Unemployed by choice: young creative people and the balancing of responsibilities through strategic self-management

Pultz, Sabina; Mørch, Sven

doi:10.1080/13676261.2014.992318

Cited by 14 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 31 publications

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“…Foucault writes: 'homo economicus is an entrepreneur, an entrepreneur of himself' (Foucault 2008). Our results here echo previous work done by Pultz and Mørch (2015) who in a qualitative study have demonstrated the 'freelancer' as a figure that increasingly appears as a way of dealing with contemporary demands to become a qualified member of society (Andersen and Mørch, 2005). By not viewing themselves as being unemployed, this group to some extent avoids the negative stigma associated with the unemployment label.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 73%

“…Pultz and Mørch (2015) have recently reported on a group of young people who choose to become unemployed in order to pursue their ambitions in various creative fields and who perceive unemployment benefits as ' entrepreneurial support'. However, it remains yet to be investigated how widespread this practice is and how it relates to subjective well-being.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Unemployment and Subjective Well-being: Comparing Younger and Older Job Seekers

Pultz

Teasdale

2017

Scandinavian Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology

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We examine the link between unemployment and subjective well-being by introducing historically sensitive variables related to neoliberal ideology and policies such as measures of self-blame, shame, work ethic and flexibility. Drawing on a survey study we find that young job seekers (N = 357) have a significantly lower self-reported subjective well-being than employed persons of the same age (N = 183). Young and older unemployed people (N = 52) report the same level of subjective well-being; however, older unemployed people score significantly higher on clinical measures of depression, anxiety and stress. In contrast, younger job seekers score significantly higher on measures relating to the neoliberal development. We identify a minority of people who do not perceive themselves as unemployed even though they formally are, and drawing on governmentality studies we infer them to be entrepreneurs. We highlight the need to recognize heterogeneity and historical sensitivity when addressing the complex relationship between subjective well-being and unemployment. The implications of this empirical study are that different groups might benefit from different interventions and that policy makers should take this into consideration.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 73%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unemployment and Subjective Well-being: Comparing Younger and Older Job Seekers

Pultz

Teasdale

2017

Scandinavian Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology

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“…Larsen (2013) argues in a historic analysis that the opinion on unemployment has changed from being something that can happen to everyone in the middle of the twentieth century, to something caused by the individual herself in the start of the 1990s and onwards (Larsen 2013, in Pultz andMørch 2014). Consequently, it seems fair to assume that from the beginning of the 1990s and onwards, a social representation has been constructed, connecting unemployment with the attribute of laziness.…”

Section: Anchoring a Social Representation-individuality Responsibilmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Additionally, the construction of an emancipating representation (Moscovici 1988), challenging the hegemonic will also be examined. This part of the paragraph will be based on a study investigating the experience of young Danes who purposefully chose to be unemployed to pursue careers in creative fields such as art, music or acting (Pultz and Mørch 2014). This is included to explore how the social representation of the "lazy unemployed" can be resisted by the person being characterised.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This theory will be applied, to examine how groups of individuals are characterised as lazy based on the symbolic coping of a majority group, in relation to historic, cultural and macro-social circumstances. This will be done by looking at studies regarding attitudes towards unemployment (Gibson 2009;Pultz and Mørch 2014), to explore how the social representation, linking laziness and unemployment, is constructed in the societies of the studies (Denmark and The United Kingdom). Additionally, the construction of an emancipating representation (Moscovici 1988), challenging the hegemonic will also be examined.…”

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confidence: 99%

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The Conception of Laziness and the Characterisation of Others as Lazy

Madsen

2018

Hu Arenas

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This paper is a theoretical investigation of the common conception of laziness. It starts from constructing a tentative definition of laziness, defining laziness as a negative term referring to people who do not show an effort corresponding to their abilities and/or prerequisites, and/or the difficulty of the task in question. Jerome Bruner's folk psychology is applied to emphasise how the conception of laziness serves as a narrative re-establishing meaning when people do not act as they are expected. Furthermore, two perspectives concerning the characterisation of others as lazy are presented. First, Tversky's and Kahneman's Heuristics and Biases Approach, and second Moscovici's Social Representations Theory. Common for the ways in which the concept of laziness is understood and applied is that the actual motivation, abilities and qualifications of the person being evaluated are hardly never assessed. Thus, the concept of laziness can easily function as a reductionist explanation why others are not acting as expected, with the purpose of making the act of not acting as expected more comprehensible.Keywords Laziness . Cultural psychology . Folk psychology . Information-processing . Social representations theory . Unemployment . School psychology Laziness seems to be a pervasive concept in everyday human social life, used for explaining the behaviour of encountered individuals, or one's own behaviour in a given task or activity. Additionally, laziness is often found in the media and the public debate, attributed to numerous groups and individuals, including unemployed people, students and many more. The concept seems to imply that an individual not acting or performing as expected is not doing so because of causes controllable to herself, often referring to individual effort.In an educational context, Reyna and Weiner (2001) argue that teachers generally have more sympathy for students failing because of uncontrollable factors (low aptitude or external factors), while the opposite goes for students failing because of factors within their own control Human Arenas (2018) 1:288-304 https://doi

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Resisting the Shame and ‘Unemployed by Choice’

Pultz

2024

Emotionally Indebted

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Unemployed by choice: young creative people and the balancing of responsibilities through strategic self-management

Cited by 14 publications

References 31 publications

Unemployment and Subjective Well-being: Comparing Younger and Older Job Seekers

Unemployment and Subjective Well-being: Comparing Younger and Older Job Seekers

The Conception of Laziness and the Characterisation of Others as Lazy

Resisting the Shame and ‘Unemployed by Choice’

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