Reassessing the Work Ethic: A New Look at Work and Other Activities

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to argue that psychological research on the work ethic, or work centrality, uses too narrow a focus for understanding shifts in behaviour and attitudes over time. The appropriate unit of analysis is activity. Working is a subcategory of this larger unit. Six areas of activity are distinguished: education and training in early life, paid tasks or work, updating education throughout life, unpaid tasks or voluntary activity, education of the third age, and active or passive leisure. Historical, sociological, and anthropological evidence is reviewed and related to the psychological analysis of the meaning of working. It emerges that work is a controversial topic; it is extensively praised by some and condemned by others. Few would deny that paid work is a necessary way of obtaining basic and supplementary human requirements under present-day circumstances, but the differential conditions and constraints under which it is carried out are not always accepted as a necessary corollary. Is paid work a necessary or a desirable means of obtaining a standard of living? The answer depends on whether paid work is seen in isolation or as a subsystem of a wider range of activities which together result in a fulfilling life.