37%: this is the share of French employees who declare having worked at least once while being sick, over a period of twelve months, reveals the Eurofound study of 2021. The average for the European Union is only 28%, and this figure is only 22% in the Netherlands. Another question from this survey: “Do you ever work in your free time to meet the demands of your job, every day or several times a week? » This is the case for 20% of French people, four points more than the European average. Would there really be a “flame epidemic” in France?
This is the idea that is undermined by an article produced for the scientific mediation project “What do we know about work? » of the Interdisciplinary Laboratory for the Evaluation of Public Policies (Liepp), broadcast in collaboration with Liepp and the Presses de Sciences Po on the Employment channel of Lemonde.fr.
The sociologists Maëlezig Bigi and Dominique Méda affirm that it is the continuous deterioration of working conditions, for nearly twenty years, which explains a more distanced relationship of the French vis-à-vis their employment, and not an alleged refusal to work. .
Using data from European research programs, the researchers first recall that the majority of French people have always declared that work is very important in their lives, which does not prevent them from wishing at the same time that it takes up less space. This coexistence is not new, and simply demonstrates a requirement with regard to the content of the work.
As a result, France is one of the countries where the gap between the expectations placed on work and the reality of its working conditions is the greatest. Already in the early 2000s, work was considered, much more in France than elsewhere, as exhausting, poorly paid, and only leading to low chances of promotion.
This observation has been amplified: in 2019, the Working Conditions survey of the Dares (Ministry of Labour) highlights that work is ” unsustainable “ for 37% of employed French workers. The European comparison, on the occasion of the Eurofound survey of 2021, is clear: 52% of French people declare that their work requires working within very strict and very short deadlines, compared to 37% of Dutch employees for example.
The physical and mental hardship of work is much heavier in France: when 7% of Danes and 30% of Europeans say they suffer from anxiety, this is the case for one in two French people. This survey also points among French employees to weak support from colleagues, weak recognition by the hierarchy, and a greater gap than elsewhere between the requirements imposed and the resources to deal with them.
You have 13.12% .. “”.