The Relationship between Working Life and Individualisation: A Study among Danish Trade Union Members

Abstract

A significant current trend in the industrialised countries is a growing individualization among wages-earners: i.e changes from collective value orientations based on solidarity and equality towards more individualistic value orientations based on self-interest and personal opportunities. This paper analyses relations between these changes in wage-earners' identity, labour market position, job characteristics, and relationship to the company and trade union: both empirically, by using Danish survey data from the research project: `The Employee Perspective on Working Life and Politics', and theoretically, by discussing the contrasting ideas of Hirsch and Roth (1986) and Valkenburg (1995) and Zoll (1995). The analysis shows both expected and surprising relationships between labour market positions, job characteristics and individualization. Furthermore, the paper demonstrates that the term individualization' must be understood as a relative concept, and that an increased individualization does not necessarily lead towards a dissolution of the trade union movement as a representative of wage-earners' interests in modern society.