Working for Life: Workers’ Career Aspirations and Their Experiences of Past Career Trajectories and Present Working Conditions

Abstract

Drawing on workers’ narratives about their working life, this chapter describes and analyses the perception of future work and career options among low-skilled workers in cleaning, catering, waste collection and elderly care sectors in Europe. Reflecting the Danish elderly care worker quoted above, we found that many workers experienced wear and tear, and expressed concerns about working until retirement. Unlike the worker quoted, however, few workers had long-term plans or ideas about how to deal with these problems, or were able to express alternative ideas. When asked to elaborate on their future career plans, most answers took the form of short-term ideas focusing on small-scale improvements. In this chapter, we discuss this apparent discrepancy between workers’ ambiguous evaluations of their present work situation on the one hand and the lack of alternative career plans on the other.

As I get older myself — the more I contemplate if I should continue with this work… It is old people and illness and all… one gets worn down by it… I would like to open a flower shop. I do so like plants, trees and flowers and things like that. Things that do not talk and that stay right where you put them — something entirely different — more positive. Or maybe it’s just that when you have been so many years in the industry you get a little tired of it, I think. (care assistant, Denmark, quoted in Ajslev et al., 2011)