Employment | |
Overwork Overstated |
In 1991 economist Juliet Schor made headlines with her book The Overworked
American. She argued that Americans were working longer and that leisure
was declining despite growing incomes and wealth. By her estimate the average
American was on the job 163 more hours per year in 1987 than in 1969 --
equivalent to one month per year of additional labor. Since then the notion
of the overworked American has been endlessly repeated to the point where
it is now simply treated as fact. Earlier this year, however, a new book appeared challenging the conventional
wisdom. Time for Life by sociologists John P. Robinson and Geoffrey Godbey
(Penn State University Press) concluded that Americans today have more leisure
than ever -- about five hours more per week than in the 1960s. They based
this conclusion on a large study of people who kept detailed diaries of
how they spent their time day-by-day. In contrast, Schor and other researchers
have based their analyses on aggregate data collected by the federal government
and pollsters. There are many reasons for the divergence in results. One is that government
data generally are based on hours paid, rather than hours worked. Thus
a worker on paid vacation would be counted as working, even though he is
not. They also count hours per job, rather than hours per worker. Polls
force people to recall how many hours they may have worked in a previous
week, a method that frequently causes them to overestimate their actual
working time. Robinson and Godbey found that the more hours a person worked
per week, the more hours they thought they had worked. For example, people
actually working 55 hours per week thought they had worked 65 hours. The latest research from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), published
in the "Monthly Labor Review" in April, shows that the average
workweek has not changed much in the last 20 years. However, the diversity
of work arrangements has changed considerably (see figure).
Workers between the ages of 25 and over 54, who tend to work longer hours,
rose as a share of the labor force. BLS also found that the number of employees
working 49 hours or more per week increased and the number working just
40 fell. Those working over 49 hours tended to be high-paid employees --
managers and professionals. In the end, the real question is not whether people are working longer,
but whether they are happy with whatever work arrangement they have. Surveys
indicate that by and large workers are satisfied and many would prefer more
hours of work, rather than fewer, as the recent UPS strike demonstrated. Source: Bruce Bartlett, senior fellow, National Center for Policy Analysis,
September 1, 1997. |
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