Work in times of eroded citizenship: the perception of urban middle classes

This article studies the discourses on the transformation of work in a context of intensified erosion of citizenship during last decade’s crisis. Discourses were produced within a series of focus groups made up of diverse profiles of urban middle classes. The analysis focuses on the assessment of changes within work as a social institution, in relation to other social integration issues, such as the link between citizens and the welfare state and the moral dimensions of current forms of social participation. Our results reflect a common perception of the situation as an irreversible change in the ways of doing and living in society. The crisis is not only seen as a time of temporary loss of employment and cyclical instability, but as an initial stage of a new reality guided by uncertainty, precariousness and labor flexibility, generally assumed as part of definitive changes in our society model.