Is Your Job Prestigious?

What does it mean to have a prestigious job in today’s world? This question has been on my mind for a while now. For context: I’m Brazilian, writing from São Paulo. Nationally, a few social and cultural phenomena have caught my attention – child coaching influencers, teenagers mocking formal employment, and the rise of far-right politics that often promote the dream of “owning your own business” as the ultimate career goal.

For my parents’ generation, prestige meant being a public servant – stable, respectable, a 9-to-5 schedule, a guaranteed pension upon retirement. For many millennials, that model sounded stifling, even suffocating. We were sold the idea of chasing dreams and pursuing careers we loved – as if that were even possible.

Now, Gen Z seems to be embracing the idea of entrepreneurship – not necessarily out of passion, but perhaps out of necessity. Is this shift a genuine desire, or is it the only option left? 

Brazil is currently experiencing a deep crisis in formal employment. The traditional, regulated employer-employee relationship is unravelling, replaced by a flood of so-called “entrepreneurs” – who are often self-employed workers lacking labour protections, such as Uber drivers or informal gig workers.

But this isn’t just an economic transformation – it’s a cultural one. A formal job no longer signifies stability. It now often means long commutes, rigid schedules, low pay and subordination to hierarchical systems. Instead of being a pathway to dignity, these roles can feel like traps.

As sociologist Ruy Braga recently put it in an interview on the podcast Pauta Pública: “This dismantling of the utopia of a salaried Brazilian society – where you had a protected job, earned a decent salary, worked for many years at one company and retired with dignity – that’s all being left behind... If it’s no longer attainable, it stops being desirable. And if it’s no longer desirable, it often becomes something people feel repulsed by.”

Having a boss and a fixed schedule is increasingly seen as a sign of weakness or fear. Ambition, today, is framed as going solo. The real status symbol is autonomy – setting your own hours, answering to no one, and bearing full responsibility for your own success or failure. It’s capitalism distilled into pure individualism.

Of course, there’s also the dream of becoming an influencer. Yet, most influencers in Brazil don’t actually make a living from it. (Rarely do they mention the second job that actually pays the bills.) According to the 2025 Brazilian Content Creator Census, only 9% of content creators rely exclusively on online income. Globally, that figure is around 12%.

Still, the dream persists – especially among younger generations. The influencer fantasy seems less about work and more about fame, validation, access and of course, money. Platforms like TikTok and Instagram fuel this by promoting extremes: the infantilisation of adults and the adultification of children. To go viral, you need to appeal broadly – often by sacrificing nuance or depth. As Guy Debord once observed: “What appears is good, and what is good appears.”

What gets seen gets valued. Visibility becomes the new currency of worth. And this is where I begin to feel uneasy. Prestige today often seems indistinguishable from dignity.

Let’s revisit the definition: Dignity: a moral quality that inspires respect; awareness of one’s own worth; honor, authority, nobility. Dignity is something we all deserve, regardless of job title, follower count or income bracket. Prestige, on the other hand, is conferred. It’s social. It’s comparative. What happens when we begin confusing one for the other? How do we preserve dignity in a system that increasingly defines worth through visibility, productivity and marketability?

In a post-truth era where facts matter little, information is abundant and adulterated and the internet is increasingly populated by bots and other non-human interactions, the prestigious job may be the one where you can still foster real human connections – with close contacts, active listening and collaborative processes.

In that spirit, I’m less interested in answers and more interested in asking better questions. Still, asking opens up possibilities – other ways of understanding what a “prestigious” job might look like today, especially for those fortunate enough to enjoy some degree of financial stability.

Could prestige mean:

• A job that allows time to create – without pressure for your creations to be profitable?
• The freedom to lead with integrity and become the kind of boss you’d actually admire?
• The chance to build knowledge and solutions through collective work?
• Opportunities to collaborate with professionals who share your worldview?
• Being able to find clients and do meaningful work without self-promotion or personal branding?
• Taking pride in your personal development – not just your professional milestones?
• And maybe most importantly: experiencing prestige not as a status you earn, but as a feeling you cultivate?

In redefining what we consider prestigious, perhaps we begin to also redefine what it means to live with dignity in a world that often confuses appearance with value.