More Than Great Resignation. about Work in the Age of Polycrisis (Part I)

Tuesday, 8 July 2025: 09:00-10:45
Location: ASJE020 (Annex of the Faculty of Legal, Economic, and Social Sciences)
RC30 Sociology of Work (host committee)

Language: English

The reflection on working time and exploitation is not new, but perhaps certain forms of resistance, objection and desertion are. These concern both young people who refuse to participate in a generationally punitive and increasingly greedy and exploitative labour market, and the new phenomenon of the so-called "great resignations" which seems to originate from the stop imposed by the pandemic. The pandemic as a moment of rupture should be considered in the light of a growing demand for flexibility of the labor supply that is probably in this case reworked in terms of reappropriation of spaces, life and autonomy.

With the hypothesis of a rejection of working conditions and therefore of life it should be also considered an attempt to subvert the order of values imposed with practices of objection and desertion from the system.

Theoretical and empirical contributions are expected taking into account differences in gender, age, territory, class and education:

Great resignation (myth and reality)

Critical Analysis of Available Data and Sources

Expectations of mobility and recognition not met

Abandonment of urban areas, smart working and a more sustainable life balance.

Great resignation or reshuffle (the reshuffling of the mixtures of forms of work both in labour market trends and in individual trajectories).

Poor work and workers in poverty (difficulties in economic autonomy, existential planning, in leaving the family or returning to the families of origin).

Labour and workers and their essential lack of representation.

Quiet quitters, silent resignation, withdrawal from the labour market or change of location

Session Organizers:
Fatima FARINA, University of Urbino Carlo Bo, Italy and Domenico CARBONE, University of Eastern Piedmont, Italy
Oral Presentations
Brain Drain in the Age of Polycrisis: The Case of Turkey
Derya KESKIN, Kocaeli University, Turkey
Work, Financial Independence, and Quest for Meaning: The Case of 'financial Independence, Retire Early' in Quebec (Canada) in the Post-Pandemic Era
Marie-pierre BOURDAGES-SYLVAIN, Université Téluq, Canada; Steven THERRIEN, Université de Montréal, Canada
Migrating for an Integrated Life: The Reinvention of Creative Workers in Southern Chile
Ricardo GREENE FLATEN, Universidad San Sebastián, Chile; Carla PINOCHET, Universidad Alberto Hurtado, Chile
The Ways of Career-Making Among South Koreans
Heijin OH, South Korea; Jae-Mahn SHIM, Korea University, South Korea
See more of: RC30 Sociology of Work
See more of: Research Committees