Work ethic in the Czech Republic in comparative perspective

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Work ethic in the Czech Republic in comparative
perspective

• Lenka Banovcova
• ssplb_at_bath.ac.uk
• WAM-net Seminar Series, London 7 Jan 2008

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Research area Work orientations in the Czech
Republic in comparative perspective

• Context
• Broad discussion regarding success of transition,
  scope of the actual social change and legacies
  of the old system
• BUT
• No consistent research into attitudes to work in
  the Czech Republic (applies largely to all CEE
  countries)

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Research questions

• What were work-related orientations of the Czech
  population shortly after the fall of the state
  socialist regime (in early transition)?
• How were they distributed across various
  categories of the Czech population? How does
  Czech Republic compare with United Kingdom in
  terms of work orientations?
• How can attitudes to work of the Czech population
  be explained?
• What were dominant social factors
  influencing work orientations in the Czech
  Republic? To what extend were these marked with
  enduring influence of state socialist legacy?

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Work Ethic

• Commitment to paid work
• Bell (1976) Gutman (1977) Ingelhart (1977)
  
• Yankelovitch et al. (1985) Warr (1982)
  Weber (1958)
• The Lottery question - Morse and Weiss (1955),
  SCELI (1985) Working in Britain (2000) Office
  for National Statistics Omnibus survey (Jan
  2001)

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Work Ethic

• The Lottery Question
• In this survey asked in the following way
• If you were to get enough money to live as
  comfortably as you would like for the rest of
  your life, would you continue to work, not
  necessarily in your present job, or would you
  stop working?
• The response categories
• 1) I would continue to work 2) I would stop
  working

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Methodology

• Mixed method approach
• Reasons
• Complex nature of the area of interest
• Incentive to capture patterns of distribution of
  work attitudes
• 
  AND
• provide in-depth
  understanding/explanations of
• underlying factors and
  reasons

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Methodology

• Quantitative (core evidence)
• Secondary examination of internationally
  comparative data
• Survey Employment conditions, labour market
  insecurity and work motivation of the employed
  and unemployed 1993 (UK, CR, Slovakia,
  Bulgaria)
• Questionnaire based on the UK methodology
  (Employment in Britain survey)
• N (CR) 1643, N (UK) 3479
• Samples are representative, were restricted to
  population of employees (self-employed excluded)

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Methodology

• Qualitative (supportive evidence)
• Semi-structured interviews with (personnel)
  managers of Czech companies/public sector
  institutions
• 16 interviews conducted in April 2006
• Topics cover work orientations before (in
  socialism) and now (post-socialist period) with
  focus on a comparative element
• Sampling method using personal
  contacts/accessing gatekeepers
• snowballing
  technique

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The Lottery Question Answers given by people who
have jobs, by country in
1993
SAMPLE SIZE (n)3,479
SAMPLE SIZE (n)1643
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The Lottery Question puzzle of indecisive answers

• 14 of Czechs answer DK to the Lottery Question -
  Why?
• Possible explanations less rigorous procedure of
• data
  collection?
• BUT

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The Lottery Question puzzle of indecisive answers

• Substantive reasons - effect of the system
• Respondents avoiding the negative answer social
  correctness factor
• People know that they are expected to answer
  in a certain way, and they know exactly what the
  right answer is
• People still say different things (compared
  with what they think). There is a disparity
  between experience and behaviour. Yes, this is a
  legacy (of the previous system), because before
  people could not say openly what they thought,
  they could be prosecuted Zuzana, 59, retired,
  previously Bank Manager

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The Lottery Question puzzle of indecisive answers

• Genuine uncertainty (yet stronger system effect?)
• I suppose people could not well imagine that
  situation in the previous system, it was
  impossible to be without a jobthere was a law
  regarding sponging not that they (the
  Communists) would exactly order people to work
  but the logic went the other way around there
  was a saying the one who does not work should
  not eat, which on the legislative level meant
  that a person who did not hold a job was
  considered as sponging on others, was prosecuted
  and could easily be sentenced
• Ivana, 54, Ministry of Education

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The Lottery Question puzzle of indecisive answers

• The personal IDs at that time (in
  socialism) were real books where the employer
  marked the job duration the beginning and the
  end. And this was the official ID, meaning that
  state institutions, including for example the
  police or legal bodies, could check everything,
  there was a good evidence of employment At the
  same time, this was related to work ethic.
  Everyone with any suspicious gaps was always in
  the centre of attention.
• There is also that Czech conservatism
  when people have money, they put it in the bank,
  the do not invest it, they are not used to do
  thisthis is some kind of Czech precaution,
  suspicion (people say) who knows what is behind
  this the Czech capitalism is still
  underdeveloped in this respect, people have not
  adopted such patterns of behaviour yet
• Jiri, 58, General Manager of private firm,
  metal industry

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The Lottery Question puzzle of indecisive answers

• Not having a job was previously (in socialist
  system) perceived as a shame, even after the
  breakdown of Communism it was viewed in a similar
  way, unemployed people were perceived as
  incapable. And having resources from elsewhere
  (outside employment) is also perceived in this
  country mostly in negative way, as it is assumed
  the money was not gained in honourable manner.
• There is also this bad experience when most
  people invested in the small-scale
  privatisation (in the beginning of the 90s) and
  then they did not know what was going on and
  thenmost of them did not earn anything or very
  little Miluse, 56, Ministry of Informatics

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Non-financial commitment by occupation
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Levels of education and training may matter still
more
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Non-financial commitment by age
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Non-financial commitment by age

• It (attitudes to work) depends on age. I think
  that young people have more relaxed attitude
  because they have better opportunities to find
  jobsand even when they look for a new job, they
  are not afraid to stay at home for a month or two
  until they find something suitable The older
  people, say in their fifties, appreciate their
  jobs more, and they are more afraid of losing
  them, they are in general somewhat more
  responsible. However, there are exceptions in
  every age group, people who as compared to the
  previous regime want to take advantage of the
  fact that they do not have to workunlike before,
  they cannot get arrested for not being employed
  these days Zuzana, 59, retired, previously Bank
  Manager

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Non-financial commitment by age

• Before, my generation (people in their fifties)
  did not know what is unemployment, job
  insecurity, living insecurity whereas now they
  know it very well, that is the main difference.
  The young ones, they tend to accept things as
  they are. Ivana, 54, Ministry of Education
• It depends on what kind of family background the
  young people come frombecause in the Czech
  culture parents take care of their children until
  relatively older age, and so the young people do
  not feel any danger of financial insecurity This
  is more the thing of the older generation, they
  are afraid that they could lose their property
  that they will end up having nothing and what
  about their poor children then, what would they
  do. Miluse, 56, Ministry of Informatics

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Non-financial commitment by age

• The old generation perceived work as the only
  source and catalyser of everything. Nowadays it
  is one of several possible ones Before, it was
  very suspicious when someone did not work, we did
  not understand it Well, people did not have
  other sources of income, so they had to work.
  Employment was something obvious and taken for
  granted, something that was not questioned
  Leo, 52, HR Consultant
• The young people nowadays are well aware of
  their value, they calculate a bitthey are
  willing to work hard but only if they think the
  reward is matching their abilities and efforts
• I have heard someone saying Twelve thousands
  before tax is not even worth setting the alarm
  clock Miluse, 56, Ministry of Informatics