Why Work?

Why Work? 

*Originally written as an introduction to teaching SOC4600 “Work and Careers” Fall 2022

I am an unashamed, unrepentant, unapologetic workaholic. I love my job (and have loved other jobs I have held) and have tended to invest a lot of myself in my work. When discussing work, one frequently thinks about a job, profession, or career and these imply that you’re making money—earning a living—doing whatever it is one is doing. Of course, a person who has “a job” might actually work at a single place but find themselves doing a broad range of activities. A person who “doesn’t have a job” might still be doing things that don’t involve “having a job” in this sense but are still undoubtedly work (such as a parent who takes care of their home and children, perhaps while another parent earns income).

In the United States (as well as many other parts of the world across place and time), we have a specific attachment to work that is shaped by history and culture. A person who is a “workaholic,” who invests themselves heavily in their job, might be admired or respected (admitting I am a workaholic has never come with social shame). On the other hand, a person who “does not work” is viewed as not contributing; they are treated with suspicion or scorn (perhaps even if they are a single parent who must choose between long hours at low-paying work and caring for children). Though we U.S.-Americans pride ourselves on our individualism—the belief that we are first and foremost responsible for our own destinies—these ideas of work have a strangely collective feel as well. Those who do not work are viewed as not contributing to society, to the whole (and perhaps therefore are not deserving of the fruits of that society). It could be said that the U.S. has a strong and specific set of norms (expected or accepted ways of being) about work; our attitude toward work is also an ideology (a simplified package of ideas about how the world is and should be) which, when examined, can elicit suspicion or even hostility.

The first thing that occurs when thinking about work is that it is a social construction. Attitudes toward work vary dramatically across time and place, and are shaped by cultures and histories as rich as (and often older than) some of those that shape the U.S. norms and ideology I have mentioned above. Even what gets described as work and what doesn’t varies historically and cross-culturally. Social constructions exist because people agree on them; they could be different, and the easiest way to see that they could be different is to learn about how other people in other places and times have done things (like work) differently.

For example, in the U.S. today, children are not permitted to work, except in some very narrowly-defined and non-hazardous domains and capacities. Child labor is viewed as immoral and illegal in the U.S. But the first child labor law in the U.S. was passed in 1916, just over a century ago, and it was ultimately struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in the 1918 Hammer v. Dagenhart case. The idea that children shouldn’t labor is a rather new idea that certainly cannot be found across cultures. Take, for example, the clothing you are likely wearing right now—would it surprise you to know that it may have been manufactured, in part or in whole, by children? There are also semiprecious minerals that make the batteries for electronic devices like the computer on which I am typing (and you are reading) this which may have been dug out of the ground by children.

This troubles, even horrifies, the average twenty-first century U.S.-American but the idea that childhood is not a time for work is hardly universal across time and place. To clarify, I’m not defending “child labor,” but instead illustrating that our attitudes toward work can (and do) vary across place and time. Take another example—my workaholism. Many cultures that hunt and fish and gather (H-F-G cultures for short) would be confused at my desire to attach so much of my identity to work. If a hunter kills a large animal and the people of their social group have plenty of food to eat, that hunter may take pride in the kill, but would not see the purpose in going back out to hunt and kill more animals right away. If I have gathered enough nuts, fruits, and other edibles to sustain those around me, then why gather more that may only go to waste? The idea of attaching status to working a lot of hours, or the goal of accumulating wealth without an upper limit, are hardly universal.

Am I a workaholic because my culture made me that way or because I, as a free agent, choose to be? Well, both, and more—I am also a product of the social structures of my place and time. I was born in South Milwaukee, Wisconsin to a machinist (my mother) and a mechanic (my father). When I was a toddler, they were both laid off from their jobs during a recession, an economic downturn, and they noticed that those kinds of jobs were becoming less and less available in the area. We sold everything but the clothes on our backs and our beloved cat Sasha and relocated to Texas where we had family members who could help with housing and work. We had very little money for the first decade or so of my life while my parents struggled to find good-paying, stable employment; eventually my dad started his own business repairing fluid power equipment and heavy machinery out of the garage (many businesses start out just so) when I was in my early teens and by the time I reached adulthood he had moved into a small business park.

I got a job washing dishes at a café in my teens, which eventually I took on full-time to help pay my way through college. I got promoted to assistant manager and later store manager before the café looked like it was going out of business, and I took on a job working for my father at his company for a while after completing college. Later on, I continued making money helping out my dad while also pursuing a career as a gigging musician (someone who books individual performances for money), and later a promoter (someone who books bands on behalf of a venue or company) and finally venue manager/owner (I ran a live music complex for a few years). Then I went back to school, earned a master’s degree in sociology, got a full fellowship as a teaching assistant, moved to Kansas for another teaching fellowship, earned my PhD, and applied for the job I currently work. Arguably, I am on my fifth career: after several years in food service, several years as a fluid power contractor, and several years working in the music industry, and several years as a teacher and academic, I got my first book published last year after decades of working to become a writer.

In this story, there are several structural things going on: a recession, or an extended period of economic downturn (typically six months or more of negative growth) is bigger than individual decisions but definitely affects how we live. Deindustrialization, or the process by which many traditional “blue-collar” industrial jobs disappeared due to automation (replacing human labor with machines) and offshoring (relocating jobs to other parts of the world to save on labor costs), coupled with that downturn, led me to grow up over a thousand miles from where I was born. Returning to school exemplified reskilling, or successfully investing large amounts of my time and money in working to move into a different career field. Contract labor and playing/booking music are examples of an unfolding gig economy, a society in which more and more people hold temporary, piecemeal, multiple, and at-will jobs (without stability or labor protections); years in the food service industry putting my way through college was shaped by the service-sector economy and a postindustrial society in which more and more jobs involve working with other people rather than machines, and in which higher education becomes increasingly necessary to secure “good jobs” (in terms of salary, benefits, and job security). If I was not a workaholic (and not someone who benefited from the knowledge, skills, and enterprise of those around me, from my dad to my academic mentors and more), I might still be washing dishes, but the social forces that shaped my life are far bigger than me.

My grandfather was in the Marine Corps during the Second World War. He served in the Pacific Theater until a back injury retired him from service. Then, he got a job at a sprocket and gear company a few miles from his home, where he worked until he retired. He had two careers—the armed forces and industrial manufacturing—for his entire life, and retired with a pension and a variety of benefits, without ever having set foot in a college classroom. Certainly, his life was not easier than mine (I have never had to fight in a war, for example); just different, in terms of work. His life was more “the norm” during his time (at least for a man); my life, increasingly, with lots of economic ups and downs, multiple rounds of reskilling, and lots of temporary labor in a gig economy, is increasingly the norm for the present. Two case studies to capture just how different work can be in the same society across time.

The purpose of studying work sociologically, then, is to understand and describe, with as much accuracy and care as possible, how and why things are different, and how that has come to affect the human beings who live in the twenty-first century world of work. This process comes with potential lessons from history and other cultures, where work might look quite different, and in which the norms and ideology surrounding work may align with, or pose disconnects from, the socioeconomic realities of this changing global economy in terms of human flourishing. I must remind myself too that the way I have invested my identity and sense of self in my work in the many forms it has taken is not the norm across place and time, and may come with some negative human consequences, in terms of how it has taken (and is likely to take) its toll on my health and wellbeing. This is not just a descriptive or critical investigation, though—these lessons aid in preparing for the world of work in a changing social environment.

I must wonder whether a society without work would be possible, or whether it would make more sense to develop a different kind of mindset when it comes to work and life. We talk of “work-life balance,” but with all due respect to those who use this phrase, what does that even mean? Work and life are defined as things that are somehow tidy, separate, zero-sum domains, rather than social constructions that exist in a messy, fluctuating, and overlapping relationship. What counts as work, and what counts as life, and what would balance look like? I’m probably not the right person to ask…

Photo credit: academic professional headshot, taken 2019