Between Recognition and Disenchantment: the Centrality of Work in Europe

The article examines the changing centrality of work in Europe through Honneth’s recognition theory. Using a Work Centrality Index based on five European Values Study items, it analyses three waves (1999–2021) in five countries representing distinct welfare regimes: Denmark, France, Italy, Spain, and Great Britain. Findings show that work centrality is neither universal nor timeless, but varies across gender, generation, education and, employment status, as well as by institutional and occupational contexts. In Italy and, to some extent, Denmark, paid work remains a credible route to recognition, while in France, Spain and especially Great Britain it is increasingly experienced in instrumental and disenchanted practice. The paper argues that the erosion of work centrality reflects not a cultural rejection of work itself, but the weakening of institutional conditions that allow work to function as a dignified, stable and socially recognised basis for identity and citizenship.