Ruptured Identities: Leaving Work Because of Chronic Illness

Abstract

When people in contemporary society have to leave paid employment because they are too ill to continue, the impact is greater than the loss of income and daily activity, as social identity is bound up with paid employment. Loss of a chosen identity may be accompanied by the assumption of an unwanted identity. This article explores the value of reconsidering Parsons' “sick role” in relation to deviance. While the “sick role” has been dismissed because it does not appear relevant to chronic illnesses, the author argues that in the current political economic context of neoliberalism, people who cannot be responsible for their own welfare now assume a deviant status. People with chronic illnesses who are unable to work are examples of this form of deviance. The deviant status of being unable to work explains why many chronically ill people adopt behaviors described by Goffman in Stigma.