Friedrich Sieburg, a keen observer of French culture writing in the late 1920s, expressed his admiration for the apparent detachment of the French from gainful pursuits (see p. 6). As in many other instances, the occasional visitor's testimony tends to distort reality. However, the endurance of an extensive traditional sector for over half of the twentieth century must be connected with the implicit and widespread preference for a rural lifestyle and the values associated with it; a backward-bending labour supply curve long reflected this preference for independence and leisure. But the transformation of French society after 1945 and its convergence on the Western European pattern carried with it changing attitudes towards work, employment and business. In the course of the twentieth century, the labour market underwent four major changes which were without precedent but which the French share with other OECD members: a sweeping change in the sectoral composition of the labour force, the rise of the proportion of wage-earners and women in the workforce, the continuous shrinking of working time, and, from the 1970s onwards, the rise of massive structural unemployment.

From peasant society to postindustrial society in two generations

The structure and outlook of the French working population was very different at the end of the twentieth century from what it had been in the first half of that century. Within a generation, the postwar ‘Golden Age’ transformed types of jobs, as well as working habits and living conditions, beyond recognition.