What is Work?

What is it about?

Work can mean many different things. This makes it difficult to define work, but also makes it important to explicitly consider the multiple meanings of work that are frequently implicitly held by researchers, policymakers, and workers themselves. This dictionary entry presents multiple meanings of work.

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Why is it important?

It is important to think carefully about definitions and conceptualizations of work. Thinking broadly and deeply about work promotes a richer understanding of this complex human activity. Moreover, definitions and conceptualizations matter for how work is studied. Academics from different disciplines focus on specific research questions, and dismiss the importance of other questions, based on the definitions of work favored in their respective disciplines. By providing the intellectual foundation for designing particular employment practices, ideas about work also shape how individuals experience work in practice. The widespread use of incentive pay packages, for example, is rooted in the economics view of work as something only endured to earn income whereas public policies providing for minimum wages, union organizing protections, and other labor standards are based on a citizenship view of work that sees labor as more than just a commodity. And at a cultural level, who is valued as a worker, what is valued as work, and who has access to resources in the work sphere are ultimately based on conceptualizations of work.