11 - Conclusion

Summary

There are a number of theoretical problems in the growing field of ‘meaningful work’: a lack of precision in the basic concept of work, leading to dearth of comparative research. A disregard of worker agency, leading to an impression that meaningful wage labour is a gift from employers to employees. A dichotomisation into meaningful work being either a subjective or an objective phenomenon, leading to unnecessary simplification. And, finally, another dichotomisation into waged work or types of jobs being either meaningful or meaningless, leading to a lack of variation. In this concluding chapter, we suggest solutions to these problems that we have dealt with at several places in the book, before we take up the new framework for analysing meaningful and meaningless wage labour.