Compare your present and future work experience with that of the previous two generations of your family. Is your experience likely to be worse or better or the same?

Résumé du document

According to 73% of the French workers, unemployed and retired people (questioned in 2005 by the INSEE ), work culture has undergone a drastic change. According to the above people a lot of things have experienced a series of changes. For current students and future workers, it would be interesting to understand the reason for changes in work culture along with glimpses of elements that change in work culture. In fact, working conditions and possibilities in a specific society are deeply linked to several aspects of a society, like the economic and political conditions.

Extraits

[...] Moreover, the increasing number of work contracts weakens the most fragile workers, such as immigrants, non-graduates and women, who are more often part timer than men, French nationals and/or graduates. The situation is also more and more difficult for young people today, because previous work experiences are very often required, even for 20-year-old workers. Furthermore, it has to be said that summer jobs (which often are the first work experiences for young people) are always very precarious (minimum wages or less). That is what I realise with my first jobs. [...]

[...] That is what I will explain with the comparison of my present and future work experience with that of the previous two generations of my family, showing that it is very likely to be different, but not inevitably worse or better. The following will deal with two exogenous factors which regulate work experiences, and then with an analysis of an endogenous aspect of work. To begin with, the first aspect concerns education, and the extent to which the people who will be studied have had the possibility to attend certificating course or not. [...]

[...] The second aspect which has to be raised deals with the value of work, in light of the economic and political context. It is undeniable that working conditions for my grandparents were harder than for me, or even for my parents. The lack of social laws and of powerful union protection, especially in the primary sector, have made work very demanding in terms of physical and mental investment, and with low and stable wages. It is obvious that for my parents and for me, working conditions are muted. [...]

[...] They went to school until the “baccalauréat” (British A-levels), and my mother began a psychology course (for 6 months). At the time they were 18, in the mid-70s, the number of graduates was increasing, but not as fast as the number of intellectual jobs (notably in the service sector) was rising, so their situation was quite good to find a job. Today it is definitely different, inasmuch as there are a considerable number of possibilities to study after the “baccalauréat”, and it makes many degrees almost useless. [...]

[...] To conclude, in light of the comparison of my present and future work experience with that of the previous two generations of my family, it seems that mine is very likely to be different. Indeed, our work experiences depend probably more on exogenous factors -Economical, political and social context- which change inevitably over time. However, we can not underrate the influence of an endogenous aspect of work, which is the role that work has for us. This factor, in fact, is the most likely to make our experiences successful or not. [...]