De Grote Werk-test is complete: the initial results

What role does work play in your life? Last spring, you had the opportunity to explore this question in de Grote Werk-test, a citizen science project organised by Studium Generale in collaboration with the Future of Work platform. 

Through experiments, long reads and assignments, we brought researchers and participants into contact with each other. With 2,639 completed tests, a lot of valuable data has been collected for the researchers! It's high time for some preliminary results and impressions (subject to change).

What do we find important?

Sociologist Tanja van der Lippe wanted to know what we find important in our work. To investigate this, she presented a number of statements and dilemmas that you had to choose between. What did she find? Most participants attach the most value to a social working environment, where contributing to society is the most important thing. Status, influence and the duty we may feel to work are much less important. 

Furthermore, participants younger than thirty consider personal development and earning money more important than participants over thirty. People with paid jobs who are not studying consider the work-life balance more important than students. Students, on the other hand, value personal development more. It is also striking among the working population that it is mainly the self-employed who say they work because they enjoy it, more so than those in paid employment.

The future

And how do we see work in 2050? Whereas fifty years ago people dreamed of a four-hour working day or six months off per year, we now seem to be more realistic, according to Van der Lippe. Technological developments will take over certain tasks, but will we have oceans of (free) time left over? Virtually none of you believe that.

Work or private life? 

Social scientist Mara Yerkes was curious to know which comes first: work or private life? We presented you with a fictional person with various reasons for working less. You were asked to indicate the extent to which you agreed with this. An initial analysis shows that we find it particularly justified if we have care responsibilities. We are less inclined to agree with taking time off to do something for ourselves, such as exercising or seeing friends. When people have children, we find those reasons more justifiable than when people do not have children.