ABSTRACT
This chapter in the Routledge Handbook of Degrowth (2025) focuses on degrowth and work. The degrowth movement advocates for reimagining and reorganising work. The impacts of anthropocentric socio-ecological changes are already felt in the world of work, although geographically unevenly. The expanding research on degrowth and work examines the growth dependencies of work, discusses the role of work in pursuing transformations, and explores options for living and working within planetary boundaries. This chapter offers an overview of the variety of perspectives and themes in the field of degrowth work, including reproductive labour and various forms of livelihoods. It classifies existing research to advance discussions about degrowth and work into three areas: degrowth proposals related to waged labour, beyond waged labour, and rethinking the notion of work. The chapter aims to contribute to strengthening discussion on degrowth work and to deepen further research and policy proposals on degrowth work. It concludes that, to reconsider work, we must create some distance from existing, taken-for-granted understandings of work and become immersed in work conducted and experienced by everyday workers, including activists engaged experimentally in prefigurative practices. The chapter offers some pathways for the dual movement between these positions.
