Work is what structures adults' lives: it gives us purpose, focus, a set of responsibilities, and an identity. So when people are not participating in the labour market, all sorts of other things often start to go wrong.
Interpretation
Work provides adults with a sense of purpose and identity, and its absence can lead to various issues.
In this quote, David Autor emphasizes the fundamental role that work plays in the lives of adults. Beyond simply earning a living, work structures our daily routines, provides a sense of purpose, and contributes to our identity. When individuals are disconnected from the workforce, they may experience a loss of direction and responsibility, which can trigger a cascade of negative outcomes in their lives.
In practice
In a speech about employment, one might quote this to highlight the importance of work in society.
The fact that a task cannot be computerized does not imply that computerization has no effect on that task. On the contrary, tasks that cannot be substituted by computerization are generally complemented by it. This point is as fundamental as it is overlooked.
Our machines increasingly do our work for us. Why doesn't this make our labor redundant and our skills obsolete? Why are there still so many jobs?
There's always new work to do. Adjusting to the rapid pace of technological change creates real challenges, seen most clearly in our polarized labor market and the threat that it poses to economic mobility. Rising to this challenge is not automatic. It's not costless. It's not easy. But it is feasible.
I love to be busy. I'm envious of people who are able to take their spare time and relax. All I like to do is work. Perhaps it's lingering Calvinist guilt?
My feeling about work is it's much more about the experience of doing it than the end product. Sometimes things that are really great and make lots of money are miserable to make, and vice versa.
I need to feel like the work I'm doing is not necessarily important, but meaningful, at least to me, because otherwise it just becomes a day job. It just becomes factory work and I get really frustrated.
Thoughts on the Merits of Work The worst of work nowadays is what happens to people when they cease to work.
The average American worker has fifty interruptions a day, of which seventy percent have nothing to do with work.
Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who does it for love of it.
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