5 The French diversity in the relationship to work
International surveys show the divided feelings of the French who attribute more importance to the interest in work but who remain concerned by wages or job security. We have seen from the results of the Travail et Modes de vie survey that some of the French, those furthest removed from employment or those who have precarious employment, highlight more than the others the importance attributed to work. The less work there is, the more it is considered to be important. Those who have a job considered to be stable express a more balanced relationship to work. This same difference can be found in the CFDT survey “Le Travail en questions” undertaken vis-à-vis 50,000 people in 2001. The survey effectively answers the question of whether work is mainly perceived as a means of surviving or one of the places where one can achieve self-fulfillment: “for you work is 1) an obligation endured to earn a living, 2) an obligation and also a means for self-fulfillment, 3) of being useful, of participating in life in society, 4) of realising a project or a passion”. A third of people
40 Documents de travail du Centre d’études de l’emploi interviewed defined work as an obligation, 42% as both an obligation and a means for self- fulfillment, 20% answered that it was useful and 5% for realising a project or a passion. Replies varied not only according to the categories of wage-earners but also depending on the sector: in particular there was a sharp difference between the private sector (definitions 1 and 2) and the public sector (3 and 4); furthermore, blue-collar workers and employees in the private sector, whether qualified or not, principally defined work as an obligation to be endured. Two other important results: the further away the work was from a social finality the less it involved direct relationships with people, clients or users, the more it was defined as an obligation to be endured. On the other hand, those for whom work is a means of self- fulfillment or a way of being useful to society are teachers, social workers, hospital workers, the health professions: work then appears to be more like a vocation and its usefulness is clear. The survey entitled Histoire de Vie-Construction des Identités confirms this diversity (Garner, Méda, Senik, 2005). This survey, intended to identify certain processes via which individuals find a place in social life enabling them to integrate and affirm their individuality, highlighted the fact that work is more often cited as one of the elements of identity by executives, heads of undertakings and the higher intellectual professions than by other categories and in particular relatively poorly qualified blue-collar workers and employees who on the contrary find themselves in a different situation. It is also more often said by people without children. Similarly, the probability of stating that work is less important than other things (family life, social life or personal life) is greater if one belongs to categories of employees and blue-collar workers and if one is a woman with children. On the contrary, it can be seen that three “professional” criteria are associated with considering one’s work as important: - exercising a profession making it possible to express oneself (the professions dealing with the media, arts and show business are by far those where people say that work is most important or very important), confirming Menger’s theories (2003) on the link between creative work and the importance attributed to work; - working long hours, work which occupies most of the time (the fact of having non-standard hours is always positively related to the importance attributed to work; this involves administrative and commercial executives in companies, shopkeepers, trades people, farmers); - being independent and therefore often the owner of one’s working tool. The survey therefore highlights the fact that the importance attributed to work is strongly dependent on the socio-professional categories (SPC) and conditions of employment on the one hand and, on the other, that there is serious competition between work and family for women who are principally concerned by domestic and family tasks. The last two hypotheses that we have advanced (1.3 and 1.4) go towards explaining the French singularity: in France, because of the high rate of unemployment, the prevalence of precarious employment, lower job security than on average in Europe and a substantial feeling of job insecurity on the one hand, also because of more substantial expectations vis-à- vis the interest in work, work appears to be very important. But the average replies of countries should not mask the great diversity of opinions, linked in particular to the socio- professional category and to the family situation. We will look in more detail at this in the second part.
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2. IMPORTANCE ATTRIBUTED TO WORK AND WISH TO REDUCE THE POSITION OCCUPIED BY WORK: HOW CAN THE FRENCH PARADOX BE EXPLAINED?
Unlike the preceding questions which help understand the characteristics of work to which the people interviewed are attached and which they value in work, those which follow take into consideration the position occupied by work in life as a whole and invite people to talk about the time and the space occupied by work in relation to other activities. The French paradox can clearly be seen here: although many French state that work is important or very important, there are also more of them who wish to see work occupy less of a place. Nearly half of the British, the Belgians and the Swedes would like work to take up less time in their life. This figure is 65% in France (graph 32). Compared with their neighbours in the EU15, the French are those who attribute most importance to work (graph 1) but they are also the first to want to see the place of work become less substantial in society. Geert Hofstede had already noticed this French singularity (Hofstede, 2001). The UK is just as special: the British say more rarely that “work is very important in their life” but a large majority of them also hopes to decrease the importance of work in society. These two polarised cases underline the complexity of the phenomena studied.
Graph 32: The position of work in the society in question
Is decreasing work importance in life a good or a bad thing?
100%
80%
60%
Bad thing Don't mind Good thing 40%
20%
0%
a ic a a d ry ia e ta ia d ia s in m n n kia vi l n a n nd c l t n r d e t b oni a g Italy la e stria urg d va a u ve e Ma u o e o L p st huani in roa rlan Spa b w l E t Pol F Gr A C Irela e m S France S Li RomaniaPortugalHun Slo Denmark Bulga th Belgiu Re Germany e ch N Luxe Great Britai Cze
Source: EVS 1999.
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Graph 33: A smaller place for work: development of opinion over two decades
Percentage of people thinking that decreasing work importance is a "good thing"
70 65,8
60 54,3
50,1 50,5 50 48,3
41,5 40 38,1 36,0 36,0 1981 33,5 1990 31,1 29,5 1999 30 26,5 24,6
19,2 20
10
0
l d ce ia ny n rg ce ga e nds u n tu Italy la a r rma e Spain ra o Finland Gre Austr e Ir erl mbo F P h Belgium Sweden at Britain Denmark G xe e u L Gr e Net h T
Source: EVS 1981, 1990, 1999.
The last two decades have been marked by a rise in the number of people wishing to see work take a less important place in many countries, in particular in Ireland, The Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden and the UK (cf. graph 33). In 1981 and 1999, there were more French who wanted to see the importance of work diminish. There were far fewer French expressing such a view in 1990 according to the EVS. This result may be explained by the periods adopted: in 1981 and 1999 the majorities in power made reducing working hours a political objective and the public debate relayed this idea. It should also be noted that the rate of non-response is higher in 1990, which could cast doubt about the 1990’s results. How can these results, and in particular the French paradox, be explained? Several explanations can be put forward and we will be looking at each of them in detail. Firstly, it is possible that it is less of a paradox than an effect magnified in the public debates of the period. 1999, the date of these results, is the year in which the debate on reducing working hours was at its height in France. The surveys show a strong desire by the majority of the French to see working hours reduced. More recent surveys available, for example the ISSP 2005 specifically devoted to work, show that a substantial proportion of the French continue, despite a change of epoch and “mode” vis-à-vis working hours, to want to reduce the time devoted to work (37%), even though a small proportion of them also wants to increase the amount of time devoted to it (17%) (cf. graph 34). When the question of arbitrating between work (and therefore income) and free time is asked more explicitly, the percentage of people wanting “to work longer to earn more” rose in 2005 (compared with 1997), without however constituting a majority of the population: 32% of the French were for this idea in 2006, against 20% in 1997 (cf. graph 35).
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Graph 34: Working more?
Suppose you can change the way you spend your time, spending more time on some things and less time on others. Would you like to spend less time, same time as now or more time in a paid job?
100% 7,0 6,0 6,4 6,2 11,3 11,4 9,5 9,0 16,2 15,0 14,6 13,5 14,9 18,4 80% 24,1 27,8 33,6 36,7 30,4 38,5
60% Much less time 41,0 47,1 A bit less time 59,3 Same time as now 60,6 A bit more time 42,7 40% 46,2 Much more time 35,7 38,7 43,6 35,8 15,1 18,0 20% 13,1 13,4 11,4 9,7 22,1 10,2 11,3 7,1 7,9 14,4 8,7 7,4 6,3 3,7 6,7 6,7 3,6 0% 2,4 Finland Sweden Great Germany Ireland Denmark France Germany Portugal Spain Britain (East) (West)
Source: ISSP 2005.
Graph 35:Working more to earn more?
% of people wanting to work longer hours and earn more money
60
49,3 50
40
32,9 30,1 1989 30 1997 25,7 2005
20,3 20,5 19,1 20 18,2 15,3
9,9 10
0
l n s ia in y ly a e d a n a g land d land p It e e S ma rtu w anders Ir r o Fin S Austr France Denmark Fl Ge P etherlan N Great Britain The
Source: ISSP 1989, 1997, 2005.
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The French situation thus seems to be paradoxical: the French attribute most importance to work and want to fulfill themselves at work but they also want to devote less time to it, and some of the French do not put work at the heart of their identity. Four explanations might, from our point of view, explain this paradox. The first two stress dysfunctions specific to the work sphere: individuals, with very high expectations vis-à-vis work, could be disappointed because of the inability of the work sphere to fulfill them: - The first is illustrated by Philippon (2007) among others: there is no work crisis in France but the expression of a deep unease at work. Social relations in France are so bad that wage-earners are driven to despair about work and to a certain degree are distancing themselves from it: the desire to reduce the place taken up by work is the result of the impossibility of changing work and the expression of the difficulties felt in the world of work; - the second is not far removed in its principle: if wage-earners want to reduce the importance of work, this can be explained by the fact that it is in reality not a means of expression and self-fulfillment but also, for part of the population, an activity generating unease and stress because of the intensification of work, new organisation of work, the worsening of conditions of employment and the feeling of anxiety vis-à-vis the capacity to retain one’s job… Material gratifications (income, security, etc.) do not form, far from it, a sufficient counterweight to dissipate the unease, and a feeling of general dissatisfaction develops. The following two explanations involve the other spheres of fulfillment or self-expression, the other sources of identity. The resolution of the paradox would be less explained (or as much), by the dissatisfaction arising out of the work sphere than by the top heavy ascendancy of work and its encroachment on other spheres deemed important, by the amount of space- time deemed too little left by work for these other activities and by the defective modalities of articulation between the different spheres. - The third explanation is therefore part of a radically different logic where the desire to reduce the place of work would correspond to a need, an aspiration to consecrate more time to other spheres, other domains of life and in particular to the family (Méda, 2001); - In logical continuation, the fourth explanation stresses the poor articulation between two professional and personal spheres (family life, social life…).
2.1 The poor quality of social relations and work organisation: a French malaise?
Relations with management or colleagues are considered to be satisfactory in the majority of EU15 countries (graphs 37 and 38), but in very different proportions from one country to another. France has the worst relations with management according to the three ISSP waves which concurs with Thomas Philippon’s observations (2007): 52% of French wage-earners consider that their relationship with management is “good”, whereas this figure reaches more than 60% in all other EU15 countries and almost 80% in Germany, Ireland and Portugal.
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Graph 36: Hierarchical relations “à la Française”: conflictual relations?
Percentage of people describing the relation between management and employees at the workplace as "quite good" or "very good"
90 84,0 85,3 80,6 80 74,2 70,3 70,7 70 65,9 66,0 63,4
60 51,8 50 1989 1997 40 2005
30
20
10
0
n d d ce e ds n ia n ers gal d Italy an la str u any ra Spain rl in u relan m F e F A I Flan Swed h at Britain Port Denmark e Ger Net Gr he T
Source: ISSP 1989, 1997, 2005.
Graph 37: Relations with colleagues
Percentage of people describing the relations between colleagues at the workplace as "quite good" or "very good"
120
100 95,6 91,7 89,8 85,9 86,8 87,0 83,1 83,9 79,9 80,4 80
1989 60 1997 2005
40
20
0
l d rs k n a ia in y ce ain n e e g r n n p Italy la d d ita ra n n e tu ust r S a w Ireland F Fi S A Fl Denmar Por at B Germa etherlands e N Gr The
Source: ISSP 1989, 1997, 2005.
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Graph 38: Autonomy: Does France lag behind?
"I can work independantly": percentage of people agreeing this statement
100 93,42
90 85,82 80,08 80,58 78,15 79,07 80 76,42
70 67 62,08 60 51,07 1989 50 1997 2005 40
30
20
10
0
n d n n i ly ce n e i ia a a gal n ers nds p It u la d land str a S ra e wed u F Ir Fin t Brita A erl Port Flan S a h e Germany Denmark Gr e Net h T
Source: ISSP 1989, 1997, 2005.
Philippon attributes the origin of this distrust to the concentration of decision-making power at high hierarchical levels without consultation of the people mostly concerned. Hence, only 43% of French people consider that they are consulted in the event of a reorganisation at work according to the European survey on conditions of work, for a European average of 47% (Parent-Thirion et al., 2007 and Duval, 2008). Similarly, less than 50% of the French said they could work independently in 1997, proof that the hierarchy did not trust them completely. This figure was 80% in Germany, Denmark, The Netherlands and Sweden. In 2005, autonomy seemed to have made progress since it concerned 67% of the French, but it is still one of the lowest proportions in Europe, with Spain and Portugal (cf. graph 38). This observation echoes the surveys on the organisation of work which highlight the fact that Taylorism is more widespread in the south of Europe and in France compared in particular with Germany and the Nordic countries (Lorenz and Valeyre, 2005) which favoured autonomy and team work. Relations with colleagues seem better in France since 80% of the French consider them to be “good”, which is however also the lowest percentage of the EU15 (cf. graph 37). Furthermore, although these relations are good, the organisation of work does not seem to facilitate assistance in a fairly large number of companies: 51% of the French said they could obtain help from a colleague compared with 66% on average in the EU15 (Duval, 2008).
2.2 Work and employment conditions: one of the causes of dissatisfaction vis-à-vis work
France looks badly placed in Europe from the point of view of the perception by wage- earners of their working conditions, job security and the material aspects of their work. The
47 Documents de travail du Centre d’études de l’emploi result is strong dissatisfaction which could be the reason, for part of the population, for a degree of distance from the work sphere.
2.2.1 Conditions of work
In all the EU15 countries, a majority of wage-earners considers that their “work is interesting” (graph 39), that it enables help to be given to other people and to be useful to society (graph 40). 75% of French wage-earners say their work is interesting and are thus amongst the European average (cf. graph 39). For two thirds of the French, work seems to make sense, insofar as it is “useful for society” (41). Work is more frequently an emotional investment in France, as we have said. These results tend to enrich the interpretative perspective of French workers’ unease proposed by Thomas Philippon (2007). This unease comes undoubtedly from an erosion of social relations but also results from very high levels of expectation and investment. The interest which the French have in work seems to have as the other side of the coin a degree of stress and an exhausting investment. The results of the ISSP thus show another French particularity. France is distinguished by having a proportion of wage-earners subject to stress which is greater than elsewhere (graph 41). The French feel exhausted more often after work (graph 42)19. Furthermore, France has not been spared the rise in the intensity of work which affects most European countries (Green, 2006). More than half wage-earners are concerned if one accepts the European survey on working conditions (Parent-Thirion et al., 2007). This is largely responsible for the unease and dissatisfaction at work of many European workers (Green, 2006). A feeling of frustration can thus arise: work is judged to be interesting, but the organisation in force makes it difficult, tiring and too intense.
19 The results of the fourth European survey on working conditions do not match those of the ISSP on stress and difficulty, which was done at the same time: according to the Dublin Foundation’s survey, stress is less widespread in France (18%) than in the EU15 (20% on average). Slightly more people say they are tired (20% for an EU average of 18%) and anxious (11% for an EU15 average of 8%). But the difference remains minimal (2 or 3 points) and the levels much lower than in the ISSP. These results can mostly be explained by the structure of the Dublin questionnaire. The question is only asked of those who earlier said that work affected their health. Part of the population can regularly feel stressed without considering however that their health is in danger. Furthermore, once past this first filter, the interviewee is asked to mention any health problems at work: stress is one of 16 items, some of which can seem much more serious (breathing difficulties for example) and other stress synonyms (anxiety for example) are proposed in the list. For all these reasons, the Dublin Foundation’s survey could downgrade stress at work. The result of the Eurobarometer on new European social realities (European Commission, 2007) also seems to contradict the ISSP: 37% of the French consider that their work is too demanding and stressful, for an average of 41% in the EU15 and much higher figures in other countries (54% in Sweden for example). But the wording of the question, which mixed stress with demands, probably affected the results. In other countries the word “demands” refers perhaps to the concept of pace or intensity of work. In France, the question could be understood as a demand for the work post compared with the level of qualification. On this subject, the French generally answer that their qualification should enable them to undertake more demanding tasks (cf. graph 44). They did not entirely agree with the idea whereby their work could be both “too demanding” and “too stressful”.
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Graph 39: An interesting job for everybody?
"My job is interesting": percentage of people agreeing this statement
100
90 85,3 82,9 83,5
80 76,7 73,3 73,9 74,4 74,6 74,7
70
60 55,2 1989 50 1997 2005 40
30
20
10
0
l in ly in d a ia a a en ers p It lan d ug str any land rt u m e S wed in Ir t Brita S F o France A a Flan P Ger Denmark re G The Netherlands
Source: ISSP 1989, 1997, 2005.
Graph 40: Making sense of work?
"My job is useful to society": percentage of people agreeing this statement
100
90
78,9 79,9 80 73,7 69,7 70 66,1 67,2 63,9 62,0 63,2 60 58,0 1989 50 1997 2005 40
30
20
10
0
l ly n n y k ia a a ain e n It nds itai p ar ug la r rance m t r S wed n Ireland Finland e S F e Austr Flanders h Germa D Por Great B e Net h T
Source: ISSP 1989, 1997, 2005.
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Graph 41: Work more stressful in France than elsewhere
Percentage of people finding their work "always" or "often" stressful
50 47,0
45 41,8 39,3 40 37,9 35,5 35 33,3 33,5 32,3 32,6
30 26,9 1989 25 1997 2005 20
15
10
5
0
d y rk in y n ers n a a gal ce la d p Ital u den n e ma S ra Ir Finland r Austria we F Flan at Britain Port S e Ge Denm Gr The Netherlands
Source: ISSP 1989, 1997, 2005.
Graph 42: Exhausting work
Percentage of people coming home from work "always" or "often" exhausted
60
49,1 50 46,1
41,2 41,3 40,2 40,5 40 37,5 35,1
30,2 1989 30 1997 26,6 2005
20
10
0
l s a d a d ers n ce d la itain n Italy ug e Spain r a rt rlan Ir o e Finland Austri Sweden Fr th Flan Denmark Germany P e N Great B he T Source: ISSP 1989, 1997, 2005.
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Graph 43: Failed hopes
Which of the following alternatives would best describe your skills in your own work?
100% 7,6 6,1 6,9 10,2 11,0 10,2 8,8 10,5 15,0 14,1 14,3 13,8 14,2 21,8 28,9 80% I need further training to cope well with my duties 52,7 50,1 47,4 44,0 57,6 56,4 48,4 60% 62,5 60,7 52,9 50,6 57,9 My duties correspond well to my 62,6 50,6 present skills 46,8 I have the skills to cope with more 40% demanding duties
45,6 41,2 43,0 43,8 20% 37,4 33,3 33,4 35,2 27,3 27,7 27,7 27,8 28,2 22,3 24,4
0%
l ia y ly rk n m ga n a a ds e u It ium do rt ma g m lan Spain g Austr o r n r wed Ireland France Finland P Greece Bel e S in Ge De h K d Net Luxembourg ite he T Un
Source: European survey on working conditions, 2005.
Furthermore, the youngest French generations although they are investing in work today have also massively invested in education and training even before integrating the labour market, with amongst other hopes, that of getting an interesting job. These hopes today seem to be unfulfilled: France effectively is distinguished by a feeling of a drop in status much stronger than in other countries: more than 4 French in 10 consider that their qualifications should enable them to do a more demanding job (graph 43) (Forgeot and Gautié, 1997; Nauze-Fichet and Tomasini, 2002). Faced with this erosion in working conditions, which strained relations with the hierarchy cannot improve, the French could adopt an attitude of withdrawal and retreat, attributing a smaller place to work in their life whereas the interest in work remains very important for them. It should be noted furthermore that the French singularity is not significant if working and employment conditions and qualification levels are taken into account: the regression shown in annex 8 underlines the fact that people whose work is stressful and tiring do not wish to work more and would like on the contrary to reduce their time at work. Working conditions, as measured here, thus explain in part the French singularity. Of course, these different explanations do not apply in the same way to the different social classes or to men and women and we shall revert to this later.
2.2.2 A dissatisfaction with wage and job security?
Although French wage-earners complain of stress and the poor quality of social relations, they also say they are unhappy with their wages according to the ISSP: only 15% considers that their income is high which puts France at the bottom with Portugal (cf. graph 44).
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Graph 44: The French do not think that their wages are high
"My income is high": percentage of people agreeing this statement
45 40,9 40
35
30,4 30 28,4 25,8 25 23,2 1989 21,9 20,5 1997 19,4 20 2005 16,0 16,2 15
10
5
0
l e y rs ly d d rk ga n a n u den itain nds It a rt ranc e r nde la Spain o r Irelan F Sw e Finla Austria P Germa Fla h Denm Great B e Net h T
Source: ISSP 1989, 1997, 2005.
Graph 45: Satisfaction vis-à-vis wages: is the glass half full?
How satisfied are you with your present job in terms of earning?
100% 10,5 7,3 14,6 17,0 25,2 80% 29,0 29,1 31,7 39,7 33,4 33,5 29,5 31,1 27,7 42,0 Fully satisfied 60% 5 33,8 4 35,2 33,7 3 2 40% 35,0 27,4 30,1 27,4 30,1 28,5 Not satisfied 34,6 30,5 23,0
20% 18,1 18,3 14,8 16,1 12,3 14,0 17,8 15,1 9,1 13,3 10,3 6,6 7,5 7,2 5,9 5,8 3,3 0%
e e in d m k u tria ar ugal Italy pa i eec t S inlan g lands us m Gr or Franc F er A Ireland P Bel Den eth N The
Source: ECHP, 2001 (wave n°8).
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Graph 46: Poor chances of promotion in France
"My opportunities for advancement are high": percentage of people agreeing this statement
40
35,4 34,6 35
30
25,3 25,5 24,0 25 23,1 21,6 20,8 1989 19,7 20 1997 2005
15 14,0
10
5
0
y s d l ce in r n and den a nds ga l e Ital a tu ra Sp nde relan r F Fin la Austria I o Sw at Britain F P Germany Denmark e Gr The Netherl
Source: ISSP 1989, 1997, 2005.
When the question is put differently, replies seem more optimistic: hence, according to the ECHP, 60% of the French population is satisfied with its wages. With 40% dissatisfied, France is however situated between the Mediterranean countries on the one hand and continental and Nordic countries on the other (cf. graph 45). The special Eurobarometer on “social reality” confirms this result. The French are much less satisfied with what they earn than the inhabitants of countries just as developed as France. Their satisfaction is similar to that of the Poles and the Portuguese: 76% whereas this figure is more than 90% in Nordic or Anglo-Saxon countries (European Commission, 2007, p. 9). The situation is all the more hopeless for the French in that they have very little belief in promotion prospects. France is the country where the subjective chances of promotion are the lowest (cf. graph 46 and Duval, 2008). With regard to job security, one can see a split between the Nordic countries on the one hand and continental and Mediterranean countries including France. In this second group, workers are less satisfied with their job security (graphs 48 and 49). They are worried about the prospect of losing their job (graph 49). They also consider that it would be difficult for them to find a similar job with another employer (graph 50). On this series of questions, France is in an average position. The special Eurobarometer on “social reality” confirms this split (European Commission, 2007): the French are amongst the most worried. In reply to the question of whether they are “confident in their ability to keep their job over the next few months”, there are more French who say they are not really confident, with Poland, Lithuania, Hungary and Slovakia… They are equal first with Hungary in saying that they are “not at all confident”. Similarly, in reply to the question “if you were to be sacked, how would you assess your chances of finding a job requiring the same competence and the same experience in the next six months”: France is one of the most pessimistic countries, very far
53 Documents de travail du Centre d’études de l’emploi from the two Nordic (Denmark, Finland, Sweden) and liberal (the United Kingdom, Ireland) poles which are well above the average. French dissatisfaction with job security and income confirms our hypothesis: the leading place attributed to work is partly due to fears about employment and the level of unemployment. The more work is uncertain, the more it acquires importance: our regression showed furthermore that work was very important for the unemployed, and, one can imagine this, indirectly, for all those who are worried about their job. The rate of unemployment in a country is a factor which encourages the feeling of job insecurity (Postel-Vinay and Saint-Martin, 2005), a feeling which goes towards making work an important element in life, which is demonstrated by our first correlation (cf. section 1). In order to expand this debate, a method of going further into this subject was proposed in a recent working paper using the ESS and in particular a question on how security was perceived by the worker (Erlinghagen, 2007). The author introduces, in a multi-level model, cultural variables measured at individual level by religiosity, the importance given to job security and the confidence attributed to others as well as socio-economic variables at the second level, the national level: average seniority in the job, employment protection legislation (EPL), social security spending, the GDP growth rate and the rate of long-term unemployment. According to this model, the rate of long-term unemployment has a very clear effect on the feeling of job security whereas the other macro- social variables have no impact. Confidence attributed to others at individual level is also important which would presuppose that the effects of legislation in protecting jobs and spending on social protection, highlighted in numerous articles (Postel-Vinay and Saint- Martin, 2005), are in actual fact cultural effects which have not been taken into account in previous studies.
Graph 47 : Satisfaction vis-à-vis job security
How satisfied are you with your present job in terms of job security?
100% 5,2 10,4 14,1 17,9 19,8 24,6 26,1 23,1 34,7 36,7 80% 18,8 38,3 40,9
25,1 41,3 29,4 Fully satisfied 60% 28,7 35,6 33,4 5 4 37,1 33,1 29,2 3 52,3 23,7 2 40% 21,8 35,4 Not satisfied 25,1 25,4 20,1 20,3 16,5 18,8 15,3 20% 14,8 16,2 14,7 10,2 11,4 10,7 14,1 7,4 8,7 13,2 9,1 9,3 6,4 5,0 5,4 5,5 4,4 4,4 4,8 4,3 3,2 2,5 0%
l a e ly rk tain ta a tug anc I pain gium r r S l rlands F Finland e enm Ireland Austria Po at Bri B e D Gr The Nethe
Source: ECHP, wave 8.
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Graph 48: Is your job secure?
"Mon job is secure": percentage of people agreeing this statement
100
90
80 73,8 75,2 68,7 70 68,3 64,9 65,2 62,8 64,1 59,5 60 54,2 1989 50 1997 2005 40
30
20
10
0
n ly s in rk ce gal ny e a er a n land u It d land ra rma wed Spain e F Fin e t Brita Ir Austria Port S Flan a G e Denm Gr The Netherlands
Source: ISSP 1989, 1997, 2005.
Graph 49: Worry about losing a job
To what extent, if at all, do you worry about the possibility of losing your job?
100%
23,9 24,2 24,4
37,6 80% 42,4 47,4
58,4 59,4 61,2 66,4
60% 30,6 34,2 41,0 I dont worry at all I worry a little I worry to some extent 32,6 I worry a great deal 40% 32,6 31,3
33,5 25,1 29,0 20,1 29,5 28,4 22,4 20% 21,8 13,6 16,6 11,6 14,8 6,2 12,0 12,4 11,4 8,5 9,4 8,0 4,7 4,9 4,3 0% 2,6 1,8 Spain Portugal Germany Germany France Great Sweden Denmark Finland Ireland (East) (West) Britain
Source: ISSP 1997 and 2005.
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Graph 50: And the chances of finding another one…
How difficult or easy would it be for you to get a similar or better job with another employer if you wanted to?
100%
80% Extremely easy 9 8 60% 7 6 5 4 40% 3 2 1 Extremely difficult 20%
0%
d k . l a d m en n r p a ry n o d taly nce ni a d la I a re la g re Spain h rtug ve o in Finland I nma Fr c o Austria lo P Greece K Swe Belgium e P S Hung De z Germany xembourg etherlandsd C u N te L e Uni Th Source: ESS 2002.
2.2.3 Global satisfaction: a synthetic indicator
The feelings of the French concerning their work are open-ended depending on the dimension considered: although the intrinsic interest in work seems to satisfy many of them, fewer appreciate the organisation of work, the quality of social relations or even job security and the chances of promotion. How are the various elements weighted when a subjective and global evaluation of the quality of work and employment is requested? Europeans globally say they are satisfied with their work according to the majority of surveys (EVS, ECHP, ISSP, Eurobarometer), but significant differences appear between countries: to take but one example, almost 55% of Danes said they were “very satisfied” or “completely satisfied” whereas less than 30% of French people were in this situation in 2005 according to the ISSP. Although differences may appear from one survey to another, they do not bring into question the contrast between the inhabitants of the Nordic countries, very satisfied, and the inhabitants of Mediterranean and continental countries, less satisfied. The French are to be found amongst the countries of the South according to the EVS, the ECHP and the special Eurobarometer on “social reality” (cf. graphs 52 and 53 and European Commission, 2007). The French are much more dissatisfied than the nationals of other EU15 countries according to the ISSP. According to the various surveys, the French are most dissatisfied, and even among the most dissatisfied, with the countries of the South.
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Graph 51: Satisfaction at work according to the EVS
Percentage of workers declaring that they are satisfied with work
100 94,6 92,9 90,5 90,6 90,7 87,7 90 86,1 87,4 84,1 84,2 84,9 82,8 83,4 80,6 81,0 81,3 78,7 80 76,7 74,9 73,2 73,7 70,9 71,9 71,9 69,0 70 65,4 66,1
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
d a a y e a n n y n i r ia ti ia ce i ly rg ia m n a n a n n n a gal ta den u u nds l a atvi ritai p tu I o str gi a o m L sto ra S r b u l rma Malta P E Croa Greece love F o we A Ireland Finland Hung Slovakia Lituani Bulgaria S t B P S m Be Ro a xe Denmark Ge u Czech GreRep. L The Netherl
Source: EVS 1999.
Graph 52: Satisfaction at work according to the ECHP
Satisfaction with work or main activity
100% 5,1 6,9 9,6 11,6 13,5 13,7 90% 19,1 19,2 23,5 14,2 26,9 16,1 32,4 36,4 80% 20,9
70% 30,8 44,8 26,1 45,0 Fully satisfied 60% 41,0 33,8 46,8 24,7 47,1 30,8 5 4 50% 37,8 3 37,3 23,6 2 40% 28,1 Not satisfied 20,5 21,8 30% 25,5 22,2 22,6 24,9 20,6 16,2 24,0 20% 19,6 13,0 16,4 14,1 7,7 9,0 11,6 11,3 8,6 10% 8,3 9,2 3,9 7,0 4,1 5,1 11,3 6,8 4,6 6,0 8,7 7,4 3,3 2,7 5,1 5,3 4,5 2,0 5,2 3,8 2,3 0% 2,5 0,9 2,4 1,6
l a ly in d s m ia ce ce a om n d ug e Ita n d la iu str t ra Sp g n lan lg u F r e Ireland A Por Gre in Fi e B K th Denmark d ite Ne n he U T
Source: ECHP, wave 8.
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Graph 53: Satisfaction at work according to the ISSP
Percentage of people declaring that they are "completely" or "very satisfied" with their job
70
59,2 60 55,6
50 48,4
42,8 43,0 43,0 41,7 40 38,2 35,3 1989 1997 29,7 2005 30
20
10
0
n d s ia y k d ce ers e gal n d n ar n n d Italy u la itain str la ra r u m e Spain in rlan n Ir F Swed F e A e Flan Port th Germa D e Great B N he T
Source: ISSP 1989, 1997, 2005.
Taking global satisfaction and satisfaction vis-à-vis the different facets of employment no doubt helps to better understand where the French paradox comes from and to evaluate the relevance of each explanation. Preferences and expectations run up against reality and evolve in the light of it. In other words, and to use Anglo-Saxon vocabulary from economic sciences, preferences are adaptive. They cannot be analysed outside the context in which they are formed or outside the concrete situations with which they conflict. But all preferences are not adaptive. According to recent literature on the economy of happiness, one can for example adapt very quickly to a standard of living (Layard, 2005, inter alia). It is the subjective chances of social promotion which count (Senik, 2006). Furthermore, although adaptation phenomena are widely studied in current literature, other mechanisms may be envisaged. For example, poor living conditions or social isolation remain a source of long-lasting dissatisfaction. These hypotheses are fully confirmed by the analysis of job satisfaction. The link between wages and job satisfaction, which is continually questioned by economists, is at the very least complicated, involving adaptation phenomena, reference to the past and envy of and comparison to the reference group (Clark, 1999). On the other hand, good social relations and interesting work make wage-earners happy on a long-lasting basis. Regressions explaining job satisfaction and referring to ISSP 1997 help understand this issue: good social relations at work come first with the most important and most significant coefficient. Then come work content and promotion opportunities followed by income, job security and adequacy of preferences concerning working hours (Clark, 2005). Using the same data base, Alfonso and Andrés Sousa-Poza also demonstrate that good relations and interesting work are the two principal sources of satisfaction. In addition, they underline that good relations with management have a more important effect than good relations with colleagues (Sousa- Poza and Sousa-Poza, 2000). In this perspective, poor social relations at work, degraded
58 Documents de travail du Centre d’études de l’emploi conditions of work and the absence of the hope of promotion explain persistent frustration for a large part of the French workforce.
Importance of work and SPC
In % Media, art and show business professions 59 Shopkeepers 42 Administrative and commercial company executives 42 Craftsmen 39 Qualified craft-type workers 39 Liberal professions 37 Civil service executives 37 Farmers 34 Professors, scientific professions 34 Non-qualified craft-type workers 29 Heads of companies with +10 workers 27 Chauffeurs 27 Non-qualified industrial-type workers 25 Agricultural labourers 24 Personnel in direct to client services 21 Shop workers 20 Company administrative employees 17 Reading: Proportion of people stating that work is as or more important than other things within each SPC. Scope: employed working population. Source: “Histoire de vie-Construction des identities” survey, Insee 2003.
The French therefore particularly demanding regarding the intrinsic interest in work and seem relatively satisfied from this point of view. On the other hand, working conditions, work organisation and the resulting payment (wages, security, prospects of promotion) are, if one follows the opinion of the workers, more mediocre in France than in other European countries. In other words, although the wish to work remains very strong, the conditions which surround it have caused a degree of frustration amongst the French who thus want to reduce the importance of work in their life. The categories of the population most concerned with poor conditions of work and employment are those who express the greatest reticence vis-à-vis work: in the survey entitled Histoire de vie/construction des identités, as we saw above, although the professions which allow the greatest self-expression put work highest in their identity, say more frequently that work is what defines them best and consider that work is just as important as other aspects of their life, employees and blue-collar workers make little mention of work and consider other aspects of their life to be more important (Garner, Méda, Senik, 2005; Amossé, Chardon, 2005).
2.3 The importance attributed to other spheres of life, in particular the family
The explanations given above were principally “negative”: the desire of the French to see work occupy less of a place in their life appeared to be the result of disillusionment, the expression of frustration due to poor social relations within the company or to poor conditions of work or employment. But taking into consideration the expectations which Europeans, and even more the French, have for other areas or spheres of life than work
59 Documents de travail du Centre d’études de l’emploi shows that it is necessary to leave room for more positive explanations. What all the European and French surveys have effectively shown over the last few years is the strength of expectations, often unsatisfied, placed in the family. Far from appearing only as a refuge or as a “value” or an activity all the more appreciated if work is disappointing, “the family” appears on the contrary to be an extremely attractive domain of emotional investment and self-fulfillment, likely not only to be affected by what happens within the working sphere but also to affect life at work, and as an activity which consumes a lot of time and which is in direct competition to work, especially for women.
2.3.1 The place of the family amongst the values
What can these other activities be (often summarized as “personal life”, sometimes entitled “leisure…”) in whose name Europeans and the French in particular, wish to see work take up less of a place? In fact, a large variety of spheres and expectations are covered by the concept of “personal life”. Although the family is chosen, friends and leisure are everywhere considered to be important. European countries place the family at the very top of the list of “areas of life” which they feel are important: the family appears more frequently and is more uniformly mentioned in the different European countries than work (which can be partly explained by an effect of structure, the population interviewed also comprising students, pensioners and people at home…). Work on the other hand is more important than friends, religion or politics (with the exception of a few countries, in particular Denmark where leisure is more important than work). Comparing graph 1 and the graphs below is in this respect revealing (cf. graphs 55 to 59). For the French interviewed in the EVS, the family was mentioned as being very important by 88% of the interviewees (compared with 66% for work) …
Graph 54: The importance of the family
How important is family in your life?
100%
80%
60% Not at all important Not important Quite important Very important 40%
20%
0%
a s ia l a n a y n d ce ep. a i ki m ia l i lta n ni ark a nce ta ta a R m v str I land Latvia ove rtug Spa n bourg o u o M Estoni Finland Gree o oma e m Fra A Sweden Bri P Ireland Lituania Germany Sl Bulgariazech P R D e Sl Belgiu Hungary t etherlan x ea N C r Lu G The
Source: EVS 1999.
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Graph 55: The importance of friends
How important is friends and acquaintances in your life?
100%
80%
60% Not at all important Not important Quite important Very important 40%
20%
0%
a a ia a ia m d rk en ni n lt ki n ria u urg nce n a nd ania a Rep. land a a Italy e st d u m to M v Spain v bo ra Latvia o Es Po o o Greeceermany F inla Irela Lit PortugalSl Sl Au Belgi em F enm Swe R zech Hungary Bulgaria G x D C u L Great Britain The Netherlands Source: EVS 1999.
Graph 56: The importance of leisure
How important is leisure in your life?
100%
80%
60% Not at all important Not important Quite important Very important 40%
20%
0%
a l a n a a d a n i a nd i ry n in lt ds e tv g ria a ium urg and a n d ania a Rep. a Italy veni stri g reece ta u L Russie lg ola rmany Spa o u bo inla rel M Estonia P e FranceA F I G Bri Swe Lit Portu Bu Romani Hung SlovakiaSl Bel Denmarkt herla zech G et C uxem rea L G The N Source: EVS 1999.
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Graph 57: The importance of politics
How is politics important in your life?
100%
80%
60% Not at all important Not important Quite important Very important 40%
20%
0%
a s ia ia ry rk ne a n ni kia a nia nd nd urg ep. a um nd i lt e a a atvia a Italy i a a v Spain m v rtugal u ola bo g r M Eston o o o o Britain L t P Irela France Greece k Sl Finland Sl P t Li em enm Bel Austriaherla U Sweden R Hung x D Germany Bulgaria u Czech R Net Grea L The Source: EVS 1999.
Graph 58: The importance of religion
How important is religion in your life?
100%
80%
60% Not at all important Not important Quite important Very important 40%
20%
0%
s l ia rk d in ry a ly d a a a ep. nce n a a n ni lt ania and nde stria eece It land a a ra u Spa rtug r ola m M Eston F Latvia inla t Britain Isla o G Ire P o enm SwedenF Li Sloveniat herl BelgiumAu SlovakiaP GermanyD zech R xembourg Bulgaria Hung R C u Net Grea L e h T Source: EVS 1999.
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This choice can certainly be taken to be the expression of the substantial changes which have affected the family over the last twenty years, fully explained by Beck (2001), Giddens (1992) or De Singly (1993): the family is now considered as a democratic place where contractual relationships are established between autonomous individuals and as a support for anchoring utopian energies as strong as work, the child having become in our societies the last bastion against solitude: “with the child, we cultivate and celebrate an anachronistic social experience which has become at one and the same time improbable and desirable during the process of individualisation” (Beck, 2001). The child now occupies a central position and the modern family “is based around the child, its life being merged with the more sentimental relationships of parents and children”, the “sentimental family” appears: “we tend to give a new value to the affection of parents and children, doubtless as old as the world, since we make family reality depend on it” (Ariès, 1960). The definition of the family through its form or structure, i.e. via those visible elements simplest to describe statistically, could eliminate this attention to relationships which is however the most important element from a theoretical point of view. (…). This is why, less as an institution than as a space for emotional, personal and (relatively) long-lasting relationships, the contemporary family is at the centre of individualised identity” (De Singly, 1993). France occupies a special position in this picture. It seems to attribute, even more than other countries, a central importance to the family. In the last special Eurobarometer devoted to social reality in Europe (European Commission, 2007), in 27 European countries the family was in second place behind health and well ahead of work. Specifically French surveys confirm these results: in “Travail et modes de vie”, the family is mentioned more than work when interviewees are asked what for them is “most important to be happy”. And although work is often mentioned when it is lacking (“to have a job”, “to have a good job”, “for my son to find work”…), the family appears on the contrary in all circumstances as a central place, a sphere of identification and fulfilment, a sphere where exchanges and relationships are positively sought. The survey on Histoire de Vie-Construction des Identités highlighted the choice of which the family was the object, as a source of identities, as that which best enables individuals to say who they are, which best defines them, well ahead of work.
The identification most relevant to the family
% of people mentioning the subject at least once Your family 86,7 Your job, your professional situation, your studies 40,8 Your friends 36,0 A hobby or a leisure activity 28,5 The places to which you are attached 28,3 Your geographic origins 9,0 A health problem, a handicap 7,6 Your political or religious opinions or your commitments 5,4 Your physique or your appearance 5,1 Note: 3 subjects could be chosen.
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The individuals interviewed chose the family which is seen as “the pillar of identities” (Houseaux, 2003). It is so for all age groups and all social classes regardless of status, unlike work which occupies a primordial place principally for executives, scientific professions, the self-employed and people without children who put work first and indicate that it is above all that which best enables them “to say what they are”.
2.3.2 The relative importance attributed to work and to other spheres of life
It is important to take into consideration other spheres of activity which, like work, are places where social links are created and fulfillment found, in order to understand the French paradox. In wanting to reduce the place which work occupies in their lives, the French are not signaling a disinvestment in work but the desire that the place it occupies enables them to ensure their other investments in time-consuming activities like the family. What is the relative importance attributed by individuals to work and to other activities, such as the family or leisure? A question in the EVS shows that only a minority of Europeans consider that work should always take first place. More of them attribute an unconditional priority to work in Germany and to a lesser degree in Spain, Italy and Denmark (graph 59). The French, like the British, the Dutch and the Swedes are most opposed to this view: only 30% agree with this idea.
Graph 59: Work – an unconditional priority?
Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? "Work should always come first, even if it means less spare time"
100%
80%
60% Disagree strongly Disagree Neither agree, nor disagree Agree 40% Agree strongly
20%
0%
s l a a a a en d a i i ny a d ry nd nde d n lt v nce a urg ri ki a and e a at eece Italy a a la ritain rtug nl Ma Spain bo g v B Isla Irel o i Eston L Fra Gr Polan o P Sw F Belgium em SloveniaLituania Sl Germ Denmarkx Bul RomaniaHung ether Czech Rep. u Great L The N Source: EVS 1999.
French surveys confirm this idea and underline the fact that investing in work can in no way be exclusive. The Ipsos Chronopost survey shows this trend at work in particular amongst the youngest groups: making the work value positive in no way stops the working population from attributing to it a place certainly important but not exclusive or even predominant. “This
64 Documents de travail du Centre d’études de l’emploi place seems rather to be appreciated against the yardstick of other spaces of investment which are the object of a variable, symbolic and temporal implication depending on where on the biographical course they stand. The commitment to work is not, far from it, exclusive of investment in other spheres. This tends to demonstrate that the working population does not have a unipolar conceptions of biographical experience structured uniquely around the professional or personal sphere. It seems therefore that the search for equilibrium between professional and personal spheres translates for the young not only by the refusal to make oneself extensively available for the company, and a critical discourse against amalgamated methods of investment, but also by paying particular attention to the control and management of time. The latter tend to become for this part of the working population a major parameter in evaluating the value of a job” (Delay, 2005). The survey entitled Histoire de vie-Construction des Identités shows that when people are asked to say whether work is more or less important than other “activities” or “ways of living”, in particular family life, social life and personal life, 66% of the active working population says that “work is quite important but less than other things” and 25% “very important but just as important as other things”. The fact of having children (above all for women), of exercising an intermediate profession, employee or blue-collar worker, increases the probability of attributing less relative importance to one’s work than to other areas of life. A dual effect can be seen in the way in which the place attributed to work is relativized compared with other activities or in the competition with work: on the one hand the existence of family responsibilities or of a family constituted as a pole of interest, investment and responsibilities principally for women, on the other the SPC (Garner, Senik, Méda, 2005). We refer furthermore to both these types of hypothesis: the effect of conditions of work and employment on the one hand and questions of conciliation on the other, in order to better understand the special French situation. If the effect of family responsibilities is looked at more particularly, it can be seen that this effect is principally felt by women with young children. For them, and insofar as the gap between the sexes regarding tasks and roles still remains very wide in our society, the “family” can be seen at one and the same time as a burden affecting working life and which could impinge on it and as an autonomous sphere of fulfillment likely to compete with work as the medium for fulfillment and self-expression. Work is not therefore the only activity likely to provide identity, pleasure and pain to individuals, the family does so just as much. Work, especially for women with young children, competes with the responsibilities, obligations and emotional investments which family life represents. Individuals want more time and less work not in the name of leisure but principally in the name of the family. The responsibilities and the potential for substantial relationships represented by the family are the reason for the lack of time felt by some individuals and which takes the form of difficulties in conciliation even, in certain cases, of abnegation. This effect is confirmed by many other surveys in particular an IPSOS survey on conciliating social time (Méda, 2004), which shows that the importance attributed to work decreases for couples and where there are children. Asked whether they had the impression of being obliged to choose between professional and personal life: “1. yes and you choose your personal life; 2. yes and you choose your professional life; 3. you do not have the impression of being obliged to choose”, 24% of wage-earners interviewed felt they were obliged to choose and did so in favour of their personal life. Although sex does not appear to be a factor differentiating replies, age on the other hand is very decisive: it is 15 to 24-year olds and 35 to 45-year olds who most frequently choose this reply. The presence of children especially –
65 Documents de travail du Centre d’études de l’emploi and particularly young children – compels workers to opt for their personal life: without children, 21% of men and 14% of women said they opted in favour of their personal life whereas 36% of parents of at least one young child, men and women, chose their personal life to the detriment of their professional life. Asked what the effect of the arrival of a child had on the importance attributed to work, 45% of wage-earners interviewed said that this decreased at the time whereas it only rose for 22%. This average covers substantial differences, especially between men and women: 11% of women say that the importance attributed to their work rose against 34% for men and 57% of women said it decreased compared with 32% for men. Although women belonging to different age groups said, with very similar percentages, that the importance they attributed to work at the birth of a child decreased, this was not the case for men many more of whom than their elders said so when they were in the 25 to 34 age group. Young men today would seem therefore much more sensitive to the impact of the arrival of a child than men from older generations. Furthermore, although the effect of the child on the importance attributed to work is greater amongst women employees than amongst women executives or those in liberal professions, the reverse is true for men. Executives, people with high incomes and highly qualified wage-earners are more numerous than all others in declaring that the arrival of a child has a strong impact on the importance attributed to work.
2.4 A poor link between the different spheres of life
Although the family is a sphere of life from which individuals expect as much satisfaction as from work and although they consider it, like work, to be a place allowing for fulfillment and the development of strong links, it is important for individuals to be able to consecrate the necessary time to each – time which furthermore is more limited and more “rigid” in the presence of young children – and in particular that the work sphere does not encroach on the family sphere. The desire to reduce the place of work may thus be interpreted as the sign that individuals consider that reconciling professional and family life is today a cause of dysfunctions.
2.4.1 No time for the family
The fact that the family constitutes not only a refuge for those disappointed by work or a responsibility but also a positive sphere of fulfillment is also confirmed by the fact that people interviewed want more and more time to devote to their family. Asked in European and French surveys about the activities to which they would like to devote more time Europeans, and even more the French here again, chose the family. In the version of the International Social Survey Programme which looked at work, people were asked if they would like to devote more, less or as much time to a certain number of items (work, leisure, family…). In Europe, the family is mentioned most: more than 60% of people would like to devote more time to it (whereas only 20% would like to devote more time to work20). These surveys, and even more as we will see the next one, all have in common the ability to show a desire for more family, more time to devote to the family, even though their desires can sometimes seem contradictory since a fairly substantial number of individuals would like to devote more time both to the family and to work. This feeling is
20 These are 2005 results, in the 1997 wave, there were fewer people wanting to devote more time to work and there were also more people wanting to devote more time to the family.
66 Documents de travail du Centre d’études de l’emploi particularly strong in France since 75% of the French would like to devote more time to their family (cf. graph 60). This need, although lower in other European countries, has nonetheless increased over the last two decades (especially in Germany, the UK and Denmark).
Graph 60: More time for the family?
Percentage of people whishing to spend more time in family
80 74,4 72,7 72,6 74,1 69,1 70 66,8 66,7 65,8 66,0 67,4 64,8 63,8
59,1 59,3 59,9 60 56,5 56,5 53,9 51,9 51,3 50,1 50 48,7 46,4 46,1 1989 39,2 39,4 40 1997 2005
30
20
10
0
a y d k e i l t) al n t) tr Ita land as ands Spain n tug E ranc Aus Irela ( Britain F Fi y (Wes Por Sweden n Denmar a reat G he Netherl ermany T Germ G
Source: ISSP 1989, 1997, 2005.
French surveys confirm this situation. In the survey called “RTT et modes de vie”, which was intended to analyse the effects of reducing working hours on ways of life and in particular on the time devoted to family activities, people who worked full-time were asked if they had the impression, before RTT, that they lacked time: “Did you have the impression before working hours were reduced, that you did not have enough time (for your family, your extra-curricula activities, your household tasks, your leisure, etc.) Would you say that you do not have enough time…: still, often, sometimes, never?”. Although 39% of wage-earners in the sample said they had the impression of not having enough time still or often before RTT, 48% of women said so compared with 36% of men. More than a quarter of men (28%) were never short of time compared with 18% of women. Lack of time was more marked for women, for male and female executives and for people with young children: women with young children were those who lacked most time and the presence of young children particularly increased for women working full-time the feeling of not having enough time21:
21 This survey was prepared by MA Estrade, R. Orain and myself during 2000 within Dares, and processed by us. See in particular D. Méda, R. Orain, “Travail et hors-travail: la construction du jugement des salariés sur les trente cinq heures”, Travail et emploi, April 2002.
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“Would you say you do not have enough time? – always and often –“ in % Results rounded up to 0.5% All Women Men All 39.5 48 35.7 Executive 60 74.5 56 Intermediate profession 44 57 34 Non-qualified blue and white collar 31 33.5 28.5 With small children 39.5 57 45.5 With children under 12 44.4 56.5 40.5 Couples without children 36.6 42.3 33.2 Source: RTT/modes de vie survey, Dares Scope: wage-earners concerned by the survey (1618 full-time wage-earners).
The interviewees were asked furthermore if they had thought about what they would do with more time and if so, the activities chosen from a dozen items. 63% of the people who had thought about what they would do with more time available mentioned “the family”, which came well ahead of “the house”, “oneself”, “travel”, “associative activities”, “union activities”, “political” or “religious” activities. People with young children were more numerous in indicating that they had given thought to the use of this time and who said they would devote it “to the family”. The survey therefore provided two types of information: people working full time, with young children, men and women – but even more women – considered that they did not have enough time (because of their work) for their family. What does “the family” cover? The answer is both young children because people with small children are over-represented in this category (89% for women with children under twelve and 78% for men in the same situation). But also the spouse or other members of the family because a high proportion of men and women in couples without children also said they would like to devote this time to the family (60 and 67%). We will see this paradox in another survey where difficulties of conciliation are also substantially reported by people not living in a couple and without children22. At European level, the wish to see the importance of work in life decrease and to work less also depends on the genre and the family situation: the presence of children in the household seriously raises the possibility of wishing to work less (cf. annexes 1 and 8). The fact of being a woman also plays a role in the same way. Questions of reconciling work and other spheres are thus seen as an essential factor in understanding preferences vis-à-vis working hours and the place which work should occupy in one’s life. Here once again, over and above the effects of composition, the economic, institutional and social context may enter into play which is demonstrated by the ISSP 1997 analysis based in particular on the two questions to which we referred at the start of this section (Stier and Lewin-Epstein, 2003): the first concerns the wish to “work more to earn more”. The second is addressed not simply to workers but to the population as a whole: “would you want to spend more time in remunerated employment?” The two authors use a multi-level model to explain the replies to the two questions for men and women separately in twenty-two
22 Garner H., Méda D., Senik C., Conciliation entre travail et famille, les leçons des enquêtes auprès des ménages, Travail et emploi, n° 102, April-June 2005.
68 Documents de travail du Centre d’études de l’emploi countries, including fifteen European countries. Amongst the explicative variables at individual level, we find the status of the job, job satisfaction, the feeling of job security, the level of education, wages, age and matrimonial status. At national level, the two authors add, as explicative variables, GDP per inhabitant, the Gini coefficient, the rate of participation by women in the labour market, social spending, the average level of education and the average importance attributed to work as a cultural determinant. With the exception of this latter variable whose effect is not significant, the effect of contextual variables conforms to the authors’ hypotheses. In countries where the rate of participation by women is higher, the majority of the population wants to spend less time at work. The family’s standard of living would seem sufficiently high for workers to want to substitute free time to work whether this is devoted to the family, to friends or to leisure (Stier and Lewin-Epstein, 2003). Furthermore, in high-income countries with few inequalities and substantial social spending, workers more often express a preference for reducing time at work. Economic security thus allows them to envisage substituting free time for work. It should be noted finally that the effect of the level of education is more important when there are many inequalities: workers on the bottom rung of the social ladder more frequently wish to work more when the gap between their standard of living and that of wealthier persons is wider. This analysis convincingly demonstrates the effect of the social context on the choice between work and free time.
2.4.2 The difficulties of conciliation
This competition between work and family, which is particularly felt by women because of the responsibilities they assume in family matters, may be translated by interruptions of activity but also by difficulties of conciliation, tensions between both spheres and a degree of dissatisfaction vis-à-vis the number of hours and the timetables worked.
Graph 61: Satisfaction vis-à-vis working hours according to the ECHP
How satisfied are you with your present job in terms of number of working hours?
100% 2,6 5,3 5,6 8,7 9,8 12,9 18,1 18,8 16,8 23,0 19,4 30,4 34,9 36,1 80% 25,6 22,4 41,9 37,4 35,1 32,6 Fully satisfied 60% 34,4 38,6 5 26,7 30,0 61,1 36,4 4 35,1 33,7 3 40% 2 29,0 23,9 24,8 27,2 Not satisfied
27,4 20,1 24,3 24,1 20,5 20% 10,1 16,6 17,3 13,9 13,0 12,6 15,7 12,5 10,9 7,2 11,9 10,7 10,6 8,1 7,9 6,1 6,6 6,2 4,6 3,1 2,9 3,4 3,4 0%
s k a d m i n taly and u ar a I dom l gi l Spain g l re Greece France Fin erland enm Austr I Portugal Be h D
ited Kin n U The Net
Source: ECHP, vague 8
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Graph 62 : Satisfaction vis-à-vis timetables
How satisfied are you with you present job in terms of working times (day time, night time, shifts, etc.)?
100% 3,4 5,9 7,0 11,4 14,0 24,3 19,5 28,1 20,0 30,4 39,5 80% 41,5 43,5 25,2
43,3 31,4
Fully satisfied 60% 33,3 35,3 5 34,6 4 29,2 41,4 62,7 3 34,9 25,0 35,0 2 40% 34,6 28,5 Not satisfied 21,8 26,0 18,7 21,6 16,2 20% 18,4 14,6 12,7 15,0 12,8 10,7 10,2 11,1 12,8 9,6 8,8 6,5 5,1 4,8 6,2 6,8 4,9 5,0 2,7 2,2 3,1 2,6 2,7 0%
e a d c ce ain um ds ri e Italy p st rtugal ran S an mark elan F n Au Ir Gre Belgi Finland erl Po th De Ne e h T Source: ECHP, vague 8
Graph 63: Flexibility of hours for personal or family reasons
How difficult would it be for you to take an hour or two off during working hours, to take care of personal or family matters?
100% 8,6 8,7 12,4 10,6 10,6 9,6 10,5 16,1 14,8 18,1 19,8 18,8 18,0 18,1 25,7 27,5 31,4 12,8 13,7 16,2 13,6 80% 16,8 21,8 18,6 19,7 34,2 21,1 20,9 30,6 28,4 28,9 24,7 28,6 60% 24,3 37,2 33,0 Very difficult 26,5 36,8 33,9 29,9 Somewhat difficult 31,5 36,5 26,2 Not too difficult 33,3 Not difficult at all 40% 28,9 26,2 32,8 30,7 32,6 26,2 23,9
44,6 47,3 20% 38,7 38,8 41,4 34,1 34,9 36,4 26,1 27,6 28,7 22,0 24,6 18,2 18,5 18,8 19,2
0%
) st) t in al nd tvia a ary ta g a a ders pain g i mark L n (E S Wes n rtu n Cyprus France u t Br Finland o Irel Bulgaria Fla ny y ( Slovenia H a P Sweden a n De Czech Rep.a rm Gre e rm G Ge
Source: ISSP 2005.
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Satisfaction concerning the number of hours and the timetables remains relatively high in Europe according to the ECHP. France is however amongst the Mediterranean countries where a higher number of workers said they were dissatisfied with the number of hours worked (graph 61) or the timetables (graph 62). It is in addition more difficult in France and in the Mediterranean countries to obtain leave for family reasons (graph 63). The organisation of work, less flexible in Mediterranean countries, complicates reconciliation between different spheres. In Germany, France and the UK, one quarter of workers recognises that their job stops them devoting to their family the time they would like (cf. graph 64). These results underline the fact that European workers are not entirely satisfied with the current share-out of time between family and professional life. Over and above the “quantitative” equilibrium (in terms of time), work and professional worry can adversely affect the quality of life outside work. In order to understand the complicated interactions between the professional and the family sphere, ESS 2002 offers a number of quite revealing questions: one quarter of Europeans “often” or “always” worries about professional problems outside work. These problems are especially marked in France since 44% of workers say they “often” or “always” worry about professional problems outside work (graph 65). There are also many French people who consider that they are too tired when they come home from work to appreciate the things they would like to do in the home (graph 66). Conversely, family responsibilities do not seem to stop Europeans and the French first and foremost, from concentrating on the place of work (graph 67). The problems of conciliation and overlap of time seem therefore to be resolved to the detriment of the family sphere.
Graph 64: Time at work and time devoted to the family
How often do you find that your job prevents you from giving the time you want to your partner or family?
100% 7,8 16,8 16,0 90% 17,5 18,2 18,7 18,9 20,0 22,3 23,8 29,5 27,3 28,5 33,4 20,1 80%
19,7 23,0 70% 24,7 20,7 26,9 28,5 26,7 20,6 27,0 14,4 21,1 60% Never 28,7 Hardly ever 29,1 50% 45,3 Sometimes 34,3 Often 36,2 33,0 29,3 30,6 40% 40,4 30,9 25,4 Always 34,9 40,7 33,4 30% 31,1 27,0 20% 21,1 21,7 23,0 19,5 19,4 22,8 24,4 24,0 10% 15,6 16,0 16,1 7,0 8,5 14,4 3,5 4,2 5,6 5,1 4,7 4,9 0% 2,2 0,5 1,8 2,1 2,3 2,4 2,3 2,9
d s n ia y gal n d e rg n u la str ium u itain land e lan u Spain lg r ma rance Ir r A e r F Port e Swed Greece B mbo Fin th Denmark xe Ge u Ne L Great B he T
Source: ESS 2002.
71 Documents de travail du Centre d’études de l’emploi
Graph 65: Work and quality of life outside work
How often do you keep worrying about work problems when you are not working?
100%
13,7 13,5 14,2 17,5 18,0 19,4 19,3 20,5 20,9 21,3 26,4 30,3 28,6 35,6 80% 7,8 21,8 12,5 24,4 22,4 15,7 22,7 27,1 26,8 26,7 19,2 19,3 60% 29,9 Never 28,3 33,0 Hardly ever 26,3 Sometimes 32,1 41,0 35,7 Often 39,8 29,2 40% Always 33,6 31,3 31,8 27,1 38,4 31,1 29,0 27,1 28,3 20% 24,8 17,4 19,7 22,8 17,4 18,0 17,2 21,5 18,0 13,9 8,5 10,0 13,2 7,6 7,5 8,7 4,2 4,1 5,4 4,9 6,1 0% 2,5 2,3 1,1 2,3 2,2
l a s n ia in rg d e a ce u ug str p e any ium o t lan u S m g b rance Ireland r A F Por e Swed Finland Gre Bel m th Denmark Ger xe u Ne Great Britain L he T
Source: ESS 2002.
Graph 66: Work and quality outside work (2)
How often do you feel too tired after work to enjoy the things you would like to do at home?
100% 5,4 5,6 9,0 6,8 11,5 10,6 12,2 13,8 11,5 12,3 17,5 15,0 21,5 18,8 19,9 23,3 20,7 14,5 80% 24,5 21,2 20,1 20,1 18,8 14,9 27,6 16,2 23,4 23,8 60% Never Hardly ever 41,3 48,9 45,1 40,1 36,8 Sometimes 41,8 40,7 37,5 52,2 43,6 44,3 Often 40% 44,4 Always 41,6 39,6
20% 25,6 22,9 25,9 26,6 22,5 22,9 22,0 24,8 21,6 20,9 16,8 12,3 13,2 14,7
4,7 5,9 4,2 5,0 6,3 0% 2,8 2,9 1,8 2,3 1,4 3,0 3,1 3,0 2,6
ia n gal ain ce u nds land den ium p e itai a e g rance r Ireland S Fin Austr Sw F Gre Port Denmark Bel Germany Luxembourg Great B The Netherl Source: ESS 2002.
72 Documents de travail du Centre d’études de l’emploi
Graph 67: Family responsibilities and working hours
How often do you find it difficult to concentrate on work because of your family responsibilities?
100%
80%
60% Always Often Sometimes Hardly ever 40% Never
59,9 53,7 50,2 50,5 51,6 52,5 47,0 47,8 43,6 45,5 46,1 46,3 46,4 20% 39,6 39,7 40,1 41,7 42,2 36,4 33,2 35,5 29,7 31,7 26,3
0%
l e in in n e m y ia k a d ry ia kia a ds e in n ar n a n land p a iu ug la isse Rep. va lan eece lg m t e u Brita S r wed kr r n S Fin ch Island t Poland e Estonia U G e Austr e mbourg Ir France Slo a Norvège h S B Por Hung Slove ze Germa D xe C Gre Lu e Net h T
Source: ESS 2002.
French surveys confirm these difficulties: in the survey entitled “Histoire de vie-Construction des identities” (Garner, Méda and Senik, 2005), nearly 39% of the employed working population replied positively to the question: “Do you find that your work (hours, place and organisation) makes organising your family life difficult?” Difficulties rise with the number of children, 45% of men and women finding conciliation difficult when there are three children. For men, it is the arrival of the first child which is the most difficult hurdle to overcome; women report more difficulties when there are two children. These difficulties, on the other hand, slightly decrease with the age of the children. They vary substantially depending on the employment status: less in the public sector, they are particularly significant for the self- employed. Conciliation in certain professions is considered more difficult than in others: this is the case for craftsmen, shopkeepers, heads of undertakings, the liberal professions, intermediate health and social labour professions and staff in direct face to face services for men; female shopkeepers, administrative and commercial executives in companies, technicians and trade employees for women. The fact that more self-employed and executives report problems of conciliation, like a certain number of particular professions such as staff in direct face to face services or trade employees, can be principally explained by the “atypical” hours of these people (and by the combination of several types of atypical hours: long daily hours, Saturday or Sunday working, night work, travelling). Working at night causes the working population most difficulties with regard to arranging their lives: 62% working at least once a week at night say that conciliation is difficult. 43% of the workforce travelling at least once a week considers that conciliation is difficult. Travel is more often seen as prejudicial to reconciling family/professional life by women with children. Working on Sundays and bank holidays reinforces the difficulties of conciliation when there are children. Women “choosing” to work part-time on permanent contracts report
73 Documents de travail du Centre d’études de l’emploi less conciliation difficulties than others. On the other hand, when wage-earners have no choice but to work part-time, i.e. they would like to work more, difficulties of conciliation are greater than the average for men and women. A recent Ined survey looking at conciliation confirmed how the arrival of a child led to women reducing their activity (Pailhé and Solaz, 2006), following other studies which highlighted the fact that conciliation difficulties could lead to the interruption of activity for a number of women (Méda, Simon, Wierink, 2003). The fact that employment rates for women with children differ from those for men or for women without children (which are now the same) (Chardon, Daguet, 2008) and the substantial proportion of women with young children working part-time or not working is a sign that our society has not yet found how to reconcile professional and family life for men and women and has not managed to implement the “two incomes equals two care providers” model which should enable fathers and mothers to share family and professional responsibilities. Once women manifest the desire to work and have, like men, access to employment under the same conditions as men, society should have radically changed because the entire social body was built around the male breadwinner and “women as fillers-in of time”. It is because society has not fully accepted genuine change in the specialisation of the roles and revised its norms, its institutions and its policies that we see today substantial inequalities between men and women, more interruptions of activity for women and difficulties of conciliation. The massive arrival of women on the labour market occurred in effect with no adaptation of the environment: the norm of full-time work has not changed. As women, including those with young children, have begun to work these institutions have proved themselves to be more and more unsuitable. Gaps have had to be plugged, some tinkering done but overall our institutions were not rethought and reorganised around this new work reality where women are the norm, with as the ultimate goal, professional equality with men. The most important thing in all this is that the task of coordinating different times continues to be based on the individual, and in this particular case, women, whereas this compatibility should, if the aim was really for them to work with the same chances as men (of acceding to employment and to the same jobs), be collectively organised. Family policies, whose aims were openly and still are partly to promote births, have been guided by several objectives but not as a priority by that of enabling men and women to genuinely reconcile professional and family life. Consequently, the chances for women of having access to employment – and even more to quality employment – are lower than for men. Because they have to assume responsibility for the “family” and because this “responsibility” is also an object of affection and care, women are restricted by a very binding “choice” (Méda, Simon, Wierink, 2003). As clearly shown by Sen, both sexes do not have the same real liberty for transforming their available resources into results matching their expectations: for many reasons (traditional representations, balance of power, non-sharing of family responsibilities…), the real freedom which women have to change the resources available to them into life-style projects is not the same as for men (Sen, 1999, 2002). Countries in which social hours are better structured (the Nordic countries in particular), i.e. where the major collective schedules are more organised (working hours encroach less on family life and public systems contribute to resolving the question of conciliation thanks to flexible parental leave and better developed child-care arrangements, see Méda, Périvier, 2007) but also those in which companies are more attentive to questions of conciliation and implement flexible provisions enabling workers to have a minimum of autonomy to realise their goals, are those in which wage-earners report fewer difficulties or overlaps between professional and family life. The workers now estimates that the firms are partly responsible
74 Documents de travail du Centre d’études de l’emploi for these questions, but stay deaf to the daily difficulties of reconciliation between family and work life. For the moment, a majority of French declares themselves as dissatisfied with the policy of their enterprise in this area. Thus, according to the barometer Accor Services of IPSOS, 63% of wage-earners (and 70% of those who work in a big firm) estimates that their enterprise does not pay enough attention to “their difficulties in the organisation of life outside work” (Solom, 2007). Thus, the difficulties of reconciliation, the overlapping of times devoted to family and work is a source of tensions for French workers (Lefèvre et Al., 2007). On the contrary, in the Nordic societies, public policies and work organisation facilitate the conciliation: they allow to compartmentalise the different spheres for those who want, to avoid a disturbance of family life by work problems. The string compartmentalisation of the different activities would be a factor of psychological balance (Solom, 2006). Further investigations should look at the relationships between work and reconciling different activities. This could confirm what as yet still appears to be a hypothesis: that the relationship to work depends mainly not only on the socio-professional category but also on the family situation and that the more qualified section of the population undertakes to commit to both the working sphere and the family sphere and to find therein two major sources of fulfillment. Consequently, as recent research on the quality of employment has shown (Davoine, Ehrel, 2007), one of the important dimensions of employment is its capacity to allow proper conciliation with other spheres of fulfillment (Méda, 2001). In a recent survey done by Reims Management School (Beaujolin-Bellet et al., 2007), undertaken vis-à-vis 500 young, old, male or female graduates from this school, 70% of them, when asked to choose the three main items of an ideal job said that an ideal job would be one which enabled professional and family life to be reconciled.
CONCLUSION
We have shown that the French have a singular relationship with work and, given the different explanations put forward, have shown that two of these explanations merit special consideration: the high rate of unemployment and the feeling of job insecurity which mean that work is all the more desired on the one hand and that the rise in expectations of fulfillment at work is particularly intense in France and amongst young people. What people want from work is not only an income, a means of integrating themselves, but a means of realising their goals, developing their capacities, whether these expectations are reasonable or not. To such a point that in future, dream jobs, or those in which individuals most seem to achieve fulfillment, are those considered today as being furthest removed from “work”: show business. Does the intensity of such expectations - partly linked to the rise in levels of education and disappointing for some young people because of the difficult conditions of entry into working life - not go some way to explain the high levels of French dissatisfaction? We have also shown the very substantial differences in the perception of work depending on the socio-professional categories and the family situation, thus illustrating the words of Galbraith in “The lies of the economy: truths for our time”, which are still highly topical: in this work, Galbraith was indignant, not for the first time, at how the very word “work” was used to designate both the activity of those who do routine, repetitive and poorly paid tasks and the activity of those who fulfill themselves in their professional sphere: “The paradox is there. The word “work” applies simultaneously to those people for whom work is exhausting, fastidious and disagreeable and to those who manifestly take pleasure from it and feel no stress from it, with a gratifying sense of their personal importance, perhaps, or the visible
75 Documents de travail du Centre d’études de l’emploi superiority they feel in placing others under their orders. Work designates both the obligation imposed on some people and the source of prestige and substantial remuneration which others ardently desire and which they enjoy. Using the same word for both situations is already an obvious sign of a swindle. But that is not all. Individuals who take pleasure in work – this can never be sufficiently underlined – are almost universally the highest paid. That is a fact.” In trying to understand why the French at one and the same time attribute most importance to work yet most wish to see the place of work reduced in their life, we have proposed four different explanations which all seem to contribute to resolving this paradox. We have shown that the wish to see work occupy less place is in no way the sign of a desire for leisure or a lack of appetite for work but the mark of a dysfunction in the sphere of work quite specific to France (erosion of working conditions and feeling of job insecurity) as well as the expression of a positive desire to better reconcile professional and family life in a context of uninterrupted growth in female activity and inadequacy of public and company policies enabling individuals also to engage in the different spheres of life to which they attach importance and which constitute for them so many different ways of achieving them.
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Annex 1- Some details on the basic samples used
Annex 1.1 Countries concerned and number of interviews for the three EVS waves
1981 1990 1999 European Union Germany* 1305 2101+1336 2036 Austria - 1460 1522 Belgium 1348 2792 1912 Denmark 1305 1030 1023 Spain 2303 4147 1200 Finland 1003 588 1038 France 1200 1002 1821 UK 1231 1484 1000 Greece - - 1142 Ireland 1217 1000 1012 Northern Ireland 312 304 1000 Italy 1348 2010 2000 Luxembourg - - 1211 Netherlands 1221 1017 1003 Portugal - 1185 1000 Sweden 954 1047 1015 Estonia - 1008 1005 Hungary 1464 999 1000 Latvia - 903 1013 Lithuania - 1000 1018 Malta - - 1002 Poland - 938 1095 Slovakia** - (1396) 1331 Slovenia - 1035 1006 Czech Rep.** - (1396) 1908 Bulgaria - 1034 1000 Romania - 1103 1146 European Economic Area Iceland 927 702 968 Norway 1246 1239 - Switzerland - 1400 - Candidate countries and rest of Europe Belarus - 1015 1000 Croatia - - 1000 Russia - 1961 2500 Ukraine - - 1195 Turkey - 1030 1206 *In Germany, the survey was only done in the West in 1981, then in the East in 1990 (with two different samples) and with a single sample in 1999. **In 1990, a single survey was done in Czechoslovakia. Source: Bréchon and Tchernia, 2002
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Annex 1.2 Countries concerned and number of interviews for the three ISSP waves on job preferences
1989 1997 2006 European Union Germany (East) 531 587 Germany (West) 1575 1215 1114 Austria 1997 Bulgaria 1004 1121 Cyprus 1002 1000 Denmark 1034 1598 Spain 1211 1203 Finland 1345 Flanders (Belgium) 1338 France 1011 1620 UK 1297 1088 913 Hungary 1000 1496 1012 Ireland 972 1001 Northern Ireland 780 Italy 1028 1017 Latvia 1067 Netherlands 1690 2267 Czech Rep. 1080 1226 Poland 1200 Portugal 1637 1837 Slovenia 1005 1002 Sweden 1353 1371 European Economic Area Norway 1848 2199 1322 Switzerland 2518 1078 Rest of world South Africa 2884 Australia Bangladesh 2000 1988 Canada 949 933 South Korea 1613 USA 1453 1228 1518 Israel 1133 1533 1184 Japan 1226 921 Mexico 1401 New Zealand 1198 1309 Philippines 1200 1200 Dominican Rep. 1958 Russia 1698 1605 Taiwan 2171 Source: ISSP site: http://www.issp.org/
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Annex 2 - The real and desired importance of work: an explanatory model
Wanting to see less The importance of work importance attributed to in life work Standard Coefficient deviation Coefficient SD Woman -0,042 *** (0,009) -0,004 (0,008) Less than bac (ref.: > to baccalauréat) 0,008 (0,013) -0,014 (0,011) Baccalauréat 0,030 * (0,017) -0,020 (0,015) With child(children) 0,053 *** (0,010) -0,048 *** (0,009) Young people (<30) (ref.: seniors) -0,027 * (0,016) 0,038 *** (0,013) 30-50 -0,025 ** (0,012) 0,060 *** (0,010) Student (ref.: full-time wage-earner) 0,026 (0,053) 0,037 (0,040) Unemployed 0,079 ** (0,036) 0,089 *** (0,031) Housewife -0,118 *** (0,029) -0,027 (0,025) Pensioner -0,301 *** (0,025) -0,141 *** (0,022) Other -0,139 ** (0,058) 0,067 (0,060) Self-employed 0,198 *** (0,034) -0,060 ** (0,030) Part-time wage-earner (<30 hours/week) 0,017 (0,027) 0,032 (0,025) Employer with more than 10 employees 0,255 *** (0,056) -0,062 (0,053) Employer with less than 10 employees 0,121 *** (0,034) -0,065 ** (0,030) Liberal profession or senior executive 0,023 (0,028) 0,009 (0,026) Intermediate profession -0,081 *** (0,023) 0,029 (0,021) Employee -0,026 (0,021) 0,034 * (0,019) Supervisor 0,011 (0,043) -0,049 (0,039) Qualified worker -0,026 (0,023) 0,024 (0,020) Specialised worker -0,074 *** (0,027) 0,074 *** (0,024) Unskilled worker -0,043 (0,026) 0,084 *** (0,023) Farmer 0,055 (0,039) -0,044 (0,036) Farm labourer -0,162 *** (0,059) 0,016 (0,055) Serviceman (ref.: no profession) -0,031 (0,085) -0,044 (0,073) Catholic (ref.: no religion) 0,044 (0,054) -0,022 (0,046) Protestant 0,075 (0,056) 0,011 (0,048) Jewish 0,043 (0,198) -0,005 (0,105) Muslim 0,133 (0,136) -0,022 (0,125) Hindu -0,024 (0,267) -0,179 (0,245) Buddhist -0,129 (0,215) 0,153 (0,192) Non-conformist -0,096 (0,072) -0,054 (0,067) Other 0,020 (0,071) -0,029 (0,065) 1st quintile (ref. last quintile) -0,015 (0,017) 0,004 (0,014) 2nd quintile 0,017 (0,014) -0,012 (0,013) 3rd quintile 0,017 (0,015) -0,019 (0,013) 4th quintile -0,027 (0,017) 0,020 (0,014) Notes: ***=significant to 1%; **=significant to 5%; *=significant to 10%. We have modelled the ordered probits with four modalities for the importance of work (“very important”, “important”, “not important”, “not at all important”) and three modalities for the wish to see less importance attributed to work (“it would be a good thing”, “indifferent”, “a bad thing”). In the first column, a plus sign reads like a higher probability of declaring a higher degree of importance. In the second column, a plus sign means a higher probability of declaring that it would be a good thing if work was less important, or not disapproving this idea. The quintiles correspond to household and not personal income. Source: EVS 1980, 1990, 1999 Continued on next page
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Previous table cont. Wanting to see less The importance of work importance attributed to in life work Coefficient SD Coefficient SD 1981 nd -0,094 *** (0,013) 1990 -0,020 ** (0,009) -0,063 *** (0,010) Austria (ref.: Sweden) 0,213 *** (0,028) -0,231 *** (0,028) Belgium 0,171 *** (0,025) 0,305 *** (0,022) Denmark -0,288 *** (0,034) -0,217 *** (0,031) Finland -0,063 (0,042) -0,445 *** (0,043) France 0,287 *** (0,030) 0,613 *** (0,025) Germany -0,387 *** (0,023) 0,015 (0,021) UK -0,355 *** (0,030) 0,204 *** (0,031) Greece 0,142 ** (0,070) -0,259 *** (0,070) Ireland 0,061 * (0,033) -0,249 *** (0,028) Italy 0,228 *** (0,028) -0,236 *** (0,025) Netherlands -0,051 (0,032) 0,091 *** (0,027) Portugal -0,275 *** (0,037) 0,081 ** (0,038) Spain 0,256 *** (0,026) 0,352 *** (0,021) N° of observations 24898 32534
Notes: *** =significant to 1%; ** significant to 5%; * significant to 10%; ND = not available. EXPLANATORY TEXT SAME AS ABOVE
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Annex 3 - Importance of work and socio-economic context
Estimated coefficient SD Woman -0,071 *** 0,015 Man . Less than bac 0,012 0,019 Baccalauréat 0,041 * 0,023 More than bac . With child(children) 0,118 *** 0,019 Without children . Young people (<30) -0,076 *** 0,025 30-50 -0,082 *** 0,019 Seniors (>50) . Student -0,230 *** 0,062 Unemployed -0,176 *** 0,038 Housewife -0,363 *** 0,036 Pensioner -0,575 *** 0,023 Other -0,333 *** 0,070 Self-employed -0,058 * 0,034 Part-time wage-earner (<30 hours/week) -0,203 *** 0,027 Full-time wage-earner (>30 hours/week) . Employer with more than 10 employees 0,324 *** 0,066 Employer with less than 10 employees 0,116 ** 0,050 Liberal profession or senior executive 0,014 0,045 Intermediate profession (technician, etc,) -0,055 0,043 Employee 0,008 0,042 Supervisor 0,084 0,054 Qualified worker 0,014 0,042 Specialised worker -0,048 0,044 Unskilled worker -0,036 0,043 Farmer 0,065 0,056 Farm labourer -0,163 *** 0,059 Serviceman (professional) -0,015 0,086 Never had wage-earning activity . Catholic 0,136 *** 0,019 Protestant 0,114 *** 0,027 Jewish 0,112 0,195 Muslim 0,334 *** 0,103 Hindu 0,142 0,285 Buddhist -0,024 0,234 Non-conformist -0,059 0,051 Other 0,072 * 0,042 No religion .
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1st quintile 0,017 0,027 2nd quintile 0,035 0,025 3rd quintile 0,022 0,025 4th quintile -0,015 0,025 5th quintile . 90 -0,014 0,028 99 . GDP per inhabitant (/1000) 0,012 ** 0,054 Rate of unemployment 0,017 *** 0,006 Threshold 1 0,373 ** 0,138 Threshold 2 1,610 *** 0,138 Threshold 3 2,138 *** 0,138 Notes: ***=significant to 1%; **=significant to 5%; *=significant to 10%. Countries used for the analysis: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech Rep., Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, UK, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Turkey Source: EVS 99 and 90
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Annex 4 - The importance of the different facets according to the ISSP 1997 and the ISSP 2005
Importance of job security
100%
90%
80%
70%
60% Very important Important 50% Neither important, nor unimportant Not important 40% Not important at all
30%
20%
10%
0%
l n in e ly a ds e a a g n nc It u ed Sp rt nmark w Fra e S Po D Germany reat Britain st Netherla G West GermanyEa
Source: ISSP 1997.
Importance of wage
100%
80%
60% Very important Important Neither important, nor unimportant Not important 40% Not important at all
20%
0%
n y e n n ce ny d Italy e ritai ma Spain rma B Fran Sw Portugal Denmark Ge Ger st reat Netherlands e G W East
Source: ISSP 1997.
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Importance of promotion opportunities
100%
80%
60% Very important Important Neither important, nor unimportant Not important 40% Not important at all
20%
0%
l y y s a n n g nd Italy u rance a Spain rt nmark rma rma F rl e Sweden e e Po D G Ge th st st e reat Britain e N G Ea W
Source: ISSP 1997.
Importance of an interesting job
100%
90%
80%
70%
60% Very important Important 50% Neither important, nor unimportant Not important 40% Not important at all
30%
20%
10%
0%
n y in ly rk ai ds n a en a ce p n It d n S rma Brita we Fra e t Portugal S G a Denm st Netherla Gre Ea West Germany
Source: ISSP 1997.
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Importance of a job that allows someone to work independently
100%
90%
80%
70%
60% Very important Important 50% Neither important, nor unimportant Not important 40% Not important at all
30%
20%
10%
0%
y s l y ce in l a en n n a ta g d ark I u m Sp rt rma n Fra o we e P S De etherland Great Britain N East GermanyWest G
Source: ISSP 1997.
Importance of a job that allows someone to help other people
100%
80%
60% Very important Important Neither important, nor unimportant Not important 40% Not important at all
20%
0%
l y n y in ly in a n ce e n a a ds a ark g n t It n u ed Sp m rt rma Fra w rma Bri n S t e Po Ge Ge a D st a Gre Netherla West E
Source: ISSP 1997.
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Importance of a job that is useful to society
100%
90%
80%
70%
60% Very important Important 50% Neither important, nor unimportant Not important 40% Not important at all
30%
20%
10%
0%
l y n a n ds nd ark ai g n Italy la p u eden m S rt rma w n o S France Po e Ge D P Netherla Great Britain West East Germany
Source: ISSP 1997.
Importance of a job that allows someone to decide their times or day of working
100%
80%
60% Very important Important Neither important, nor unimportant Not important 40% Not important at all
20%
0%
y rk ds n a n aly a tugal eden It m m r rla Spain Britain n o e w France P h S eat Germany Ger De r st G e Net East W
Source: ISSP 1997.
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Importance of job security
100%
80%
60% Very important Important Neither important, nor unimportant Not important Not important at all 40%
20%
0% Denmark Great Finland Ireland Sweden France Portugal West Spain East Britain Germany Germany
Source: ISSP 2005.
Importance of wage
100%
80%
60% Very important Important Neither important, nor unimportant Not important 40% Not important at all
20%
0% Denmark West Great Sweden Finland France Ireland East Portugal Spain Germany Britain Germany
Source: ISSP 2005.
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Importance of promotion opportunities
100%
80%
60% Very important Important Neither important, nor unimportant Not important 40% Not important at all
20%
0% Denmark Finland Sweden West East France Great Ireland Spain Portugal Germany Germany Britain
Source: ISSP 2005.
Importance of an interesting job
100%
80%
60% Very important Important Neither important, nor unimportant Not important 40% Not important at all
20%
0% West Spain Portugal East Finland Sweden Great Ireland Denmark France Germany Germany Britain
Source: ISSP 2005.
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Importance of a job that allows someone to work independently
100%
80%
60% Very important Important Neither important, nor unimportant Not important 40% Not important at all
20%
0% Great France Finland Sweden Ireland Portugal West Spain East Denmark Britain Germany Germany
Source: ISSP 2005.
Importance of a job that allows someone to help other people
100%
80%
60% Very important Important Neither important, nor unimportant Not important 40% Not important at all
20%
0% Finland France West Great Sweden Denmark East Spain Ireland Portugal Germany Britain Germany
Source: ISSP 2005.
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Importance of a job that is useful to society
100%
80%
60% Very important Important Neither important, nor unimportant Not important 40% Not important at all
20%
0% Finland Sweden West France Denmark Great East Spain Ireland Portugal Germany Britain Germany
Source: ISSP 2005.
Importance of a job that allows someone to decide their times or day of working
100%
80%
60% Very important Important Neither important, nor unimportant Not important 40% Not important at all
20%
0% Great East West Denmark Finland Sweden France Portugal Ireland Spain Britain Germany Germany
Source: ISSP 2005.
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Annex 5 - The importance of the different facets: an explanatory model
Intrinsic interest in work High wages Job security Coefficient SD Coefficient SD Coefficient SD Women 0,001 (0,010) -0,055 *** (0,010) 0,013 (0,009) Married, marital status -0,022 ** (0,010) -0,004 (0,010) 0,034 *** (0,009) <30 0,087 *** (0,017) 0,081 *** (0,017) 0,061 *** (0,016) Between 30 and 50 (ref: >50) -0,011 (0,013) 0,007 (0,013) -0,031 *** (0,012) Catholic (ref: no religion) 0,068 ** (0,030) -0,067 (0,053) 0,115 ** (0,049) Jewish -0,213 (0,155) -0,030 (0,230) -0,297 (0,210) Muslim -0,196 * (0,115) 0,316 *** (0,104) 0,179 * (0,103) Protestant 0,092 *** (0,032) -0,135 ** (0,054) 0,060 (0,049) Other 0,116 ** (0,051) -0,068 (0,063) -0,085 (0,058) Level of studies > to bac 0,162 *** (0,016) -0,110 *** (0,017) -0,146 *** (0,015) Bac -0,023 (0,017) -0,032 * (0,018) 0,004 (0,015) No personal income 0,059 *** (0,020) 0,000 (0,019) -0,008 (0,017) 1st quartile -0,090 *** (0,021) -0,007 (0,020) -0,051 *** (0,018) 2nd quartile -0,078 *** (0,018) 0,011 (0,019) 0,060 *** (0,017) 3rd quartile (ref.: 4th) -0,010 (0,018) 0,007 (0,019) 0,080 *** (0,018) Half-time (ref.: full-time -0,029 (0,033) -0,003 (0,037) -0,054 * (0,032) Very part-time 0,024 (0,064) -0,179 ** (0,075) -0,024 (0,058) Helps the family -0,170 (0,114) 0,028 (0,125) -0,193 * (0,116) Unemployed 0,043 (0,048) 0,111 *** (0,040) 0,096 ** (0,038) Student 0,235 *** (0,063) -0,055 (0,047) -0,047 (0,042) Pensioner -0,021 (0,033) -0,077 ** (0,032) 0,068 ** (0,028) Housewives/men at home -0,042 (0,034) 0,044 (0,031) -0,021 (0,028) Other, not working -0,076 (0,086) -0,027 (0,072) 0,021 (0,064) Handicapped 0,045 (0,081) 0,113 (0,085) 0,135 * (0,078) No profession 0,043 (0,034) 0,013 (0,031) 0,021 (0,027) Senior executives and managers 0,142 *** (0,040) 0,087 ** (0,044) -0,121 *** (0,040) Intellectual professions 0,172 *** (0,035) -0,086 ** (0,041) -0,006 (0,034) Intermediate professions 0,095 *** (0,030) -0,028 (0,035) -0,002 (0,030) Administrative-type employees -0,061 * (0,035) -0,072 * (0,041) 0,044 (0,036) Services personnel and sales staff 0,061 ** (0,031) 0,037 (0,034) 0,097 *** (0,031) Farmers and fishermen -0,059 (0,063) -0,173 ** (0,073) -0,166 *** (0,064) Craftsmen -0,090 *** (0,034) 0,029 (0,037) 0,047 (0,035) Assembly workers, drivers -0,210 *** (0,040) 0,085 ** (0,043) 0,037 (0,041) Notes: ***=significant to 1%; **=significant to 5%; *=significant to 10%. Source: ISSP 1989, 1997, 2005. Table continues next page
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Previous table cont. Intrinsic interest in work High wages Job security Coefficient SD Coefficient SD Coefficient SD Austria 89 0,343 *** (0,052) 0,268 *** (0,037) 0,284 *** (0,037) Germany 05 -0,052 (0,037) -0,118 *** (0,039) 0,202 *** (0,035) Germany 97 -0,038 (0,043) -0,328 *** (0,040) 0,285 *** (0,034) Germany 89 0,046 (0,045) 0,052 (0,045) -0,110 *** (0,042) Denmark 05 0,078 * (0,041) -0,427 *** (0,051) -0,604 *** (0,040) Denmark 97 0,179 *** (0,056) -0,446 *** (0,058) -0,524 *** (0,045) Spain 05 0,001 (0,048) 0,985 *** (0,041) 0,195 *** (0,041) Spain 97 -0,341 *** (0,065) 0,245 *** (0,042) -0,015 (0,040) Finland 05 -0,140 *** (0,043) 0,004 (0,047) -0,067 (0,041) France 05 0,375 *** (0,046) 0,033 (0,038) 0,120 *** (0,035) France 97 0,311 *** (0,057) -0,093 * (0,054) 0,284 *** (0,047) UK 05 -0,016 (0,050) -0,217 *** (0,056) -0,176 *** (0,047) UK 97 -0,083 * (0,045) -0,254 *** (0,050) 0,162 *** (0,043) UK 89 -0,109 ** (0,047) -0,100 * (0,051) -0,002 (0,045) Ireland 05 0,092 * (0,048) 0,131 *** (0,049) -0,077 * (0,044) Ireland 89 -0,196 *** (0,057) 0,202 *** (0,057) 0,147 *** (0,055) Italy 97 0,093 (0,060) 0,177 *** (0,045) 0,147 *** (0,043) Italy 89 0,068 (0,065) 0,174 *** (0,053 0,311 *** (0,054) Netherlands 97 -0,310 *** (0,042) -0,641 *** (0,047) -0,462 *** (0,036) Netherlands 89 -0,382 *** (0,044) -0,470 *** (0,048) -0,549 *** (0,040) Portugal 05 0,040 (0,040) 0,506 *** (0,037) -0,006 (0,035) Portugal 97 0,097 ** (0,047) 0,440 *** (0,039) 0,489 *** (0,041) N° of observations 27207 27919 27992 Notes: ***=significant to 1%; **=significant to 5%; *=significant to 10%. Source: ISSP 1989, 1997, 2005.
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Promotion opportunities Autonomy Helping others Coefficient SD Coefficient SD Coefficient SD Women -0,037 *** (0,009) -0,047 *** (0,009) 0,094 *** (0,009) Married, marital status -0,017 * (0,010) -0,015 (0,010) -0,004 (0,010) <30 0,157 *** (0,017) -0,040 ** (0,016) 0,004 (0,017) Between 30 and 50 (ref: >50) -0,055 *** (0,013) 0,036 *** (0,012) -0,024 * (0,013) Catholic (ref: no religion) -0,033 (0,054) 0,047 (0,054) -0,012 (0,057) Jewish -0,087 (0,235) -0,175 (0,238) -0,286 (0,252) Muslim 0,387 *** (0,105) -0,165 (0,112) 0,161 (0,109) Protestant -0,077 (0,055) 0,095 * (0,055) 0,051 (0,057) Other -0,118 * (0,064) 0,055 (0,063) 0,081 (0,066) Level of studies > to bac -0,003 (0,016) 0,077 *** (0,015) 0,033 ** (0,016) Bac 0,001 (0,017) -0,032 ** (0,016) -0,050 *** (0,016) No personal income 0,077 *** (0,018) 0,027 (0,018) 0,027 (0,019) 1st quartile -0,052 *** (0,020) -0,031 * (0,019) -0,026 (0,019) 2nd quartile -0,051 *** (0,019) -0,076 *** (0,017) 0,022 (0,018) 3rd quartile (ref.: 4th) -0,023 (0,019) -0,010 (0,018) 0,017 (0,019) Half-time (ref.: full time) -0,060 * (0,036) 0,046 (0,033) 0,038 (0,034) Very part-time -0,193 *** (0,070) -0,063 (0,060) 0,117 * (0,060) Helps the family 0,026 (0,130) 0,044 (0,117) -0,150 (0,127) Unemployed 0,036 (0,041) -0,020 (0,039) -0,063 (0,040) Student 0,099 ** (0,046) -0,058 (0,043) 0,089 ** (0,044) Pensioner 0,062 * (0,032) -0,105 *** (0,029) -0,001 (0,030) Housewives/men at home 0,023 (0,031) -0,030 (0,029) -0,025 (0,030) Other, not working -0,007 (0,071) 0,084 (0,065) 0,064 (0,068) Handicapped 0,001 (0,090) 0,018 (0,081) -0,064 (0,084) No profession 0,061 * (0,031) 0,043 (0,028) 0,013 (0,029) Senior executives and managers 0,140 *** (0,045) 0,127 *** (0,041) -0,055 (0,045) Intellectual professions 0,067 * (0,040) 0,088 *** (0,034) 0,098 *** (0,036) Intermediate professions 0,039 (0,036) 0,020 (0,031) 0,171 *** (0,032) Administrative-type employees 0,057 (0,041) -0,067 * (0,037) -0,104 *** (0,039) Services personnel and sales staff 0,035 (0,035) -0,034 (0,032) 0,271 *** (0,031) Farmers and fishermen -0,213 *** (0,078) 0,074 (0,065) -0,179 ** (0,073) Craftsmen -0,105 *** (0,040) -0,109 *** (0,035) -0,081 ** (0,038) Assembly workers, drivers -0,037 (0,046) -0,123 *** (0,042) -0,106 ** (0,045) Notes: ***=significant to 1%; **=significant to 5%; *=significant to 10%. Source: ISSP 1989, 1997, 2005. Table continues on next page
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Previous table cont. Promotion opportunities Autonomy Helping others Coefficient SD Coefficient SD Coefficient SD Austria 89 0,487 *** (0,036) 0,719 *** (0,036) 0,312 *** (0,037) Germany 05 -0,215 *** (0,040) 0,241 *** (0,035) -0,064 * (0,037) Germany 97 0,022 (0,045) 0,202 *** (0,033) -0,238 *** (0,048) Germany 89 -0,333 *** (0,040) 0,236 *** (0,042) -0,255 *** (0,039) Denmark 05 -0,773 *** (0,056) 0,294 *** (0,039) -0,025 (0,042) Denmark 97 -0,647 *** (0,060) 0,433 *** (0,044) 0,242 *** (0,046) Spain 05 0,526 *** (0,041) 0,265 *** (0,041) 0,390 *** (0,041) Spain 97 0,200 *** (0,042) -0,057 (0,042) 0,153 *** (0,043) Finland 05 -0,597 *** (0,054) -0,319 *** (0,045) -0,407 *** (0,048) France 05 -0,079 ** (0,038) -0,312 *** (0,038) -0,257 *** (0,040) France 97 -0,229 *** (0,053) -0,270 *** (0,050) -0,246 *** (0,054) UK 05 -0,018 (0,053) -0,359 *** (0,053) -0,165 *** (0,052) UK 97 0,171 *** (0,047) -0,447 *** (0,048) -0,311 *** (0,052) UK 89 -0,022 (0,046) -0,416 *** (0,050) -0,152 *** (0,047) Ireland 05 0,360 *** (0,047) 0,044 (0,046) 0,378 *** (0,046) Ireland 89 0,345 *** (0,055) -0,268 *** (0,058) -0,113 * (0,061) Italy 97 0,244 *** (0,053) -0,029 (0,044) -0,038 (0,056) Italy 89 0,014 (0,045) 0,040 (0,052) -0,002 (0,046) Netherlands 97 0,080 * (0,042) -0,043 (0,037) -0,099 ** (0,043) Netherlands 89 -0,080 ** (0,040) -0,067 * (0,040) -0,035 (0,039) Portugal 05 0,575 *** (0,037) 0,118 *** (0,036) 0,439 *** (0,036) Portugal 97 0,423 *** (0,039) 0,019 (0,039) 0,644 *** (0,038) N° of observations 27733 27883 27766 Notes: ***=significant to 1%; **=significant to 5%; *=significant to 10%. Source: ISSP 1989, 1997, 2005.
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Being able to choose Helping society working hours Coefficient SD Coefficient SD Women 0,049 *** (0,009) 0,034 *** (0,010) Married, marital status -0,011 (0,010) 0,000 (0,011) <30 -0,049 *** (0,017) -0,056 *** (0,018) Between 30 and 50 (ref: >50) -0,027 ** (0,013) 0,079 *** (0,014) Catholic (ref: no religion) -0,043 (0,055) -0,150 *** (0,052) Jewish -0,183 (0,242) 0,283 (0,219) Muslim 0,224 ** (0,107) -0,011 (0,114) Protestant -0,012 (0,056) -0,060 (0,053) Other 0,017 (0,065) -0,044 (0,062) Level of studies > to bac 0,070 *** (0,016) 0,019 (0,017) Bac -0,064 *** (0,017) 0,003 (0,017) No personal income 0,019 (0,019) 0,090 *** (0,020) 1st quartile -0,038 * (0,019) 0,021 (0,020) 2nd quartile -0,015 (0,018) -0,028 (0,019) 3rd quartile (ref.: 4th) 0,033 * (0,019) -0,031 (0,020) Half-time (ref.: full time) 0,014 (0,035) 0,085 ** (0,035) Very part-time -0,034 (0,065) 0,053 (0,065) Helps the family -0,093 (0,131) 0,052 (0,130) Unemployed -0,055 (0,041) -0,004 (0,042) Student 0,068 (0,046) -0,063 (0,048) Pensioner 0,047 (0,031) -0,177 *** (0,033) Housewives/men at home -0,008 (0,031) -0,054 * (0,032) Other, not working 0,051 (0,070) 0,097 (0,071) Handicapped 0,015 (0,084) -0,007 (0,088) No profession 0,045 (0,030) 0,002 (0,031) Senior executives and managers -0,047 (0,044) 0,023 (0,045) Intellectual professions 0,132 *** (0,037) 0,063 * (0,038) Intermediate professions 0,074 ** (0,033) 0,008 (0,034) Administrative-type employees -0,084 ** (0,040) -0,033 (0,040) Services personnel and sales staff 0,186 *** (0,033) 0,012 (0,034) Farmers and fishermen -0,189 ** (0,074) -0,032 (0,074) Craftsmen -0,073 * (0,039) -0,066 * (0,040) Assembly workers, drivers -0,026 (0,045) 0,031 (0,045) Notes: ***=significant to 1%; **=significant to 5%; *=significant to 10%. Source: ISSP 1989, 1997, 2005. Table continues on next page
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Previous table cont. Being able to choose working Helping society hours Coefficient SD Coefficient SD Austria 89 0,235 *** (0,037) 0,303 *** (0,039) Germany 05 -0,082 ** (0,038) -0,176 *** (0,042) Germany 97 -0,149 *** (0,047) -0,114 ** (0,050) Germany 89 -0,389 *** (0,041) -0,308 *** (0,043) Denmark 05 -0,130 *** (0,044) -0,085 * (0,045) Denmark 97 0,076 (0,047) -0,134 ** (0,053) Spain 05 0,484 *** (0,041) 0,611 *** (0,042) Spain 97 0,194 *** (0,042) 0,089 * (0,046) Finland 05 -0,506 *** (0,051) 0,064 (0,047) France 05 -0,139 *** (0,039) 0,072 * (0,039) France 97 -0,201 *** (0,053) 0,078 (0,053) UK 05 -0,149 *** (0,053) -0,295 *** (0,058) UK 97 -0,176 *** (0,051) -0,253 *** (0,054) UK 89 -0,172 *** (0,047) -0,430 *** (0,055) Ireland 05 0,463 *** (0,046) 0,222 *** (0,049) Ireland 89 -0,051 (0,059) 0,016 (0,062) Italy 97 0,111 ** (0,054) 0,159 *** (0,057) Italy 89 -0,044 (0,047) 0,385 *** (0,045) Netherlands 97 -0,121 *** (0,043) -0,404 *** (0,050) Netherlands 89 -0,199 *** (0,041) -0,112 *** (0,042) Portugal 05 0,600 *** (0,036) 0,239 *** (0,039) Portugal 97 0,751 *** (0,038) 0,036 (0,044) N° of observations 27698 27641 Notes: ***=significant to 1%; **=significant to 5%; *=significant to 10%. Source: ISSP 1989, 1997, 2005.
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Annex 7 - Who wants a job to fully develop their abilities?
Variables and modalities Estimated coefficient SD Woman with child(children) -0,040 * 0,023 Woman without child -0,111 *** 0,033 Man with child(children) (ref. man without 0,143 *** 0,023 child/children) <30 -0,070 *** 0,027 30-50 (ref. >50) -0,101 *** 0,019
Part-time wage earner (<30 hours) 0,014 0,078 Self-employed 0,271 *** 0,086 Housewife -0,263 * 0,136 Pensioner 0,241 *** 0,075 Student -0,492 0,384 Unemployed 0,064 0,098 Other (ref. full time wage-earner) -0,033 0,213 Less than bac 0,015 0,021 Baccalauréat (ref >Bac) -0,002 0,023 No profession -0,170 0,109 Employer/manager +10 people 0,279 *** 0,080 Employer/manager -10 people 0,180 *** 0,058 Liberal profession or senior executive 0,139 *** 0,038 Intermediate profession -0,005 0,037 Employee 0,099 ** 0,039 Farmer 0,063 0,086 Farm labourer -0,564 *** 0,071 Serviceman 0,172 0,115 Supervisor 0,093 0,058 Qualified worker 0,000 0,035 Specialised worker (ref. unqualified worker) -0,160 *** 0,041
Union member 0,041 ** 0,017 1st quintile 0,058 ** 0,029 2nd quintile 0,029 0,023 3rd quintile 0,057 ** 0,024 4th quintile (ref. 5th) -0,063 ** 0,027
Documents de travail du Centre d’études de l’emploi
Malta -0,786 *** 0,092 Luxembourg 0,416 *** 0,098 Slovenia 0,123 0,077 Belgium -0,580 *** 0,054 Bulgaria 0,686 *** 0,078 Czech Republic 0,385 *** 0,052 Denmark 0,078 0,069 Estonia 0,280 *** 0,070 Finland -0,653 *** 0,075 France 0,897 *** 0,061 Germany 0,406 *** 0,059 UK -0,732 *** 0,083 Greece 0,408 *** 0,081 Hungary 0,662 *** 0,066 Iceland -1,535 *** 0,069 Ireland -0,310 *** 0,081 Italy 0,040 0,058 Latvia 0,223 *** 0,071 Lithuania 0,159 ** 0,076 Netherlands -1,538 *** 0,075 Poland 0,839 *** 0,062 Romania 0,485 *** 0,137 Slovakia 0,059 0,059 Spain (ref. Sweden) 0,209 ** 0,086 μ1 -1,062 *** 0,071 μ2 0,817 *** 0,071 μ3 1,684 *** 0,072 μ4 3,647 *** 0,081 Notes: ***=significant to 1%; **=significant to 5%; *=significant to 10%. Source: ISSP 1989, 1997, 2005.
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Annex 8 - Who wants to work more?
Explanation of the desire to work more Variable Modality Estimated coefficient SD Sex Women -0,075 *** 0,019 Conjugal status As a couple -0,035 * 0,019 Age (>50) <30 0,130 *** 0,032 between 30 and 50 0,035 0,024 Presence of children in the home -0,068 *** 0,019 Religion (ref. no Catholic -0,122 0,078 religion) Jewish 0,372 0,295 Muslim 0,397 ** 0,183 Protestant -0,210 *** 0,079 Other -0,150 0,114 Level of education More than bac -0,050 * 0,029 (ref. Documents de travail du Centre d’études de l’emploi My job is Full agreement 0,145 *** 0,051 interesting Agreement 0,111 *** 0,040 Neither one nor the other 0,008 0,046 No agreement (ref. Absolutely no agreement) -0,117 * 0,061 I can work Full agreement 0,059 0,040 independently Agreement 0,007 0,033 Neither one nor the other 0,028 0,046 No agreement (ref. Absolutely no agreement) 0,016 0,049 In my job I can Full agreement -0,120 *** 0,045 help others Agreement 0,021 0,034 Neither one nor the other 0,032 0,042 No agreement (ref. Absolutely no agreement) -0,032 0,050 My job is useful to Full agreement 0,033 0,045 society Agreement 0,003 0,036 Neither one nor the other 0,017 0,040 No agreement (ref. Absolutely no agreement) -0,155 *** 0,055 My job gives me Full agreement 0,109 ** 0,045 the chance to Agreement -0,024 0,035 improve my competence Neither one nor the other -0,041 0,039 No agreement (ref. Absolutely no agreement) 0,000 0,051 Do you go home Always -0,249 *** 0,058 after work Often -0,115 *** 0,037 exhausted? Sometimes 0,076 ** 0,034 Rarely (ref. never) 0,185 *** 0,048 Is your job Always -0,184 *** 0,055 stressful? Often -0,052 0,035 Sometimes 0,059 * 0,031 Rarely (ref. never) 0,106 ** 0,044 Relations with the Very good 0,032 0,047 hierarchy Quite good 0,030 0,037 Neither good nor bad -0,027 0,042 Quite bad (ref. very bad) 0,072 0,058 Relations with Very good -0,183 ** 0,075 colleagues Quite good -0,177 ** 0,072 Neither good nor bad -0,138 * 0,079 Quite bad (ref. very bad) -0,033 0,113 104 Documents de travail du Centre d’études de l’emploi Satisfaction Entirely satisfied 0,341 *** 0,067 Very satisfied 0,222 *** 0,054 Quite satisfied 0,062 0,049 Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied 0,018 0,061 Quite dissatisfied -0,303 *** 0,077 Very dissatisfied -0,222 0,136 Country (ref. East Germany 0,438 *** 0,084 Sweden) West Germany 0,444 *** 0,062 Denmark -0,185 *** 0,055 Spain 0,204 *** 0,067 Finland -0,334 *** 0,057 France -0,012 0,050 UK -0,385 *** 0,059 Ireland -0,107 * 0,064 Portugal 0,448 *** 0,056 Notes: ***=significant to 1%; **=significant to 5%; *=significant to 10%. Source: ISSP 1989, 1997, 2005. 105 DERNIERS NUMÉROS PARUS : téléchargeables à partir du site http://www.cee-recherche.fr N° 96-1 Place et sens du travail en Europe : une singularité française ? LUCIE DAVOINE, DOMINIQUE MEDA février 2008 N° 95 Recours aux aides professionnelles et mobilisation familiale. La prise en charge des personnes souffrant de troubles du comportement et de la mémoire repose-t-elle sur des configurations d'aide spécifiques ? OLIVIER BAGUELIN, AGNES GRAMAIN janvier 2008 N° 94 Diversité des modes de conciliation entre vie professionnelle et vie familiale pour les mères de jeunes enfants CORINNE PERRAUDIN, MURIEL PUCCI décembre 2007 N° 93 Intensité du travail et trajectoire professionnelle : le travail intense est-il soutenable ? THOMAS AMOSSE, MICHEL GOLLAC septembre 2007 N° 92 Male-Female Wage Gap and Vertical Occupational Segregation: the Role of Motivation for Work and Effort OLIVIER BAGUELIN septembre 2007 N° 91 Construire un modèle de profilage des demandeurs d’emploi : défi statistique ou défi politique ? ETIENNE DEBAUCHE, NATHALIE GEORGES août 2007 N° 90 À chaque marché du travail ses propres modes de recherche d’emploi EMMANUELLE MARCHAL, DELPHINE REMILLON juillet 2007 N° 89 L’usage des canaux de recrutement par les entreprises CHRISTIAN BESSY, EMMANUELLE MARCHAL juillet 2007 N° 88 The Effect of Working Time Reduction on Short-Time Compensation: a French Empirical Analysis OANA CALAVREZO, RICHARD DUHAUTOIS, EMMANUELLE WALKOWIAK juin 2007 N° 87 Les concubins et l’impôt sur le revenu en France FRANÇOIS LEGENDRE, FLORENCE THIBAULT mai 2007