Working in the retail sector: a sociological exploration of choosing a career in a supermarket

This article explores how we can understand retail employees’ decisions to remain in retail work and potentially pursue it as a long-term career. Drawing on Bourdieu’s sociological concepts of habitus and habitat, this study uses biographical life-story interviews with seven young adults in Denmark to examine how the alignment between individual dispositions and workplace environment shapes career persistence in a stigmatised sector. The analysis begins with the participants’ upbringing and their families’ perspectives on education and work, followed by their reflections during upper secondary school on potential pathways into adulthood. The study then examines the decision to enter retail, which, for some, may become a lasting commitment. Finally, it addresses participants’ reflections on their career path in relation to their friends and broader societal views, where working in a supermarket is often not seen as a prestigious option. Using Bourdieu’s framework of society as a social space, and considering family and educational institutions as socialising factors within this space, the participants’ career trajectories can be understood as ‘cases of the possible’ – ways in which individual agents within society are likely to act based on their social context.