Exploring changing patterns of work, place, & intergenerational relationships
Work is about much more than having a job. It can shape our income, routines, identity, relationships, and sense of connection to the places where we live. It can also be shaped by everything else going on in our lives: caring responsibilities, health, housing, transport, education, technology, and the support we can access when circumstances change.
The Changing Working Practices strand of the Changing Intergenerational Relationships (CIR) project explored how people living and working in Stirling and Clackmannanshire experienced these connections. We were interested in how work had changed across people’s lives, how those changes were understood by different generations, and what could help to create a more connected, inclusive, and supportive future for the region.
Through life-history interviews and community workshops, we explored how people experienced work at different points in their lives. This helped us to learn about not only people’s jobs and employment status, but the wider circumstances that shaped their working lives: where they lived, the opportunities available to them, their health, finances, caring responsibilities, relationships, and access to support.
What is a life-history interview?
Many research interviews focus on one issue at a time. A life-history interview takes a wider view.
Rather than asking people only about their current job, or a particular experience of looking for work, this approach invites them to reflect on their lives as a whole. Participants might discuss their early life, education, family relationships, working history, health, caring responsibilities, experiences of support, and hopes for the future.
This matters because changing working practices do not affect everyone at the same time, or in the same way. Shifts in technology, contracts, wages, working hours, job security, or the location of work can mean very different things depending on someone’s stage of life, their previous experience of employment, the opportunities available locally, and the support they can draw on.
Using life histories allowed us to understand changing working practices in context. It also meant we could learn from people with very different relationships to work: people who had never had paid employment; people whose working lives had been shaped by a single trade or industry; people who had changed jobs or careers; people who ran businesses; and people whose caring, volunteering, or community roles were as important to them as paid employment.
Participants shared experiences from across a wide range of ages, employment situations, family circumstances, sectors, and communities. Their stories included experiences of:
- Entering work, changing careers, and leaving employment.
- Long-term employment, insecure or short-term work, and periods out of work.
- Remote, hybrid, flexible, shift-based, temporary, and zero-hours work.
- Traditional industries, public services, the voluntary sector, self-employment, and new forms of work.
- Caring, volunteering, mentoring, and other forms of valuable work that are often overlooked when work is defined only as paid employment.
- Managing paid work alongside health needs, caring responsibilities, financial pressures, housing costs, transport barriers, and changing family circumstances.
What is a community workshop?
A community workshop brings people together to explore ideas, compare experiences, and imagine what could change. Unlike an interview, which focuses on an individual’s story, workshops make space for discussion between people with different backgrounds, ages, experiences, and perspectives.
For CIR, workshops gave people the opportunity to respond to the questions emerging from the life-history interviews. Participants considered where the findings reflected their own experiences of work and where they did not, before discussing what could make a practical difference for people living and working in the region. Key topics included:
- The role of place in shaping work, opportunity, and support.
- How expectations, values, and experiences of employment change across generations.
- How paid work, caring, volunteering, and other activities contribute to belonging, identity, and community connection.
Participants discussed where these findings reflected local realities, where they needed more nuance, and what kinds of resources could be useful for community groups, practitioners, policymakers, and others.
Our Findings
Bringing together life-history interviews and community workshops showed that work does not exist in isolation. Participants’ experiences of finding, keeping, leaving, or making sense of work were shaped by the places they lived, the services they could access, their relationships with family and colleagues, and what they believed was possible for themselves and their communities.
People’s accounts also showed that these expectations did not appear from nowhere. They were shaped by experiences of local work, industrial change, financial pressure, support that had worked or failed, and the opportunities people had seen around them over time.
Work, place, and opportunity
Participants described a region with strong community pride, industrial and cultural history, and considerable potential. At the same time, they spoke about the effects of deindustrialisation, the loss of traditional skilled work, limited local opportunities, rising living costs, unreliable transport, shrinking services, and the difficulty of accessing joined-up support.
These experiences do not fit neatly into simple descriptions of Stirling and Clackmannanshire as “affluent” or “deprived”, or “urban” or “rural”. People’s stories showed how national and global changes- including COVID-19, Brexit, technological change, and the cost-of-living crisis- were experienced in very local and personal ways.
Local transport, access to childcare, the availability and cost of housing, digital access, community spaces, education, and health support could all shape whether someone was able to find, keep, or progress in work. Participants also highlighted how fragmented or short-term services could erode trust, particularly for people who had experienced repeated changes in local provision.
Participants also described a tension between pride in the region and concern about what had been lost. Some spoke about strong industrial and cultural histories, local landscapes, and communities they were proud to call home. Others reflected on the disappearance of factories, trades, high streets, services, and spaces that had once connected people to work and to one another.
These experiences shaped more than people’s access to jobs. They could also shape expectations. Where people had seen limited opportunities, repeated changes to services, or earlier periods of economic difficulty, they might be less confident that a new initiative or opportunity would last. This should not be understood as a lack of ambition. It reflects how people make sense of what has been available to them and their communities over time.
Support needs to reflect real life
Participants’ accounts suggested that support around work was more useful when it recognised the wider context of people’s lives. Someone seeking help with employment might also be managing physical or mental health needs, caring responsibilities, transport difficulties, housing costs, literacy challenges, confidence, or digital access. When these issues were dealt with separately, support could feel difficult to access or poorly matched to the realities of daily life.
Participants valued support that was reliable, joined up, non-judgemental, and adapted to their circumstances. They described the importance of being listened to and of working with practitioners who understood the different pressures affecting their lives. Short-term, inconsistent, or overly procedural support could be difficult to trust, especially for people who had experienced services and initiatives changing or ending before.
Support was also shaped by people’s confidence about asking for it. Participants described uncertainty about whether their needs were “real” or legitimate, concerns about confidentiality, and worries about being seen as taking advantage. Some sought formal validation; others relied more heavily on informal support from family, friends, colleagues, or community groups.
Different experiences, shared concerns
People from different generations often made sense of the same challenges through different reference points. Some participants remembered local industries, apprenticeships, more secure employment, and a time when work was closely tied to particular trades or communities. Others described working lives shaped by insecure contracts, career changes, high living costs, and uncertainty about whether work would provide the stability it had offered earlier generations.
These were not simply differences between “young” and “old” workers. Participants also described shared concerns about wages, job security, meaningful work, supportive management, work–life balance, and the chance to build a future. The differences often lay in how people understood the cause of these problems, what they expected work to offer, and what they felt was realistic or fair.
Work ethic was a particularly important, and sometimes challenging, part of these conversations. Participants connected it to individual effort, but also to early experiences of work, family expectations, community history, opportunities to learn practical skills, and the kinds of jobs people had seen around them.
For some, work ethic was linked to reliability, responsibility, pride, or earning a wage. For others, it was difficult to separate effort from the rewards work actually offered: low pay, insecure hours, limited progression, or poor treatment at work could make it harder to see how hard work would lead to security or success.
These discussions suggest that it is too simple to frame differences as a conflict between “good” and “bad” workers, or between generations with fundamentally different values. Participants also spoke about continuity: people of different ages shared concerns about security, purpose, fair reward, and being treated with respect at work.
Workplace relationships matter
Participants described the workplace as a social space as well as a place of employment. Relationships with managers, colleagues, mentors, and teams could shape whether people felt respected, supported, able to learn, and willing to remain in a role.
Supportive management was often described in terms of reciprocity. Where managers listened, recognised people’s circumstances, provided training, and showed flexibility when it was needed, participants felt this could encourage commitment and loyalty. In contrast, micromanagement, poor communication, inadequate training, or a lack of support could make work more difficult and encourage people to look elsewhere.
Participants also described how age and experience could affect workplace relationships. Younger workers could feel that managers did not take their circumstances, goals, or practical difficulties seriously. Older workers could find it difficult when their experience was overlooked, including when working for younger managers. These accounts point to the importance of workplaces that value workers of different ages, make space for two-way learning, and address ageism wherever it appears.
Work is more than employment
One of the clearest messages from this work was that paid employment was only one part of the contribution people made to their families and communities. Participants spoke about caring, raising children, volunteering, mentoring, and helping others as activities that required time, skill, effort, and commitment.
These forms of work could provide purpose, identity, connection, and practical support. They could also make paid employment possible: care from family or friends, help with transport, encouragement, advice, and community connections could all help people find or keep work. At the same time, not everyone had access to these informal networks, and the pressures on relationships could change what help was available.
Participants also reflected on the importance of a working identity. For some, this was strongly connected to a trade, an industry, or a family history. For others, especially those whose work had been more precarious or varied, it was less about one job and more about finding ways to contribute, support others, or build a life around work. This raises an important question: when jobs change, disappear, or fail to provide security, what other forms of contribution and belonging become visible—and how can they be recognised?
