Why Humans Work: How Jobs Shape Our Lives and Our World

Some people (like my mother) would say that 10-year-olds shouldn’t be thinking about things like jobs and careers, that it’s a time for wonder, play, and imagination. That may be so, but there is definitely a trend toward preparing schoolchildren to think earlier and earlier about work. It’s a credit to Why Humans Work: How Jobs Shape Our Lives and Our World that it situates work squarely within our wondering, playful, and imaginative worlds as a starting point for this discussion.

Why Humans Work is an introduction to the world of work—its history, how jobs and careers are found and made, some current issues and how they affect and are affected by work, and a brief look towards the future and how it may affect the kinds of jobs and careers the readers of the book can expect for themselves.

My recollection is that the career counseling we received in school (such as it was) didn’t start until high school. This book is targeted at a younger audience, of around 9-12, and connects the ideas and concepts with some of the experiences that would still be a little more familiar to these readers, like play and how it prepares us for “work,” and after-school jobs.

There are many reasons to like and welcome this book. I think I would have found it helpful to read a book like this when I was around 11 or 12 because it attempts to dispel some myths about work. For example, the author suggests luck and privilege have as much to do with the jobs and careers we end up with as passion and hard work do. She also talks about the structural challenges in the workplace for women, people of colour, people with disabilities, and so on, not to mention those who live in non-industrialized or developing nations.

This book isn’t about formal career counseling. It doesn’t make explicit connections between specific career areas and, for example, the kinds of educational prerequisites that might be required to achieve it. Instead, it’s about introducing young people to the vagaries, challenges, and pleasures of work. And it doesn’t pull any punches in that regard, with sections on child labour, sex work, and burnout, although interestingly, it doesn’t really touch on job loss, difficulty finding work, disappointment with work, or skills deficits.

Each chapter includes a number of features and pull-quotes with inspiring ideas from a variety of famous people. The features include mini-biographies of people with different, interesting, or unusual jobs, like a milkman, a comedy writer, and an arborist. The other features (“Work in Progress” and “In the Works”) include ready facts about work (e.g., countries where child labour is still actively used) or reports on relevant research on work. It’s not entirely clear to me the difference between these two features.

Why Humans Work is obviously written for the North American market; however, I was disappointed there wasn’t more Canadian content. For example, in the discussion on the rise of the labour movement, only American labour history is referenced, which struck me as a problematic omission. Further, the author is a Montrealer, and the overwhelming number of Canadian examples are Montreal-based. If one of the goals of the book is to portray the diversity of work and workers, more examples from both Western and Atlantic Canada would have been preferred.

Much of the art is FPO, so it’s difficult to evaluate, but the original artwork that appeared to be mostly final was terrific, drawn in very accessible and warm graphic style.

There is a Resources section at the end of Why Humans Work that lists a number of disparate books touching on a variety of topics from the book. There is also a glossary.