Analiza bio-psycho-społecznych uwarunkowań zjawiska niepodejmowania pracy
Authors: Regina Rożeńska  , Rafał Przybysz  , Jolanta Szamburska  
Published: July 2024

The paper has been devoted to the discussion of the findings of an interdisciplinary empirical study of the phenomenon of evasion of work. An attempt was made in the study to reach the psycho-social and biological conditions of attitudes towards work.             From among the properties that characterize the group of persons evading work, the authors were particularly interessted in: the degree of professional destabilization, committing offences excessive drinking, family destabilization, psychological variables, and state of health.             Subjects of the study were men aged 30-31 from the city of Łódź,  registered as evading work in the employment agency and in social-administrative divisions of the state administrative agencies. Among all of the persons registered in the above-mentioned age group, most motions concern a group of 103 persons (NP). These 103 persons were submitted to direct medical, psychological and sociological examination, while a number of data concerning the entire group of 843 persons were gathered by means of indirect methods (analysis of documents). The latter made it possible to describe in more detail problems as important as crime, excessive drinking or state of health.             As a control group, a group of 204 men (P) working in great industrial plants in Łódź was examined by means of all of the above-mentioned methods.             8 hypotheses have been formula ted that expressed the relations between the separate characteristics of the examined persons. Not all of these hypotheses have been verified acording to our theoretical expectations.             To mention the most important conclusions only, it should be stated that about one-fourth of the total of 845 men were fit for being taken off the register of persons evading work. None on these persons were included in the basic 103-person sample; yet this group was examined for pragmatic reasons together with the population in the case of which indirect of examination were applied (analysis of documents).             Another finding that might seem interesting is that 13 per cent of the examined persons may be suspected with high probability of having seemingly taken a job in order to circumvent the law.             From among other data concerning the entire 845-person population the fact should be taken into consideration that 22.7 per cent of them are treated in mental health and (or in withdrawal clinics, with the majority treated in the former), and that 49,5 per cent of them have committed offences (transgression left out of account), the majority committing the same type of offence repeatedly. As far as the basic group of 103 persons is concerned, one of its most important traits appears to be extensive drinking and crime. The latter shows a somewhat greater intensity as compared with the entire population; as many as 54.5 per cent of persons committed offences, and over 60 per cent of them are recidivists. Crime can be found but in isolated cases in the group of working men (5 per cent). The kind of offences committed in the group of persons evading work seems symptomatic. Their offences are poorly differentiated and practically resolve themselves to three groups: 1 ) against the property; 2) against person; 3) against family with an emphatic prevalence of those of the first group. This structure may be recognized as typical of the population of persons who evade work. The predomination of various kinds of thefts, mostly petty ones, may be treated as the way of securing material resources which for various reasons are not secured in socially accepted ways. A nearly complete absence of serious and most serious offences testifies to a specific type of demoralization which is however not dangerous to the society.             One can also speak in earnest of high intensity of alcoholism in this group. About two-thirds of men drink excessively; over a half of those drinking are alcohol dependent. Generally speaking, the basic problem of destabilization of the professional career may be expressed as follows: Near1y 20 per cent (of the 103-persons group) reveal symptoms of complete professional destabilization, and 35 per cent are considerablv destabilized. A slight degree of professional destabilization can be found in 10 per cent, while in the group of working men (P) this category (together with that characterized by full stabilization) is most numerous one, amounting to nearly 90 per cent. It should also be added that in the latter group (P) there is a number of persons (10.5 per cent) who reveal a considerable degree of professional destabilization.(The index of professional stabilization included among other things number of years in work number of practised professions, length of employment in the trained profession, number of workplaces in which the given person was employed, kinds and lengths of intervals employment).          State of  health undoubtedly plays an important part in professional stabilization. The data from this field point to a considerable decrease of the ability to work. The percentage of persons with disorders of somatic health is high and amounts in the groups NP and P to 91.1 and 88. 8 per cent respectively; these disorders are however of a varying character, with serious ones found in 36 and 21 per cent of groups NP and P respectively. in the unemployed group, the percentage of persons whose diseases are related to their lack of personal hygiene and irrational mode of life (e.g. excessive drinking) is significantly higher. Hence the frequent gastroduodenal troubles, diseases of the urogenital system, and the serious though underrated lesions of dentition. Moreover, in as many as 67 per cent cases in this group, tattooings and self-mutilations characteristic of the delinquent subculture could be found.             As far as the examined persons mental condition is concerned, psychopathic personality disorders can be noticed to predominate decidedly in the group NP-41 per cent; in 18 per cent of these persons, organic grounds of the discovered troubles can be suspected (lesions of the central nervous system); in 4 cases, epilepsy was diagnosed.             Evident disorders of psychic function which limited the ability to work were found in 15 per cent of persons in the unemployed group; slight disorders- in 28 per cent; and trivial ones - in 47 per cent. In group P, the percentages were 2.3 and as many as 52 respectively.             The state of somatic and mental health served as the base for the given person's ability to work. In none of the cases permanent (complete) inability to work was found; 12 per cent had a seriously, 39 per cent significantly, and 33 per cent - slightly limited ability to work (in group P ,5.4;20; and 29 per cent respectively). It may be concluded that significant health troubles (all the more those less serious) do not necessarily constitute a sufficient excuse for renouncing professional activity (not in every case at any rate). The fact should however be taken into consideration that excessive drinking frequently found in the cases of persons evading work and the possible organic background of psychopathic personality disorders many of them are suffering from, may disturb their proper attitude towards work and constitute a relative premise to recognize their ability to work to be lowered, particularly if work is interpreted as a permanent employment.             The level of intelligence fails to differentiate the examined groups if  their level of education is taken into account.             As regards psychological variables, the element which particularly differentiates the two examined groups is a specific type of attitude towards values and ones own development which renders it impossible to define explicitly the probable future course of  behaviour. This type of attitude is found most frequently in those who do not work. Favourable attitudes, admittedly characteristic of the working persons (79.6 per cent), can nevertheless also be found in these evading work (47.3 per cent). Also the fact seems worthy of attention that explicitly negative attitudes occur with a similar frequency in both of the examined groups (P-9.7; NP - 14 per cent).             Besides the general description of the traits that characterized persons who evade work, also the relations between the separate properties seem even more important as they provide information about the coexistence of various phenomena thus making it possible to draw more or less correct conclusions as to the causality of various kinds of behaviour.             In one study, an attempt was made to follow about 40 types of mutual conditions of the analyzed traits. Using statistical measures of dependence between the variables in two cases a very high, in 7 cases-high, and in 15 cases-an average level of the strength of correlation between variables was found.             The most strongly correlated phenomena are those of destabilization and crime on the one hand, and of excessive drinking and the state of mental health on the other hand. A high level of correlation can be found first or all between professional destabilization and excessive drinking, and between the state of mental health and professional destabilization. Instead some of the expected interdependences were not confirmed. There are among them the relation between professional destabilization and the state of somatic health, excessive drinking and the state of somatic health, early educational problems and professional destabilization.             To sum up the above random data, it may be stated that persons who evade work greatly "outpace" those who are employed as regards all of the negative aspects analyzed in the study, this difference being only too evident regarding the. particularly pathological types of behaviour such as crime and excessive drinking. This concerns first and foremost the central issue of professional destabilization. The group of persons who evade work is greatly differentiated in many respects and one can hardly apply towards these persons identical diagnostic and prognostic criteria. There is no doubt, however, that when intending to shape a proper attitude towards work, one should focus ones attention on four planes of the individual's life situation. They are: the family and school milieu, the individual's own vision of his professional activity, the working environment interpreted as the sum of chances and limitations of human activity, and disfunctional behaviour (crime and excessive drinking). In our opinion, also other reference systems should not be left out of account, which undoubtedly play important part in the individuals shaping of his vision of professional activity.