Socially Useless Jobs

Robert Dur and Max van Lent

Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, 2019, vol. 58, issue 1, 3-16

Abstract: Recent research suggests that many workers in modern economies think that their job is socially useless, i.e., that it makes no or a negative contribution to society. However, the evidence so far is mainly anecdotal. We use a representative dataset comprising 100,000 workers from forty‐seven countries at four points in time. We find that approximately 8 percent of workers perceive their job as socially useless, while another 17 percent are doubtful about the usefulness of their job. There are sizeable differences among countries, sectors, occupations, and age groups, but no trend over time. A vast majority of workers cares about holding a socially useful job and we find that they suffer when they consider their job useless. We also explore possible causes of socially useless jobs, including bad management, strict job protection legislation, harmful economic activities, labor hoarding, and division of labor.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (18)

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/irel.12227

Related works:
Working Paper: Socially Useless Jobs (2018)
Working Paper: Socially Useless Jobs (2018)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:indres:v:58:y:2019:i:1:p:3-16

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.blackwell ... bs.asp?ref=0019-8676

Access Statistics for this article

Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society is currently edited by Christopher (Kitt) Carpenter, Steven Raphael and stevenraphael@berkeley.edu

More articles in Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society from Wiley Blackwell
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().