Working while living with cystic fibrosis: Why symptom severity tells us little about employment outcomes?

This article examines the vocational and employment trajectories of people living with cystic fibrosis in French-speaking Switzerland. Drawing on qualitative data, it reveals that clinical severity alone is an ineffective predictor of these trajectories. These are dependent on the resources available within individuals' families. Furthermore, illness serves as a site of socialization: it fosters contrasting attitudes towards effort and pleasure. An ascetic orientation, characterized by discipline and long-term planning, fosters ambitious professional goals, whereas a hedonistic orientation cantered on immediate gratification inclines individuals towards more pleasure-oriented activities. The study also identifies four types of orientations to work: career-oriented, work-at-all-costs, withdrawal, and secondary gain. These types explain divergent employment outcomes. This article highlights the analytical yield of articulating Bourdieusian concepts of capital and dispositions with medical sociology's concern for the modes of adjustment to chronic illnesses.