Disaffection rising? Generations and the personal consequences of paid work in contemporary Canada

Abstract

This article highlights the ‘personal consequences’ of contemporary employment relations in Canada, characterized by increasing precarity, shifting gender relations in families and in the workforce, the expansion of post-secondary education and an intensifying polarization of wealth. It connects these consequences to perceptions of intergenerational differences and conflict at and around work. Drawing on qualitative, narrative data from 52 interviews conducted between 2009 and 2011, the author proposes that younger people (or ‘generations’) are more likely to construct and be associated with narratives of disaffection about work. In contrast, what the author terms ambivalent and faithful narratives are largely associated with and constructed by workers who entered and experienced a far different world of work.