In last 40 years, the average working hour of US employees has steadily declined. In 1965, people spent average of 51 hours per week on the job (including commuting time, lunch breaks, etc.); today, that number is down to 40 hours. People spend their increased (11 hours per week) leisure time on shopping, housework, watching TV, reading the newspaper, going to parties, relaxing, playing golf, surfing the Web, visiting friends, and having sex.
However, according to the same study (link above), in last 40 years, 10% of the us - the high-skilled, high-paid workforce, have not seen leisure time increased at all, we still do 51 hours per week as of today. At the opposite, the bottom 10% of us - the low-skilled, low-paid workforce, have gained a staggering weekly 14 leisure hours a week. So in another word, we compensate our low pay with more leisure time.
3 comments:
Being on the low end of the pay scale where I work . . . I know that those leisure hours are eaten up working overtime. . . It is really the only way a lay end worker can make it with costs rising faster than wages.
Ciao
Perhaps the low hours put into the job is WHY the low-wage workers are at the bottom of the pay scale. I don't see the extra leisure hours as compensation. It may be more a "you get what you pay for" scenario.
being low paid, and under worked contributes to the gap between the haves and have nots - we are not rewarding these people, we are keeping them down, under control and desperate
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