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The importance of working to the unemployed — In the context of an international comparative study of the importance of working, a sample of too Flemish unemployed were interviewed individually. The respondents were selected according to their age, sex, skill, social status and the duration and frequency of unemployment. A large majority of the unemployed prefer „work” to ,,non-work”. Although income remains the most highly valued work outcome, working for the unemployed also has an important non-financial significance, which implies especially the aspects „contact with other people” and „doing intrinsically valuable work”. When asked for the disadvantages of unem¬ ployment, the interviewees mention first of all the loss of income and then the loss of contacts, boredom and negative reactions from other people. From the enumeration of valued work outcomes and the summing of the disadvantages of unemployment, it appears that work orientations and unemployment experiences are highly complementary for the unemployed. The respondents evaluate highly both instrumental and expressive work aspects. When asked for their degree of agreement with societal norms about working, 90 % of the sample strongly agreed with the rights and about 50 % agreed with the duties about working. A striking contradiction found in this study is that between the fairly high willingness to work and the rather low willingness to sacrifice things in order to get employment. As already established in other studies, future expectations of the unemployed were rather pessimistic. Depending on their sex, skill, age, social status and the duration and frequency of unem¬ ployment, the unemployed differ in the way they experience unemployment and the importance they attach to working.
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How to Cite: Spoelders-Claes, R. & Lybaert, P. (1982) “Waarde en betekenis van werken voor werklozen”, Tijdschrift voor Sociale Wetenschappen. 27(4). doi: https://doi.org/10.21825/tvsw.94833