Abstract

CAU-BAREILLE, Dominique. Teachers’ work strategies and struggles towards the end of their careers: Elements for a gender-oriented approach. Laboreal [online]. 2014, vol.10, n.1, pp.59-78. ISSN 1646-5237.  https://doi.org/10.15667/laborealx0114dcb.

This paper presents the results of an exploratory research focused on the career of primary and secondary school teachers as they approach retirement in France. While the government implemented measures to lengthen careers, it is observed that many teachers retire before the retirement age set for this profession. Through in-depth interviews with women and men in their fifties, focusing on the work activity, the strategies implemented in the daily work and their impact on their private life, we sought to understand the reasons for the early retirement and the difficulties encountered at the end of the career. The objective was to study the dual problem of ageing at work and ageing because of the work, so both the ageing issue and the problems related to burnout. The interviews revealed that the more the teachers advance in age, the more the human cost of the work increases, despite the experience acquired in the meantime. Health problems increase, the fatigue related to the activity becomes more noticeable, the need for recovery is more important; the sensitivity to the constraints of the working situations increases. Their feeling of personal efficiency decreases, generating concerns on their ability to “hold on until the end of the career”. It forces them to more and more regulative strategies at the same time at work and in their private life. Sometimes, it consists in a reduction of working hours or, in the ultimate situations, in early departures. Based on these results, we propose avenues of reflection about working conditions which could help preventing older workers from leaving their jobs. The approach we present is defined according to the gender lens.

Keywords : teaching; seniors; career endings; ergonomics.

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