CRIS Scientific Seminar 2022-2023
Joint Seminar with AxPo

Friday, May 5th 2023, 11:30 am
Sciences Po (1, place Saint-Thomas-d'Aquin) - Room K008

Shifts in Work Orientation during the COVID-19 Pandemic 

Sigal Alon

Professor of Sociology
Weinberg Chair in Sociology of Stratification and Inequality
Head of The B.I. Cohen Inst. for Public Opinion Research
Tel Aviv University

Discussant: Ettore Recchi (Sciences Po - CRIS)

The world of work has been severely afflicted by COVID-19. To deal with the immense employment crisis, unemployment benefits were extended in many countries. This raised the classical question of whether this support would decrease the motivation of the unemployed to search for work. The answer to this conundrum is deeply rooted in sociological thought about work centrality and the meaning of work in our life.

Is the motivation to work limited to the quest to ensure livelihood, or is work a primary source of dignity, self-image, fulfillment, and self-realization? How has these factors been affected by the pandemic?

This study takes advantage of the COVID-19 disruption to assess shifts in work centrality and work values during the extended coverage of unemployment benefits.
The investigation consolidates pre-COVID-19 surveys of work orientations in Israel with a COVID-19-era assessment.

The results demonstrate that this shock has been powerful enough to put individuals’ work orientation to the test and made them reconsider the meaning of work in their life. Overall, the surge in work centrality during the pandemic and the gravitation of values toward job security reflect the universal trauma caused by the sharp decrease in employment certainty.

There will also be a Zoom option to enable a hybrid seminar.

Mandatory Registration. Thank You.

To find out more:

Sigal Alon is The Weinberg Chair in Sociology of Stratification and Inequality and the Head of The B. I. Cohen Inst. for Public Opinion Research at Tel-Aviv University.
Her main research interests include social stratification and mobility, with an emphasis on the sociology of work and organizations and sociology of education.
Her work focuses on unveiling the dynamics and historical processes underlying inequalities in the labor market and educational attainment, and the extent to which public policy does narrow these inequalities. Alon’s perspective is interdisciplinary and comparative, taking into account employment and educational processes and outcomes, institutional arrangements and social structures, psychological biases, as well as demographic and economic trends. https://www.sigalalon.sites.tau.ac.il/