Explanation 1 : Freedom of choice. Work is becoming more challenging
enjoyable so we `vote' to do more of it.
Explanation 2 : Employer exploitation. Employers prefer to hire 2
workers
for 60 hours per week rather than 3 for 40 hours.
Explanation 3 : Insecurity about `Keeping Up'. There is a revolution of
rising expectations as everyone competes against each other to stay
employed, get ahead, etc.
Jonathan identifies `3' as most plausible and asks : what is the right
policy response?
To the extent that `3' forms part of the explanation of why working
hours
(but not necessarily paid employment hours) are increasing in the UK and
US,
it is perhaps worth connecting it to the focus of personal aspiration
(also
a buzz word for the Third Way) which, to my mind, tends to be associated
with `getting on' as `an individual' rather than with any aspiration to
reduce working hours that time is `made' for other activities. And, of
course, this connects to `2' insofar as people who `volunteer' their
unpaid
labour are rather easier to exploit.
My perception is that New Labour's `Third Way' has accepted this
commonsense
meaning of aspiration rather than seeking to question, redefine or at
least
`stretch' it to encompass other aspirations.
One way to encourage this `stretching' would be to place a positive
value
upon those people who exemplify these broader aspirations - for example,
by
celebrating and publicly supporting their `mundane' accomplishments. It
is
they, in addition to others associated with the world of work and/or
consumption who seem to gain instant access to No 10, who might be held
up
as examples for the rest of us to `aspire' to.
That would be one positive and comparatively inexpensive way of helping
to
`create a climate in which relating to other people - whether it is to
your
partner, children, friends, community, whatever - is more important than
"winning" in a business or work context'.
Hugh Willmott
hr22@dial.pipex.com
also at
Hugh.Willmott@umist.ac.uk
Manchester School of Management
UMIST
PO Box 88
Manchester M60 1QD
England
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