The purpose of this essay is to try to understand the relationship between the structures of Modern working life and the development of burnout. By using the method of qualitative interviews we wanted to see if the Effort-Reward Imbalance Model could be applied to the data we had collected. Two questions have been highlighted in our research:        ? Is it possible to establish a relationship between the structures of Modern working life and the development of burnout among the subjects interviewed?  ? Is it possible to explain the development of burnout among our interviewed subjects through the Effort-Reward Imbalance Model?    Our theoretical frames are the general theories of the modern society and the Modern working life as developed by Anthony Giddens, Ulrich Beck and Zygmunt Bauman. We have also used Johannes Siegrist?s medical-sociological Effort-Reward Imbalance Model (ERI-Model).

This composition is an qualitative study about unemployment and working life. The point of the study has been to make a larger understanding how unemployment can perceive by the individual and how this person can see and plan for future working life. This has been study with help from 8 intervirws. The paticipants has been umeployed between  6 months and 5 years, and they have workt arleast 5 year before the unemployment.The study has show that it is many different components who contribute to how the individual perceive the time in unemployment and how the planning for the future looks like. The persons who has been intervirws perceive their psycal health as god,, even but unemployment.  The study has even show that all the persons in the study want to come out from the unemployment.

This thesis examines why working time preferences differ between workers and nations, and explains the effect of working time regulation and working time flexibility on negotiating work-life balance. In five separate sections the following working time issues are examined: the number of hours worked by workers in Europe; factors affecting individual working time preferences; how working time preferences are negotiated in the national industrial relations systems of Sweden, France and the United Kingdom; how the institutions of the European Union have influenced working time negotiations through the Working Time Directive; and the benefits and practices available to organisations implementing working time flexibility. Broadly this paper views working time preferences as being a highly personal and influenced by factors such as wages, taxation, culture (national and workplace) and non-work responsibilities. It is argued that negotiating a preferred working time pattern is essential to achieving work-life balance and when such a balance is achieved, workers are more healthy, motivated and committed to their employer. Essentially this provides an incentive for businesses to voluntarily implement working time flexibility beyond the regulatory standards..

AbstractTitle: To work or not to work, an essay about information and inspiration on www.ams.se.Number of pages: 39Author: Ann HöglundTutor: Peder Hård af SegerstadCourse: Media and communication Studies DPeriod: Fall 2005University: Uppsala University, Department of information science, Division of Media and CommunicationPurpose/Aim: To investigate the frequency of ethos, logos and pathos in the work-guides on www.ams.se, and study how they match the needs of the respondents in the essay-interviews.Method/Material: To investigate the needs and wishes for information I have made three group-interviews with university students. In order to analyse the texts and films on www.ams.se I have used tools from the modern rhetoric analysis. In the last part of my analysis I compared the results of the rhetoric analysis and the requests from the interviews to see if and how they match.Main Results: The respondents requested inspiration for their future work lives, and information that could de-dramatize the image of working. The texts on www.ams.seconsist mostly of facts, while the films made a slightly more emotional contribution to the image of the occupation. The films showing relaxed and satisfied people can be seen as a way to de-dramatize the image of working-life.

It is a difficult task to define the little word ?modernity?. One may argue quite a lot about what modernity is as well as when modernity breaks trough. The burgess class was the group who initiated modernity in most cases. Since these people mainly dwelled in the cities it was in the cities were modernity started.

The purpose of this study is to show how the modern society, with demands, expectations and the time constraints of adults, affects children and the everyday life at the preschool. Our intention is also to show the importance of identify stress symptoms of the children.        The study is of qualitative empirical kind and is based on a questionnaire to 19 parents of preschool children at the age of three to five years old. Interviews are made with four preschool teachers on one preschool. An observation of children in possible stressful situations is made during three days each at two preschools.     The results show that the modern society affects children and can be stressful. It also affects the everyday life at the preschool.

The purpose of this thesis is to shed light on the various factors that influence the balancebetween the working lives and family lives of social workers. The research questions posedwere: Do social workers consider there is a conflict between their working lives and familylives? Which factors make maintaining a balance between working life and family life moredifficult and which make it easier to do so? How do social workers describe equality betweenthe sexes in their own family? Regarding methodology, the selection method is strategic andcombines data sources with quantitative and qualitative methodologies. The material collectedand via online survey, targeted to 120 municipal employees social workers in a district councilin a big city, and through interviews with four social workers in a rural community. The studywas performed using gender theory and the demand-support-control model.

In an environment, demanding both innovation and flexibility, higher requirements of competitiveness and productivity is a necessity. Changed conditions of today's working situations have resulted in an actualization of new ways and methods of working. This has contributed to a development of participating working processes in form of groups and teams. The purpose of these communal working processes is that they ought to result in an increased knowledge and understanding among the group members which in turns will generate positive results in the daily work. This drives the search for new knowledge and development possibilities to handle these changed working processes.

This study is based on interviews with six students from Stockholm that have shared their feelings/opinions about how they experience their identity as a student. The aim of this master?s thesis is to examine how the identity of students is constructed but also how the post modern society affects the life that the students are living. With a higher demand on education and responsibility of making the right decisions, the student?s main concern is not only her studies, but also the goal to succeed in her life.

Following essay examines the social and cultural patterns of southern rural Sweden between the years 1838-1845. The study is based on records from trials held by the district court of the district Norra Möre, which provides an insight to the everyday life in rural local community. Emphasis is put on exclusion and inclusion: the basis for community, codes for inclusion and exclusion, meaningful attributes, social and cultural capital etc. Questions concerning gender are raised as well as intents to discover whether modern ideas contrast early-modern, especially considering the process of individualization. Results show that concepts of confidence and trust were extremely valuable and possessed significant meanings.  Confidence, which established itself on virtuous and honest life, created the framework for most aspects of social society: for example credibility inside and outside of court, maintenance of friendship and company, capacity of upholding a working life. Forfeit of trust, through extensive dissolute, mischievous and ill-considered way of life meant exclusion from the community and great vulnerability.

The aim of this study is to investigate how employees in consulting companies develop their competence in order to perform their daily work. The focus is on informal competence development. The theoretical framework consists of theories concerning learning and competence development in working life, theories on organizational change and evaluation, a well as professional reflection. The methods applied are narrative research and interviews based on the assumption that knowledge about reality is only obtainable through language and communication.The main results show that competence is developed through experience, social interaction, communication and dialog with co-workers and customers. The post-modern conceptions of the rapid (technical) development and need to be up-to-date has a strong hold on the informants apprehension of working life, as does the notion of not having enough time for all the competence development they would like.

AbstractThis paper is about the philosophies created by Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) and Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900). The purpose is to show the high degree of similarities between Thoreau?s and Nietzsche?s philosphy.At first glance, it seems far-fetched to suggest an affinity between them; the differences in style and choice of subjects, have most certainly contributed to the fact that very few comparisons so far have been made. There is no evidence that one experienced any influence over the other, neither writer seems to have been aware of the other. Also their different areas of use during the 20th century, may have influenced the almost total lack of search for affinity.

Our study aims to examine whether managers in elderly care are working from a salutogenic approach to create a dignified life for the residents. By this we are trying to find out how you look at life in dignity and what meaning it has, what similarities and what differences there are. We also want to explore what they want to achieve with their work and what they do to enable it. The questions we asked ourselves what the salutogenic approach is for managers working in nursing homes. How do they look at a decent life and we ask ourselves the question of the salutogenic approach is just a "buzzword" in a working man always had or there are real differences? The method we have chosen to use is a web-based questionnaire that we sent to our sample.

This study is a critical discourse analysis on the genre of career coaching. Focus lies on questions such as how doescareer coaching articles construct the working subject, and how is working life described in the genre. The categoryof social relations is central to the study. I ask questions about which social relations are of importance, and whichare not, in the career coaching version of working life and how can these relations be interpreted from a critical pointof view. The concepts of power-knowledge is central to the analysis of social relations and the term employabilityconstitute the main theoretical understanding of what distinguish the contemporary labour market.

Working life is an arena that often reflects attitudes that already exist in our society. When alcohol- and drug abuse is detected among employees the employer has a statutory responsibility for rehabilitation. But the way how these employees gets to be treated is also influenced by attitudes. The purpose of this essay was to illustrate from a gender perspective how women's and men's alcohol- and drug abuse occur in working life and how the attitudes in our society towards their abuse reflect on trade life. Referring that, our intention was also to examine which consequences are given of how the individual is treated.