The work ethic and social change in the Czech republic and Slovakia - a modernisation theory perspective:

• Authors: Michal Kozák
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

The article investigates long-term trends in the work ethic in the Czech Republic and Slovakia from the perspective of modernisation theory. In particular, it examines whether the work ethic in the two culturally similar societies decreased during the years of growing material prosperity and whether this trend originated in intergenerational population replacement. The study uses data from three pooled waves of the European Values Study (EVS) covering the period 1999-2017 to which it applies the linear decomposition technique and multivariate statistical analysis. The results show that, even though the work ethic decreased in the Czech Republic and increased in Slovakia, intergenerational population replacement contributed to its weakening in both countries. Furthermore, the results indicate that the reason this process dominated the overall trend in the Czech Republic but not that in Slovakia may be the historical differences in levels of socioeconomic development and the different paces of population replacement. Finally, tentative evidence in favour of modernisation theory is presented, indicating that population replacement universally contributed to a decrease in the work ethic in all the other European countries with comparable EVS data.

Keywords

EN

work ethic; work orientations; modernisation theory; linear decomposition; European Values Study

Discipline

• SOCIOLOGY: SOCIOLOGY

• Publisher: Institute of Sociology, Czech Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Sociologický časopis. Czech Sociological Review
• Year: 2020
• Volume: 56
• Issue: 6
• Pages: 741-766
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Michal Kozák

• Sociologický časopis, redakce, Sociologický ústav AV ČR, v.v.i., Jilská 1, 110 00 Praha 1, Czech Republic