A Summary of

Attitudes to Work
by Birgitta Eriksson

Doctoral Dissertation at the Department of Sociology, Göteborg University,

1998.

 Attitudes in General
 Attitudes Vary
 The Pleasure of Work and Quality of Life

What attitudes do people have to work? How do attitudes differ between different
categories of people? How can these attitudes be explained? These are the questions
underpinning this dissertation. We can illustrated them with the quotes below. One comes
from a woman in her fifties. She is married and has three grown-up children who have
left home. When they were little, she was a housewife for some ten years, but now she
has a senior administrative position in a public authority. The other quote comes from an
interview with a young man who works in a hamburger restaurant.

I want to work! I like working! My work gives me a number of advantages apart

the salary. We have a great work environment, flexible working hours and an
incredible team spirit and harmony at our workplace I have wonderful
colleagues. When the children were little, I stayed at home to take care of them
and our home. It felt important then, but now I think I can say that my work is the
most important thing in my life. If I didn't have that, I don't know what I would
do.

I don't work to get money just for rent and food, but also for travel and other
leisure activities. I spend almost all of my leisure training and of course,
travelling. Apart from my own training, I serve as a coach for a group of younger
boys. In one way I sort of get on well at my job, but it is not something I would
want to do in the long term. The work is not so interesting, it is monotonous and
under-stimulating. But since the labour market is the way it is, I can't really leave
this job.

The above quotes represent two distinct ways of looking at work. The first sees work as a
goal in itself the speaker has a committed attitude to her job. In the eyes of the second
speaker, work is a means of achieving goals outside work. This may be referred to as an
instrumental attitude. The interviews not only indicate different attitudes to work, implicit
in them are also possible reasons for these attitudes. Working conditions may well be
important. The woman, who experiences her work as the most important thing in life,
also describes the aspects of her work that she finds of value: a good work environment,
flexible hours and a team spirit. The man raises the issue of monotonous and under-
stimulating tasks, and also considers his leisure more important than work. The
interviews also imply that attitudes to work may be related to one's life situation outside
work. For the woman, who had previously given priority to family and children, work has
a prominent place in her life, whilst the young man only sees work in terms of providing
for himself. The main interests in his life seem to revolve around his life sport and travel.

Whether these two cases are representative, which attitude predominates and how these
different attitudes can be explained are issues that need further investigation. In an
attempt to find answers I distributed a questionnaire to a random sample of employees in
Sweden. 1,928 people responded, and the findings were complemented with about twenty
interviews.

Attitudes in General

My point of departure for attitudes to work in general is the classification of the various
meanings of work by Gunn Johansson and her colleagues. They distinguish between the
absolute centrality and relative centrality of work. In the former, the meaning of work is
evaluated in absolute terms without relating it to anything else. In the latter, work is seen
in relation to other important aspects of life, such as family and leisure. They also
distinguish between the meaning of work as an evaluation of work in general, an
evaluation of the organisation that one is working in, and an evaluation of a particular job
one's own. If we combine these two dimensions, we obtain the table below, which
contains questions that are operationalisations of the different attitudes. One of the six
boxes is empty. The reason for this is that this table was not designed for constructing the
questions, but only for structuring the results. The empty box could contain questions
about how a person views their place of work in comparison with other places of work.

With the table as the point of departure, I shall describe people's absolute attitudes to
work in general, to their own organisation and also to their own work. Then I shall
discuss their relative attitudes to work in general and to their own particular work.

Different attitudes to work and operationalisations of these attitudes

Work from a
Your organisation Your work
general perspective
Is work a dull
Do you feel a sense
necessity that you Do you only work
of attachment to
would rather be for money, or
Absolute your place of work
without? because there is
attitude and do you see
What are the something special
yourself as an
characteristics about your work?
important employee?
of good work?
Relative What characterises a To what extent
attitude good life and how should work
does this relate to interfere with
 the rest of your
time and life?
Which time do you
work? appreciate most
the hours spent at
work or the time
outside work?

As for the absolute attitude to work in general, only five per cent agree completely with
the following statement: Work is a dull necessity. If I didn't have to, I would not work.
Work is thus a central feature in most people's lives.

What is it then that makes people want to work, even if it were the case that they did not
have to in order to make a living? In the interviews, the respondents mentioned such
factors as the need for fixed routines, and the fact that we would become apathetic if we
did not work. One person stated that neither society nor we would develop if we did not
work. Another person claimed that families benefit from having two working adults; a
further point was that we make better use of our leisure if we can relate it to work.
Interaction and contact with fellow workers was also mentioned.

All this corresponds well with Marie Jahoda's hypothesis on the latent functions of work.
She lists five latent functions of work apart from salary and these are more or less
reflected in the interviews. Firstly, work provides us with a sense of time. Secondly, it
widens our social horizon and provides us with experiences and relationships outside our
family, circle of friends and neighbourhood. Thirdly, we are rooted in a collective whose
strength is greater than our own. Fourthly, work gives us social status and identity.
Finally, it forces us to perform actions for purposes other than our personal objectives,
which enables us to see the consequences of our own actions. According to Jahoda, there
is nothing else in today's society that can fulfil these functions in the way work does.
Therefore we need work, even if we did not have to work to make a living.

Attitudes to one's own work organisation were studied by asking the respondents to
choose the statement that best corresponded to their own opinion from the following two:
I have a strong sense of attachment to my workplace and consider myself a significant
contributor to an important activity and I have no particular sense of attachment to my
workplace and/or loyalty to my employer. Most people (84 per cent) agreed with the first
statement and the differences between the different categories of people were quite small.
The only categories that showed a slightly greater deviation were those with highly
stressful work, that is, those with the worse jobs in terms of working environment, and
people with a non-Scandinavian background. There were fewer people in these categories
who said that they had a strong sense of attachment to their workplace and that they
considered themselves to be a significant contributor to an important activity. Herbert
Applebaum claims that a sense of attachment to one's work organisation is typical of
attitudes to work today. In earlier days, people felt solidarity with others in similar jobs
and positions as themselves. Nowadays this has been replaced by solidarity with the
company or organisation that employs us.
What, then, is people's attitude to their own work? According to Marx, wage labour is not
voluntary, but something that is inflicted upon us. The worker is his own master in his
free time, but not during working hours; for working people work is simply a means of
satisfying needs outside work. The social relation of wage labour therefore results in an
instrumental attitude to work. However, my findings show that there is a strong
commitment in people's attitude to their own work. Those who completed the
questionnaire were also asked to choose which of the following statements corresponded
most closely to their own opinion: This job is just like any other one does one's work and
the only thing that matters is the salary which I interpret as an expression of an
instrumental attitude; and There is something special about this job. Apart from the
salary, it gives me a sense of personal satisfaction which symbolises commitment to
work. Most people (78 per cent) chose the latter statement. Thus the instrumental attitude
does not predominate, at least in comparison with the committed attitude.

How do these results compare with earlier findings? Comparisons are somewhat difficult
since previous research on attitudes to work has tended to focus on specific types of work
and different categories of people. Some studies have looked at one particular workplace
and one category of people often male industrial workers. Other research has been based
on a random sample of the population or of the section of the population that constitutes
the labour force. However, I will attempt such comparisons.

Speaking of the attitudes to work among industrial workers, John H. Goldthorpe, David
Lockwood and their colleagues maintain that there is an increasing tendency, especially
among unskilled workers, to define work in mainly instrumental terms. Walter Korpi, on
the other hand, claims that there is no trend towards a widespread instrumental attitude.
In his study of Swedish metal-workers only 50 per cent answered that they only worked
for their wages, whilst 39 per cent claimed that their work also gave them a sense of
personal satisfaction. All the same, Korpi's findings indicate a more widespread
instrumental attitude than my study. On the other hand, my study is not limited to
industrial workers, but even if I only select unkilled workers, my data still indicate an
extensively committed attitude to work. 65 per cent claim that there is something special
about their work and that it gives them something more than just their salary. My findings
definitely contradict those of Goldthorpe and Lockwood, and reinforce Korpi's.

In a study of German industrial workers, Horst Kern and Michael Schumann concluded
that attitudes to work are becoming polarised since the instrumental attitude is increasing
in some categories and decreasing in others. I believe that my findings contradict these as
well. However, attitudes vary among my respondents in the sense that the unskilled
workers give expression to a more instrumental attitude relatively speaking than
employees in higher positions. Still, this does not support Kern's and Schumann's
hypothesis, since both categories show a relatively strong commitment to their work. This
rather shows a homogenisation of attitudes to work.

The findings that most closely resemble mine are those presented by Gunn Johansson and
her colleagues. They studied attitudes to work on the Swedish labour market, that is,
among people who are gainfully employed or who are unemployed, and their conclusion
is that the Swedish labour force places a high value on gainful employment. This
conclusion is also valid for Knut Halvorsen's study, which indicates a strong commitment
to work among the Norwegian people.

The strong commitment to work revealed in my studies and in those by Johansson et al.
and Halvorsen might be a result of the fact that our studies are not restricted to the
industrial sector. Mats Johansson, for instance, claims that working with people gives us a
greater sense of commitment, and that work in the public sector would, therefore,
enhance this sense of commitment since such work often involves working with people.

If we turn now to a consideration of relative attitudes, there was an item on the

questionnaire asking the respondents to choose and rank the three most important factors
in their lives from the following: being healthy, spending time with family and friends,
having an interesting job, making money, pursuing meaningful leisure activities, having a
good place to live, being able to make an active contribution to society, and being able to
enjoy good food and drink. The results show that 53 per cent did not mention "having an
interesting job" as one of the three most important factors in life. Thus we have here a
somewhat different picture than the one we discussed above, where most people
expressed a strong sense of commitment to work, whether to work in general, to their
organisation or their own particular job. When work is placed in relation to other factors,
many people (more than 50 per cent) do not consider work as one of the most important
things in life.

Here, too, there are differences between different categories of people. Of particular
interest are the gender differences, where a greater number of women consider an
interesting job to be one of the three most important factors in life. This is in line with
earlier findings. However, if we look at young people, the results are the opposite young
men consider an interesting job more important than young women do.

To determine how the respondents saw their own job in relation to life outside work, they
were asked the following question: What do you value most the time you spend at work,
the time when you are not working, or do you value both equally? Only 8 per cent
answered that their time at work was best. Almost 50 per cent placed greater value on the
time when they were not working, and about as many people report no difference
between the two.

The following statement also relates work to life outside work: I do not let my work
interfere with the rest of my life. More than half of the subjects agreed completely or
partly with this statement. Thus many people believe that there is a limit to how much
work should interfere with their everyday lives. Previous findings indicated a stronger
commitment to work among women than among men, but here we find just the opposite.
More women than men want to draw a line between work and the rest of their time.

Looking at attitudes to work as such, without relating them to other aspects of life such as
family and leisure, it is evident that a great number of people show a strong sense of
commitment to their work. If, on the other hand, we place work in a broader context, the
findings show that many people give precedence to things outside work, such as family,
relatives and friends. Figuratively speaking, we can say that the attitude to work seen
through a telephoto lens is characterised by strong commitment, whilst it does not
show such commitment when viewed with a wide-angle lens. However, the
differences between attitudes in general, and attitudes to one's own organisation
and/or particular job are quite small. The personal, concrete work situation appears
to be the starting point regardless of what is to be evaluated.

Attitudes Vary

I implied earlier that there are differences in attitudes to work between different
categories of people. In this section, I will describe these differences beginning with a
comparison between people with different types of working environment. The differences
here are extensive. In order to classify different types of working environment, I have
used a model devised by Robert Karasek and Töres Theorell. According to their theory,
our working environment is determined by the degree of control and social support as
well as by the demands placed upon us in our work. Using these three determinants as
their point of departure, they distinguish eight types of working environment. In this
context, it is interesting to note that there is a difference of 39 percentage units between
the types of working environment with the highest and lowest figures in answer to the
question of whether people only work for money. The category with highest figure
comprises those whose work is characterised by high demands and a low degree of
control and social support. Karasek and Theorell label this type of work isolated high
stress work, and they also claim that it is the worst possible type. Those in the category
with the lowest figure also face high demands, but also receive a high degree of social
support. This type of work is termed collectively active work, and is regarded as the best
in terms of a good working environment.

The issue of whether we only work for money or because our work provides us with
more than just money relates to the absolute centrality of work. Differences in working
environments, however, also have to be taken into account when it comes to the relative
centrality of work.

Furthermore, attitudes vary between socio-economic classes. I have operationalised

social classes in two ways, on one hand in terms of trade union affiliation and, on
another, on the basis of Statistics Sweden's division of the Swedish population into socio-
economic classes (SEI). The union-based classification distinguishes between
membership of one of the three major groups of unions, LO, TCO and SACO (the
Swedish Trade Union Confederation, the Central Organisation of Salaried Employees and
the Swedish Confederation of Professional Associations). Social class according the SEI
definition distinguishes between unskilled workers, skilled workers and salaried
employees in low, middle and high positions. Regardless of how class is operationalised,
more workers than salaried employees have an instrumental attitude. These results were
obtained in previous studies where social classes were compared. Casten von Otter
reports that 70 to 80 per cent of salaried employees think that their work has other
rewards than their salary, whilst only about half of the blue-collar workers give
expression to a similar view. The figures are higher in my study, especially among the
workers.

The class differences are obvious irrespective of whether we consider the absolute or the
relative centrality of work. A higher proportion of unskilled workers than skilled workers
say that they only work for money. A higher proportion of skilled workers than lower-
ranking salaried employees say the same and the latter, in their turn, show higher figures
than middle-ranking salaried employees. The lowest figures are found among salaried
employees in high positions. This pattern is valid for most of the other questions as well:
unskilled workers are least likely to think that an interesting job is one of the most
important factors in life, whereas high-ranking salaried employees are most inclined to
think so. The same is true for the extent to which people allow their work to affect the
other aspects of their lives. Between unskilled workers and high-ranking salaried
employees we find skilled workers, lower-ranking and middle-ranking salaried
employees in that order.

However, the answers deviate from the general on two questions. The first of these
concerns the extent to which a person has a sense of attachment to their workplace and/or
loyalty to their employer. Here, fewer high-ranking than middle-ranking salaried
employees reported that they felt a sense attachment to their workplace and loyalty to
their employer. Applebaum claims that though there is a strong sense of attachment to
their work organisation among professional groups, it is not as predominant as in other
categories. A possible explanation for the fact that high-ranking salaried employees report
a lesser sense of attachment than middle-ranking ones may be that professionals are
mainly to be found in the higher positions. Another possible reason is that more people in
this category are interested in a career. Those with career goals may find their own
workplace too restrictive, and their goals may extend far beyond their own organisation,
both geographically and organisationally. Their current workplace is only a step on the
way to somewhere else.

The second question that deviates from the pattern shows that a higher proportion of
unskilled than skilled workers value their time at work more than or as much as their free
time. This is surprising considering the fact that it is unskilled workers who feel that they
have the worst working environment. A possible explanation could be what Sverre
Lysgaard refers to as the collective system. This is a system of defence mechanisms that
develop among subordinates at a workplace and which function as a buffer between the
human and the technical-economic systems. The collective system provides the unskilled
workers with a comradeship which gives them a sense of attachment to their workplace,
and this, in its turn, leads them to value their time at work as much as their free time.

The measures I have chosen to describe attitudes to work suggest that women express
greater commitment to their work than men. To a greater extent than men, they feel that
their job is better others, they develop a sense of attachment to their workplace and
loyalty to their employer, and they value their time at work. This is true for all the factors
but one, and that is whether a person lets work interfere with the rest of their everyday
life. It appears that women are more apt to draw a line between working life and free
time. There is also a group of women who differ from the others, namely female
professionals. They are not less work-oriented than other women, but they are less work-
oriented than their male colleagues.

Previous research has reported contradictory views on gender aspects of attitudes to

work. Some of these findings, for example those of Mats Johansson, show that women
express a more instrumental attitude to work, whilst other studies, e g Anne-Lise
Ellingsæter, indicate that men have a more instrumental attitude than women. According
to Knut Halvorsen, the findings depend on how we operationalise commitment to work.
However, he points out that the gender differences in his study are small, and very often
non-significant. On the whole, my findings agree more with those of Ellingsæter, but
there is also some support for Halvorsen's conclusion that the gender differences are
small, at least compared with the differences concerning working environment and social
class.

Attitudes to work also vary between age groups. Young people deviate more from the
pattern than other groups. To a greater extent, they report that the salary is their main
reason for working, and as a group, they feel less attached to their workplace and less
loyal to their employer. Further, a higher proportion of young people do not consider an
interesting job one of the most important aspects of life, and they value their time off
work more highly. Thus, young people have a more instrumental attitude, both in relative
and absolute terms, to work.

We have just seen that women to a greater extent than men consider an interesting job to
be one of the most important aspects of life. Among young people, we find the opposite.
Young men are more work-oriented, whilst a greater number of young women consider
family, relatives and friends to among the most important things in life. Young people
thus appear to have a more traditional view than older generations as regards the relative
attitude to work. This differs from findings reported by Bi Puranen. According to her,
girls emphasise the importance of having an interesting job, whilst boys stress the
importance of having someone to love and live with. However, her findings are based on
answers from high school students aged about 18 without much work experience.

Other variables that reveal differences are ethnicity, type of industry, level of
employment, and experience of unemployment. Results show that those born outside
Sweden, and, in particular, those born outside Scandinavia, are more likely to have an
instrumental attitude.

Attitudes to work vary between people in different sectors. A comparison between the
public and private sectors reveals these differences. More people in the public sector
have a committed attitude to work than in the private sector. If we consider
different types of businesses, we find even greater differences. The strongest
instrumental attitudes are found among those working in the retail trade,
restaurants and hotels and in the mining and manufacturing industries, and the
committed attitude is strongest among those in banking, insurance and public
administration and other services.
A somewhat rash but illustrative summary of the differences in attitudes in relation to
level of employment would be to say that the instrumental attitude increases as working
hours decrease. A higher proportion of those who work part-time and, in particular, of
those who are employed less than 50 per cent say that they only work for money. This is
surprising considering the gender differences we have seen so far. We know that it is
primarily women who work part-time, and it would therefore be logical to expect that
these groups would show a greater commitment to their work.

14 per cent of the respondents have been unemployed at some point during the last five
years. There is a remarkable difference in attitude between those with and without
experience of unemployment. Those who have experienced unemployment more often
report that they only work for money.

The examples that I have given relate to the question whether one only works for money,
or because work gives one a sense of personal satisfaction. These differences are also
valid for the relative centrality of work. The overall impression produced by my findings,
with the few exceptions I have discussed above, is that the differences between different
categories follow the same pattern for all the dependent variables. They may vary in level
and intensity but the overall tendency is the same.

Earlier research has indicated three types of explanation for attitudes to work. There are
those who maintain that these attitudes are closely linked to societal circumstances, for
example urbanisation, the high level of welfare and the productivity of industry. Others
claim that they are determined by factors outside work, such as gender, family situation
and social class.

Attitudes to work do differ between different categories of people. However, this does not
necessarily mean that the differences between people explain their different attitudes to
work. Other hidden variables can sometimes explain gender and class differences.
Logistic regression analysis, that is the study of the effect of the distribution of an
independent variable on other variables, is one method of examining such situations.
Given that other variables remain constant, it is possible to discover or discount certain
explanatory variables. What, then, are the most impor-tant explanatory variables that my
material revealed concerning the nature of attitudes to work?

It may be concluded that, regardless of which independent variable we choose to

study, working environment and social class are the two most reliable determinants
for a person's attitude to work. There is, however, a certain difference between the
absolute and relative centrality of work. It appears that the working environment is
the determining factor for a person's attitude as far as absolute centrality is
concerned, that is, when work is viewed in terms of work alone and is not related to
other aspects of life. If, on the other hand, we consider the relative centrality of
work, that is, work in relation to other aspects of life, social class appears to be the
most important variable. This means that the relative attitude is in the main something
we bring with us to work, whilst the absolute attitude is primarily decided once we are at
work.
However, it should be emphasised out that working environment as well as social class
are of great importance for both the relative and absolute centrality of work in people's
lives. A person's attitude to work is something profound, an ideology, which they carry
with them as they grow up. According to Göran Therborn, the ideologies of a group are
formed in its confrontation with those who grow up in a certain society. These ideologies
can, however, be altered by various ideological apparatus. One such is our place of work.
The environment in which we work can thus alter the attitude to work formed during our
childhood and adolescence. In other words, our working environment is the prism that
refracts our basic attitudes.

Considering the various dependent variables from a gender perspective alone, we may
conclude that men and women have different attitudes to work. Much of this difference,
however, can be explained by other factors, such as the fact that men and women work at
different levels and in completely different sectors of working life, and that they therefore
have different working environments. The gender differences can also be explained by
the fact that men and women have different claims on work, and that they also have
different views of what is important in life they have different priorities.

There is one group for which the gender differences deviate from the general pattern, and
that is the professionals. No matter which dependent variables we study, or whatever new
ones we introduce, it is still clear that professionally trained men are more work-oriented
than professional women. One possible explanation could be that professional women
often work in workplaces dominated by men. There are indications in my material that
the minority gender group often expresses a more instrumental attitude towards work
than the dominant one. However, these are just indications and not true results although
the hypothesis is supported by Rosabeth Moss-Kanter, who claims that belonging to a
minority or a majority in a certain situation is of great importance for how a person acts.
In her view, those who belong to minority groups are subjected to structural mechanisms
that force them to act in certain ways. Adopting a predominantly instrumental attitude to
work could thus be the way the minority gender group at a workplace reacts.

My conclusion from the above is that attitudes to work are not a direct result of being a
man or a woman, since the gender differences are a result of gender segregation in the
labour market. However, we cannot overlook the fact that gender is indirectly important.
What is it, for example, that makes men and women choose or end up in different
professions, in different industries or trades, or at different levels in an organisation?

It is difficult to find a simple explanation for the fact that the attitudes of young people
differ from those of other age groups. Age differences in absolute attitudes can to some
extent be explained by the fact that young people are at the bottom of the organisational
hierarchy, that they work in other industries and trades and that they have other
occupations. However, this does not explain the differences in relative attitudes, that is,
how work is valued in comparison to other aspects of life. The conclusion here is instead
that there is nothing else in my material to explain why young people, to a greater extent
that older people, value their free time most. Kanter's thesis on the actions of minorities
could, however, be used here as well in order to explain why young people show less
commitment to work. Since only a few young people are employed, we can assume that
they are in a minority in many workplaces, although there are exceptions, such as
hamburger restaurants. As a minority, they adopt an instrumental standpoint to their work.

The most important question in connection with young people's deviant attitude to work
is perhaps what it represents. Is it a result of their young age, or of changes in values in
society? Will young people alter their attitudes as they mature and gain more experience
of working life, or will the values in society change as the young grow older? Thomas
Ziehe, a German social researcher specialising in research on young people, who says
that young people today are exposed to a cultural liberation which leads to a decline in
the traditional work ethic, believes the latter case is true.

People's connection with the labour market has primarily been operationalised on the
basis of whether they have permanent or temporary employment, work full-time or part-
time, which type of industry they are employed in, what occupation they have and
whether they have experienced unemployment. It is evident that these labour market
variables are related, to a certain extent, to the absolute attitude to work. They are,
however, less influential on the relative attitude to work, i.e. work in relation to family,
leisure etc.

The Pleasure of Work and Quality of Life

Are, then, people satisfied with their work or would they rather change jobs? Most of the
respondents are satisfied and have no intention of leaving their job, but even here, there
are differences between different categories of employees. The biggest difference is to be
found between people in different working environments. Dissatisfaction is greatest
among those with isolated high-stress jobs, that is, those with a low degree of control
over their work, high demands and low social support. Those who are most satisfied with
their job are the ones with collective low-stress jobs, collective active jobs and isolated
active jobs. There is a high degree of control in all these jobs.

There are those, among them Janine Larrue, who claim that the time at work and the time
outside work are two completely different areas of life, unrelated to each other. Others
maintain that there is indeed a connection between work and leisure. This connection can
be of two kinds, and these are often referred to as the transference hypothesis and the
compensation hypothesis. The first implies that experiences from work are transferred to
other aspects of our lives. Harold Wilensky obtained results which suggest this and
Martin Meissner talks about "the long arm of work" which encompasses life outside
work. However, there are also notions of the "long arm of private life" which affects our
work situations (see, for instance, Ehn 1981). On the other hand, the compensation
hypothesis suggests that hard and monotonous work is compensated by rewarding and
varied leisure.

My findings support the transference hypothesis, as they reveal that there is a clear link
between how we perceive work and how we perceive life in general. A significantly
higher proportion of those who are satisfied with their work than of those who would
prefer to change jobs are also satisfied with their lives as such. Those who are dissatisfied
with their work are often dissatisfied with their lives. There are, however, some groups
who can compensate dull work more easily in their leisure time. This is true of women,
professionals and young people but also of those in the oldest age group.

***

We have now seen how attitudes to work vary somewhat depending on whether we are
referring to the absolute or the relative meaning of work. They also vary between
different categories of people. We have also found possible explanations for attitudes to
work. Finally, I would like to mention a normative aspect; namely, whether a particular
attitude is good or bad. In my view, it is desirable from a human perspective that as many
people as possible have a committed attitude to work since this would appear to be the
result of working in a good working environment and thus enjoying one's work. The
positive nature of a committed attitude to work is also supported by the correlation
between enjoyment of work and enjoyment of life and existence in general.

References

Applebaum, Herbert (1992): The Concept of Work. Ancient, Medieval, and Modern.
Albany: State University of the New York Press
Ehn, Billy (1981): Arbetets flytande gränser. En fabriksstudie. Stockholm: Prisma
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