In Quebec, since the 1980s, several studies have focused on the experience of social and job insecurity and on representations of work using approaches centered on life stories. By taking a retrospective look at these studies, this article wishes to highlight the existential fragility induced by the contemporary social system, at the crossroads of the world of work and the implementation of the obligation to work spirit by income support programs. In particular, this article wishes to answer this question: how has the socio-economic context, with the consolidation of precarious employment, and the institutional context, with its workfare logic, marked life trajectories and representations of work?