Työssä jatkaminen ja eläkkeelle siirtyminen ikääntyvien työntekijöiden pohdinnoissa

Ikääntyvien työurien odotetaan pitenevän niin Suomessa kuin kansainvälisesti. Aikaisempi tutkimus on tarkastellut monipuolisesti työurien pitenemiseen yhteydessä olevia yksilö- ja organisaatiotason tekijöitä. Tässä artikkelissa kuvaamme jäsenkategorisoinnin analyysin keinoin, millaisina ikääntyvät työntekijät näkevät itsensä eläkkeelle jääjinä tai työssä jatkajina. Lisäksi tarkastelemme, näkyvätkö työkykyyn, terveyteen tai kuntoutukseen liittyvät teemat kategorisoinneissa. Tavoitteena on ymmärtää työelämässä jatkamiseen tai eläkkeelle siirtymiseen liittyviä tekijöitä yksilöiden näkökulmista. Aineistona oli 35 yli 40-vuotiaan työntekijän tai toimihenkilön haastattelua neljästä eri yrityksestä. Aineisto analysoitiin aineistolähtöisesti jäsenkategorisoinnin analyysillä. Aineistosta löytyi neljä tapaa järkeillä suhdetta työhön ja eläköitymiseen: leiväntienaajien, velvollisuudentuntoisten, tekemistä tarvitsevien ja työstä nauttivien. Nämä kategoriat sisältävät myös käsityksiä työkyvyn ja kuntoutuksen merkityksestä. Ainoastaan työstä nauttivat ovat kiinnostuneita jatkamaan työuraa eläkeiän jälkeen. Heille työn sisällöllä on suuri merkitys. Leiväntienaajille työllä on välineellinen merkitys toimeentulon lähteenä – jonka myös lottovoitto toisi. Velvollisuudentuntoisille työelämässä pysyminen asetettuun eläkeikärajaan saakka näyttäytyy itsestäänselvyytenä. Tekemistä tarvitsevilla taas esimerkiksi omaisten hoivaaminen voisi korvata työelämän. Eri kategorioissa tehdään päätöksiä työssä jatkamisesta erilaisin perustein. Kaikissa kategorioissa tuotiin kuitenkin esille terveyden, työssä jaksamisen ja työkyvyn merkitys. Tutkimuksessa on tärkeä keskittyä arvioimaan erilaisten kannusteiden merkitystä työssä jatkamiselle erilaisissa ryhmissä. Jaksamisen tukemiseen sekä työkyvyn ylläpitoon ja parantamiseen tarvitaan henkilökohtaistettuja ratkaisuja. Abstract Ageing employees reasoning work and retirement Working careers of ageing employees are expected to extend in Finland, as well as internationally. Previous research has revealed various factors on individual and organisational level that have an impact on longer working careers. This article describes how ageing employees see themselves as retiring or continuing at work by the means of category analysis. It also explores if the themes of work ability, health or rehabilitation are found in categorisations. The aim of the study is to understand factors related to retiring or continuing work from the individual point of view. The data consists of 35 interviews of employees 40 years of age or above in four enterprises. Data were analysed data-driven by membership category analysis. Four different ways to reason one’s attitude to work and retirement were found: those of breadwinners, dutiful ones, those who need activities and those who enjoy working. These categories also include perceptions on the significance of an ability to work and rehabilitation. Only those who enjoy working are interested to continue in working life beyond their retirement age. The content and meaning of work is very important to them. To a breadwinner work is instrumental in earning one’s living – which would also be fulfilled by winning in lottery. Dutiful ones think it is self-evident to stay in working life until the institutional retirement age but not beyond. Those who need activities could compensate paid work for caring. People in different categories make decisions on continuing in working life on different grounds. However, the significance of health, coping at work and ability to work were mentioned as decisive factors in all categories. It is suggested that it is important to focus on evaluating the meaning of incentives for continuing work in different groups. In addition, personalised solutions are needed in supporting workers to cope at work and also in maintaining and improving their working ability. Keywords: continuing at work, retirement, vocational rehabilitation, membership category analysis

Multimodal membership categorization and storytelling in a guided tour

This study examines multimodal membership categorization and storytelling in Japanese at an Okinawan culture center in Hawai‘i. Based on audiovisual recordings of a guided tour (112 minutes), it examines ways the guide and visitors use explicit and implicit means in constructing the membership category “immigrants of Okinawan descent in Hawai‘i” and terms of this category, such as “women of the first generation” and “children of the second generation.” The analysis focuses on visitors’ contributions to membership categorization and storytelling through posing questions, relating personal experience, and displaying stance in touching and handling objects. The findings show how practices of membership categorization and storytelling are co-constructed, and how participants draw upon multimodal resources including talk, the body, and objects in practices of membership categorization in situated interaction.

Constructing self-expert identity via other-identity negation in Chinese televised debating discourse

This article investigates the conflictive construction of identities in Chinese interactions. We examine the way in which people build up their own identities as “experts” and negate others’ similar identities in Chinese televised debates with complex participation structure. Our datasets are collected from 120 Chinese televised debates. Using indexicality (Bucholtz, Mary & Kira Hall. 2005. Identity and interaction: a socio-cultural linguistic approach. Discourse Studies 7[4/5]. 585–614) and Membership Categorization (Sacks, Harvey. 1992. Lectures on conversation, vols I and II, edited by G. Jefferson. Oxford: Blackwell) as analytic notions to capture the interactional co-construction of identities, we examine the ways in which identity co-construction in such conflict scenarios takes place, as interactants attempt to construct their own identities as experts, and negate the expert identities of others. This exploration fills an important knowledge gap: little research has been done on Chinese conflict talk, in particular from the perspective of the co-construction of identities. Our research models identity construction in conflict by identifying various routes or “strategies” through which identities can be worked out in conflict scenarios. Our focus is on revealing how interlocutors construct or promote their identity by making their membership category conform to their category-bound activity/attribute, and negate others’ identity by revealing others’ violation of category-bound activity/attribute.

Membership categorisation and antagonistic Twitter formulations

During the course of this article, we examine the use of membership categorisation practices by a high-profile celebrity public social media account that has been understood to generate interest, attention and controversy across the UK (and wider European) media ecology. We utilise a data set of harvested tweets gathered from a high-profile public ‘celebrity antagonist’ in order to systematically identify types of antagonistic formulation that have generated different levels of interest within the social media community and beyond. Drawing from classic ethnomethodological studies of banner headlines and other means of generating public interest and ‘making sense’, we respecify high-profile antagonistic tweets as category formulations that exhibit particular and regular membership category features that are reflexively bound to potential antagonistic readings, interest and controversy. In conclusion, we consider how such formulations may be understood to represent resources that constitute ignition points within antagonistic flows of communication and information that can be metaphorically understood as ‘digital wildfires’.