The Transmission of Work Centrality within the Family in a Cross-Regional Perspective

• Author: Fabian Kalleitner,Panos Tsakloglou,Bernhard Kittel
• Published date: 01 March 2019
• Date: 01 March 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0002716219827515
• Subject Matter: How are Work Values Formed?

106 ANNALS, AAPSS, 682, March 2019

DOI: 10.1177/0002716219827515

The

Transmission of

Work Centrality

within the

Family in a

Cross-Regional

Perspective

By

BERNHARD KITTEL,

FABIAN KALLEITNER,

and

PANOS TSAKLOGLOU

827515ANN The Annals of The American AcademyThe Transmission of Work Centrality

research-article2019

Young adults’ work values evolve as they are socialized

into education and work. We study a core concept of

work values, work centrality, and distinguish between

an extrinsic dimension, that is, the relative importance

of work; and an intrinsic dimension, that is, nonfinan-

cial employment commitment. Using data collected by

the CUPESSE project on two generations of families in

nine European countries, we explore the congruence of

work values between parents and adolescents and the

effect of the regional-level social and economic context

on young adults’ work values. We find, first, that paren-

tal influence is the most robust determinant of extrinsic

and intrinsic work centrality in adolescents. Second, the

relative importance of work to young women varies

across regions, but the variation is explained in part by

female labor force participation rates in those regions.

Third, differing patterns of extrinsic and intrinsic work

centrality across European regions are explained, in

part, by gender, education, and subjective financial

satisfaction.

Keywords: work values; intergenerational transmis-

sion; employment commitment; labor

force participation; regions; Europe; mul-

tilevel analysis

Work values are important to labor market

participation. They are concrete concep-

tions of the multidimensional concept of the

meaning of work (Nord et al. 1988; Dekas and

Baker 2014; Ros, Schwartz, and Surkiss 1999).

We focus on one core work value, work central-

ity, defined as the subjective belief that work is

important in one’s life (Walsh and Gordon

Correspondence: bernhard.kittel@univie.ac.at

Bernhard Kittel is a professor of economic sociology at

the University of Vienna. His main research interests

are justice attitudes and group decision-making and

youth labor markets. Recent publications have appeared

in the Journal of Public Economics, Political Research

Quarterly, the Journal of Youth Studies, and Sociological

Inquiry.

THE TRANSMISSION OF WORK CENTRALITY 107

2008; Rosso, Dekas, and Wrzesniewski 2010; Ros, Schwartz, and Surkiss 1999)

and further differentiate this concept into two components according to the

important distinction between extrinsic and intrinsic motivations (Harpaz and Fu

1997).

We aim to shed light on three related questions: First, how important is the

transmission of work centrality within the family? Second, in what way does work

centrality vary across Europe? Third, which contextual factors influence work

centrality? Following established measures (Rosso, Dekas, and Wrzesniewski

2010), we operationalize the extrinsic component as the relative importance of

work compared to leisure (Relative Importance of Work or RIW) and the intrin-

sic component as the intention to work in the absence of financial necessity

(Nonfinancial Employment Commitment or NEC). While both dimensions

measure the general importance of work, they highlight different aspects of the

meaning of work in the life of an individual. RIW emphasizes the social role of

work, including the need to work to make a living, while NEC focuses on the

subjective value of work, and we expect these dimensions of work centrality to be

affected by sociodemographic and contextual factors in different ways.

We study three sets of determinants of work centrality: individual factors such

as the characteristics of the present job and the family situation, socialization

effects due to transmission within the family, and the social role of respondents

in the wider society (Gallie, Felstead, and Green 2012; Kalleberg 1977; Kalleberg

and Marsden 2013). Although there is much evidence suggesting the relevance

of socialization effects (Roberts and Bengtson 1999; Johnson 2002), the relation-

ship is far from perfect. We address this gap by studying the factors affecting the

deviation of youth work values from their parents’ values after taking transmis-

sion effects into account for both aspects of work centrality.

We combine the three levels in a single model and argue that while indi-

vidual work values are rooted in familial socialization, the socioeconomic and

cultural contexts play an important role as well. In contrast to previous studies

(Turunen and Nätti 2017; Esser 2009; Parboteeah and Cullen 2003), we con-

ceptualize the context not at the level of countries but at the regional level,

which is arguably more immediately relevant in socioeconomic and cultural

Fabian Kalleitner is a PhD candidate in the Department of Economic Sociology at the

University of Vienna. His current research focuses on fiscal sociology and biased perceptions,

status attainment processes, and web survey methodology.

Panos Tsakloglou is a professor at the Athens University of Economics and Business. His

research focuses on inequality, poverty, social exclusion, and the redistributive role of public

policies and has been published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Economic Journal,

the Journal of Development Economics, and the Journal of European Social Policy.

NOTE: This research was funded under the EU Seventh Framework Programme collabora-

tive research project CUPESSE (Cultural Pathways to Economic Self-Sufficiency and

Entrepreneurship; grant agreement number 613257). We are grateful for very helpful com-

ments from anonymous reviewers. We also want to thank the participants of the workshop

“Work Attitudes and Values in Post-Crisis Europe” in Heidelberg 2018, especially Anne-Marie

Parth, for their comments and suggestions.