Society, health and well-being

October 23’

UNIT 4. WORK, SOCIAL EXCLUSIONS AND GENDER

1. WORK
Set of human activities, paid or unpaid, of a productive and creative nature that (...) allows
certain goods, products or services to be obtained, produced or lent. In this activity, the person
contributes energies, skills, knowledge and other resources and obtains some type of material,
psychological and/or social compensation. Can be voluntary. Phycological compensation?
Mothers 50 years ago, no economic or social compensation, or recognition.
Occupation: there’s a contract, not slavery, it’s a commodity. It has to do with capitalism
development. Particular socio-historically determined modality of work, characterized by a
legal- contractual relationship of a voluntary nature between two parties. Occupation
(employment) reduces labor to the status of exchange value and, ultimately, commodity
(merchandise).
Work – occupation: such as hobbies. What determines whether or not a work
is an occupation (employment) is not the content but the context (contractual or non-
contractual) in which it is developed (e.g. hobbies such as bricolage/do-it- yourself, they are not
an occupation but are work).
Work in human history:
People were servants, you had to work for free for the rich people with more land, as exchange
of feeding themselves or favors and living there. The only way of getting money was working
for the cazique. Industrialization has affected a lot to people, in the way they voted.
Modern and industrial mentality: you are someone because you work there, it gave you meaning
and connections.
Rome
• Otium-Negotium
Middle Ages
• Slavery and servitude: extrinsic motivation for work
From the nobility to the bourgeoisie
• From punishment to self-realization
Industrialism
• Intrinsic motivations, of a self-fulfilling and expressive nature.
• Centrality of work,
• Ethical category,
• The backbone of a new logic
• The backbone of everyday experience.
Modern and industrial mentality: Work appears to be a pan-cultural phenomenon and a key
factor in human experience. Not only as a means of obtaining financial resources to meet needs,
but also other psychosocial functions.
Society, health and well-being
October 23’

Psychosocial functions of work:

Now we depend completely in salaries. Good job, retired, cycle of life.
 As a regulator of the exchange of goods and services
 As the backbone context of the social life of people, of peoples, of nations
 Constitutes a key axis of the space-time organization of communities and society
 Affects local land use planning
 Affects global information and communication networks
 Engages the different stages of people’s life cycle
 Basic psychological and moral support, economic, social, legal, political and cultural
Work is done…
More and more central, backbone of the whole society.
- Not as an instrumental element in achieving ‘well-being’ and economic resources
(materialistic values)…
- … but as a form of expression (cultural, qualitative, realizing)
- As an end in itself (postmaterialist values)
Now people don’t choose the job for money, want to feel fulfilled in their job, that’s really new:
postmaterialism. 60 years ago, that was impossible.
At present, coexistence of multiple tendency:
- Centrality of work, but very scarce.
- Search for ways of doing work but not productive (not for money), like youtubers
(hobbies).
- Natural indolence, aversion to work, demotivation.
- Addiction, workaholics.
What happens when work disappears of becomes a scarce commodity?
- Leisure society?
- Unemployment and social disorganization?
Unemployment no entra
DEPRIVATION MODEL I
- Jahoda
Unemployment is a situation of deprivation of the basic categories of experience provided by
employment. Employment provides not only economic resources, but latent functions:
• Time pattern
• Personal relationships outside the family context
• Collective goals and objectives to the person
• Define status and identity
• Strength in developing an activity
Society, health and well-being
October 23’

DEPRIVATION MODEL II
Unemployment generates deprivation of the categories of experience
imposed by employment:
• Economic deprivation
• Psychological deprivation
• Loss of temporal structure
• Decreased social contact
• Lack of participation in collective goals
• Loss of status
• Lack of regular activity
DEPRIVATION MODEL III
To the extent that these characteristics have become psychological needs in the modern world its
deprivation produces mental health status deterioration unless alternatives are found to satisfy
them.
Criticisms of the model:
• The person is considered passive
• Mythification of employment as a source of psychological well-being
• Difficulty measuring ‘Experience Categories’
AGENCY MODEL (Fryer)
Phycological model that tries to explain how we interact with society.

Unemployment and agency:

Your difficulty on what can you do and understanding your tendencies makes you feel lost, and
helpless. The psychological deterioration associated with unemployment is not a consequence of
the deprivation of the benefits of employment but of the difficulties experienced by the
unemployed person to interpret the situation and plan their behavior in the context of non-
employment (coping).
The unemployed face:
Society, health and well-being
October 23’

Many people were happy (Russia) but many of them were civil servants. Soviet Union, Poland,
check republic… many people were happy, but then they weren’t because they were not happy
with some things. Like everything was private??????
- Unfamiliar situations with too complex interpretations
- Have to develop new skills, for which they are not always prepared
- Absence of pre-established plans to deal with the situation
Criticisms of the agency model:
It gives the person an active role, but it is psychologically reductionist. Forgets the influence
that institutions and social structure have on individual behavior.
ECOLOGICAL OR VITAMIN MODEL (WARR)
This doctor that her mother worked for her had a better standard in like the pyramid society. In
any type of environment, psychological well-being will depend on the degree to which the
environment provides:
• Control opportunities
• Opportunities for the use of personal
skills
• Externally generated objectives
• Variety
• Environmental clarity
• Availability of financial resources
• Physical security
• Opportunity for interpersonal contacts
• Socially valued position
Types of vitamins: we cannot take too much of vitamin D for example. But you can take as
much vitamin C as you want. Deficiency causes harm, but above a certain level they can also
cause dysfunction or psychological deterioration (A, D). Deficiency causes harm, but an excess
does not bring more satisfaction or more well-being, they are eliminated (C).
Society, health and well-being
October 23’

Some common conclusions i and ii

You feel that whatever you do you will not get a job: helplessness.
The unemployed show:
- Lower level of psychological well-being,
- More prone to depression
- More anxiety
- Less satisfaction with life
- Lower self-esteem
• Psychological deterioration is usually a consequence, not a precedent for
unemployment
• Unemployment generates greater political passivity.
• They are more critical, but they tend to not act
• Prolonged unemployment reduces job prospects and generates negative
attitudes toward job search
• The unemployed are not a homogeneous group.
The impact of unemployment depends on…
Factors that increase the impact:
• Economic precariousness
• Being in mid ages (40-55)
• Involved in work
• No social support
Factors that facilitate a better coping:
• Economic situation not deteriorated
• Social support
• Maintain high levels of activity
Implications for intervention
- Do not blame the victim
- Not to be a reductionist, not an individualist, not just psychological in the approach
- Interventions aimed at alleviating the negative effects.
- Increase social support and maintenance of the activity.
- Strengthen strategic capabilities, training, attitudes, skills, to make it easier to find a job
or to better deal with the situation.
If you are an individualist, it does not work. It’s important to do collective interventions.
Society, health and well-being
October 23’

2. GENDER PRESPECTIVE
Perspective considering gender-based differences when looking at any social phenomenon,
policy or process. The gender perspective focuses particularly on gender-based differences in
status and power, and considers how such discrimination shapes the immediate needs, as well as
the long-term interests, of women and men.
Now in Spain we have a great deal with that, some think that it does not exist gender violence.
It has to do with sexism or also a choice.
Work and gender
Much of women’s work it’s not considered a job. If we need to raise our children and take care
of people, they are mostly done by women, and it is done without compensation in terms of
money. They don’t have any option if the government does not give help and money.
- Employment:
• Work in a CONTRACTUAL context (social regulation of
conditions alien to those involved).
• Much of women’s work is NOT considered EMPLOYMENT.
- Work:
• human activities, PAID OR NOT, ... of a PRODUCTIVE and
creative nature (productive or re-productive?) .... goods,
products or services.
• Unpaid = Leisure? Support? Exclusion?
Care and reproductive work:
Gender inequalities:
In 1978 the last disappearances disappeared between men and women, before, they had to have
a contract of their husband or father to work. Even if that disappear women don’t have the same
money or power, so the change is slower in the implicit things. Everyone with power is a man
so they don’t see women as equals in terms of job.
Alpha bias: there’s a super small difference. Men in average are more intelligent in visual
special skills. Women tend to be more intelligent in writing skills. But it’s just a population
average study. But your gender does not really say anything, for example it has much influence
with what you did as a child, like what you played with: reflection of how society grew up.
Football for boys. Biological things.
Beta bias: social things. Like salaries.
- WOMEN: care work and life maintenance
- Unpaid and usually no employment contract
- Children, old, sick, disabled? husband's secretary? Store clerk? Seller of agricultural
products…
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- Does the person provide and obtain any type of compensation (what?) Material,
psychological and/or social?

Gender inequalities:
• Despite equality as a constitutional right, social inequalities persist in relation to women.
• Inequality is usually the result of the difference in valuation, recognition, privileges in
situations of rights and duties, income or property of people in society.
• Alpha bias = exaggerate differences, ignore similarities.
• Beta bias = ignored or minimized differences.
Discrimination against women:
• Horizontal and vertical labor segregation (glass or “reinforced concrete” roofs)
• Wage discrimination and more poverty.
• Sexual violence: workplace harassment and rape/murder.
• Structural violence: invisibility of the care and maintenance of life works.
Heads of businesses are men.
Even if he does not work, women do a lot house work.
Acceptable toys for children. Barbie: polemic between sexism and feminism.
Capitalism
Capitalist organization of labor prioritizes profit- making over the care of human life; this,
paradoxically, is what allows the former (i.e., the making of profits). The way societies organize
the relationship between productive work time and human life support systems makes visible
conflicts and power relations (= gender) that often remain hidden…
We are as the type of society that’s being designed.
Patriarchal culture of work

Reasons for the invisibility of women’s work in the private sphere

- Ideological:
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Patriarchal society, male domination, imposition of values tailored to man as universal

Women’s reproductive work satisfies subjective and affective-emotional needs, is not
commodified, and does not receive social recognition.
Men’s transcends publicly, is tangible, commodified, and is valued socially.
- Socioeconomic:
Family structure historically oriented to the reproduction and maintenance of the (male)
workforce in charge of women.
Background problem
The “double presence / absence” of women (at work and at home) is erroneously conceptualized
as an individual problem, not as a social, cultural and political problem. The woman must
constantly renegotiate her dual role as a salaried worker, on the one hand, and as a caregiver for
the family, on the other hand → psychological experience of stress.
Towards a change of social impact
Very successful career and have children, practically impossible.
• Traditional social pact
“Male breadwinner”: male provider with stable, secure employment, guarantor of family and
social rights, source of identity and social recognition. Housewife caring for the house, the
daughters / if of the husband. Broken by women in low-income households, with employment
but with lower wages and working conditions than men.
• New model
Women incorporated into the labor market but continues to take on life-sustaining work. Society
acts as if the traditional model is still in force. Patriarchal ideological premise: “if the woman
wants to work, it is her responsibility to combine it with the family organization…”.
Globalizing care
Now we have the same paternity leave for children, but it was not so long ago.
• Sustaining life activities carried out by women and men.
• What happens when men choose to prioritize care activities over market productive activities?
Ask for reduced working hours. Apply for paternity leave
• “Transforming men” challenge the dominant models of masculinity, contributing to social
change…
• … and evidence the social construction of gender

SOCIAL CATEGORY SYSTEM (MAN-WOMEN)

• Characterized by culturally defined traits and roles.
• Attributed to sexual-biological differences (sex)
• Which socially define (inappropriate) ways of being male and being
female (normative definition.
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• Men who reconcile (as transvestite men/women) break this gender

norm, moving away from the established dominant male role.
• Gender is confirmed as an ideology that reproduces the dominant
system, naturalizing different male / female work roles