There is a certain quiet in the voices of people who grew up in the 1960s and 1970s when they talk about work. It is not just nostalgia. It is a cultural humility that sounds close to resignation. For many of that cohort the assumption was never that work should be deeply satisfying. Work was a duty. It was a means to an end. It was, more often than not, chunky with obligation and thin on delight.
How upbringing shaped a baseline for toil
Children are not born with a work ethic. They are taught it. In those postwar decades parents and teachers handed down a compact made of bricks and ledger books. Sacrifice was celebrated. Steadiness was prized. The story was simple. Keep your head down. Do your hours. Look after your family. Retirement would be the reward. This message arrived in ways that are quieter than slogans yet more powerful because they were lived models and household routines.
There was also a material logic. Industries dominated towns. Trade and manufacturing created predictable career paths. You signed on to a firm or to an apprenticeship and that relationship meant loyalty and predictable incomes. In return you accepted monotony and repetition because the system promised security. Pleasure at work was not part of the promise. It was not mostly a moral failure to want joy. It simply lay outside the tacit contract.
Work as identity and its limits
For many people born in those decades work was identity without the invitation to feel fulfilled by it. Men and women measured themselves by reliability and by the capacity to provide. Pride came from competence more than from exhilaration. Where modern discourse treats work as a site of self actualisation that can also be toxic the older model separated the two spheres more strictly. You did the job. Your life was elsewhere.
That separation created a hidden buffer. It protected private life. It also made the workplace a place where emotions were trimmed. Emotions at work were often treated as distractions to be managed not as material to be mined for meaning. There is a literature for that. Scholar Arlie Russell Hochschild has long argued that feelings at work are shaped and sometimes sold. She observed a particular pull in how people feel about work that does not always line up with the idea that work should please us. Her words land bluntly and usefully here.
“I’m a hard worker and love my work. I have felt pulled toward work. And it’s a pull I have ferociously had to counter to make room for my family.” Arlie Russell Hochschild Professor Emerita of Sociology University of California Berkeley.
That sentence is not a neat justification. It is a tension. Love of craft can coexist with a cultural stance that work is not the place to look for happiness. That tension explains why so many in the 60s and 70s cohort were comfortable with work that was respectable but joyless.
Economic reality versus emotional expectation
Think of the gap between expectation and reality as a matter of rationing. People rationed emotional energy. They were not taught to expect that labour should replenish the spirit. It was more likely to drain it, and the practice of saving private life from that drain became habitual. In that habit there is wisdom and loss. Wisdom because it shielded families. Loss because it normalised tolerating boredom and stunted curiosity about whether work might offer more.
Another point that often goes unspoken is the cultural message about complaining. In that era complaining about work sounded entitled to many ears. Stoicism was admired and theatre of discontent was regarded with suspicion. That moral shading made individuals less likely to demand workplaces that offered meaning or happiness. It was easier to change the worker than to change the system.
Training, pedagogy and the rhythm of routine
Schools and training schemes emphasised obedience and competence. Practical skills took precedence over reflection and experimentation. The curriculum did not widely encourage questions of meaning at work. The effect was cumulative. People left education able to do tasks and not to interrogate what those tasks could mean to a life. That was an architecture of expectation. It formed a generation for whom enjoyment at work was an afterthought at best.
In my conversations with people from this generation I hear two recurring notes. One is a plain pride in being able to do a job well. The other is a faint bewilderment when younger people ask about fulfillment. Why is fulfillment the metric, they ask. Are we to be judged as workers by our joy or by our reliability?
The cultural fallout that still lingers
The consequences are visible now. Many retirees report that they never expected work to be pleasant and they carry that disbelief into retirement. It animates attitudes towards freelancing and towards the modern rhetoric that markets a career as a route to joy. There is a scepticism in the bones. Yet that scepticism often coexists with regret. Regret about time spent in repetitive tasks. Regret about not having been taught to imagine work differently.
And there is anger too. Anger at the idea that people should simply love the grind. Anger that the labour market has been poor at delivering dignity even by the old compact of security in return for loyalty. Some older workers were not offered stability. They were offered precarity. When the promise fails the cultural acceptance of joyless work looks less like prudence and more like a trap.
What this generation can teach us
They teach us a stubborn clarity. They remind us that not all norms are false and not all modern ideals are inevitable. There is value in endurance and in quiet competence. But their story also warns. If you normalise accepting low pleasure in work you risk institutionalising low standards of humane treatment and respect.
We should borrow their strengths and leave behind what constrains curiosity. That is my argument and not a neutral observation. The balance is delicate. We want to honour hard graft without treating joy as an indulgence. We can demand decent pay fair hours and humane management while also imagining that some work can be enlivening.
Open ended endings
There is no single cause and no single cure. Culture and economy braided together across decades. Some of the assumptions of the 60s and 70s remain stubborn for reasons that are structural not personal. Changing them requires institutions to change. Sometimes cultural shifts prefigure institutional reform. Sometimes the reverse happens. I do not pretend to offer a roadmap here. I offer instead a reminder that many people of this generation did not expect work to be enjoyable because they were taught to measure life differently. That lesson is messy and it continues to shape choices people make about work today.
Summary table
| Idea | Why it mattered | What it produced |
|---|---|---|
| Work as duty | Postwar cultural norms emphasised responsibility and reliability | Acceptance of repetitive roles without expectation of joy |
| Economic compact | Stable industries offered security in return for loyalty | Pleasure at work was secondary to job security |
| Pedagogy and training | Education emphasised competence over reflection | Workers skilled at tasks but less practised in seeking meaning |
| Cultural stoicism | Complaining was morally risky | Less pressure on employers to create humane workplaces |
FAQ
Did everyone born in the 60s and 70s think this way?
No. There was significant variety. Class region gender and individual temperament made a big difference. Some people from those decades demanded meaning early on. Others accepted the cultural bargain more fully. The broad pattern I describe is a tendency not a rule. It helps explain collective choices and cultural expectations but it does not erase personal exception or rebellion.
Was the absence of expected enjoyment harmful?
It depends on what we measure. Some people report satisfaction from mastery and from providing for family. For them the lack of immediate pleasure at work was not harmful. For others it created a slow erosion of curiosity and a willingness to accept poor treatment. Harm in this context is complex and often mediated by whether the economic promise of security was actually honoured.
How does this compare with younger generations?
Younger generations are often more likely to expect purpose enjoyment or alignment between values and work. That shift is partly cultural and partly structural. The gig economy and the decline of lifetime employment both push younger workers to look for identity in work. That said some younger people are more precarious and their expectations can be frustrated in ways that echo older frustrations albeit under different conditions.
Can workplaces today learn from this generation?
Yes. They can learn endurance discipline and the value of craft. They should also learn to avoid normalising joyless labour. Employers who offer both dignity and opportunities for meaningful engagement will likely attract and retain workers across generations. The real lesson is to hold the best parts of both models without romanticising either.
Is it realistic to expect all work to be enjoyable now?
No. Some forms of labour will remain arduous or repetitive. The goal is not universal delight. The goal is humane conditions fair compensation and the possibility that work can offer a sense of agency for those who want it. That is a different and more modest ambition than promising perpetual enjoyment.
