ABSTRACT
Responses to unemployment cannot be adequately interpreted without a sophisticated understanding of the meaning of working. This chapter examines explicitly on the relationship between the experience of unemployment and the meaning of working. A conception of the self as constructed through narrative provides a conception of subjectivity that mediates structure and agency. Normative methods of control in the work place are consistent with the broader emphasis on the self as a consumer rather than a producer in the late twentieth century. One of the most significant events for many young school leavers is their first experience of working for an adult wage. Tragic narratives of job loss also use a publicly shared discourse about the importance of having a good career to explain the frustration and anguish associated with both losing a job and unemployment. A secure job that is enjoyable, financially rewarding, and provides a career-path of progressive advancement clearly emerges as an ideal to which most interviewees aspired.
