Dad Was A Terrible Hard Worker: The Influence of Family and School on Dublin Men’s Working Lives - Preliminary Findings

This paper aims to explore the roles that home, family and school play in influencing Irish men’s approach to work and experiences of working life. The paper begins by reflecting on the transition process from home and school to work as part of men’s socialisation process. However, whilst a number of works have touched upon this process in the past very little of the existing literature examines men’s qualitative experience of this process. The need to carry out such work and explore this process for men is then linked to a broader set of research aims. The paper then moves on to outline the methodology. Using data from 156 questionnaires and ten in-depth interviews with Irish men from North County Dublin, the impact of home and family on the transition to work process is explored. After the methodology, the themes and findings are explored. The paper concludes that in terms of family influence, the men’s fathers did have some impact on attitudes to work. In terms of school, despite the recent increase in the demand for skilled labour, most of the respondents considered school to be of little value or help in determining future careers.