ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at our love–hate relationship with paid work. It shows some ways in which having a job matters to people. The chapter focuses how joblessness can have its effects. It looks at research into unemployment – when a lack of work is involuntary – and retirement, which is clearly more voluntary. The chapter focuses on unemployment has pointed to key differences between enforced joblessness and the situation of people in jobs. Newspapers love stories about lottery winners choosing to continue working despite being rich, and there are many such people. Countless surveys have asked people whether they would continue working after a lottery win or a big inheritance. Most unemployed people are substantially poorer than they were when in a job; in some cases they're really struggling financially to make ends meet. Sigmund Freud and his fellow psychoanalysts have a lot to answer for, but they had some intriguing ideas about the importance of work.
