The Function and Meaning of Work and the Job

W ITH the increasing complexity and industrialization of society, work for many people has become more and more simply a means toward the end of earning a living. However, we are in danger of over-generalizing this trend and pushing it to its logical conclusion, expecting that working serves only a means function. 1 The present study of the meaning of work among a national sample of employed men indicates that for most men having a job serves other functions than the one of earning a living. In fact, even if they had enough money to support themselves, they would still want to work. Working gives them a feeling of being tied into the larger society, of having something to do, of having a purpose in life. These other functions which working serves are evidently not seen as available in non-work activities. This finding that work has other meanings is consistent with observations of the effect of retirement and the effect of unemployment on men. If men work only for money, there is no way of explaining the degree of dislocation and deprivation which retirement, even on an adequate salary, appears to bring to the formerly employed. The particularity interesting results of this national sample study on the meaning of working are: (1) that working is more than a means to an end for the vast majority of employed men; (2) that a man does not