Time Poverty

Overview

Accompanying societal shifts in Western countries from industrial to service economies is a shift in how much time people spend in paid labor. In both Europe and the United States, scholars have drawn attention to rising hours in paid labor resulting in the social problem of time poverty, also referred to as time deprivation, time scarcity, time famine, the time crunch, and the time squeeze.

Although the issue is prominent in Europe, evidence suggests that American workers have long clocked more hours of paid labor than their European counterparts, and the gap is widening. Juliet Schor started a national conversation with her book, The Overworked American, in which she documents increasing work hours for Americans since the 1960s. More recently, she uses Current Population Survey (CPS) data to present a striking trend: Between 1973 and 2000, the average American worker added an additional 199 hours to his or her annual paid labor schedule (2003). This translates into 5 additional weeks of work per year if one assumes a 40-hour workweek. Not all scholars agree with Schor's measurement of work time. Some scholars argue that leisure time has [Page 1351]increased for individuals. However, recent evidence suggests that when households are the unit of analysis, a rising time squeeze is evident. More households are headed by single parents, primarily women, and dual-earner couples; hence, overall time available for activities outside of work has grown more scarce.

Why are Americans working longer hours in recent decades? Juliet Schor's work points to demands of greedy work institutions and rising consumerism. Other scholars suggest only some Americans are overworked, primarily those employed in large firms, those with high levels of education, and those working on the highest rungs of the occupational ladder. Quantitative data analyses suggest a bifurcated workforce with overworked employees and underemployed workers. In the past two decades, the number of people working more than 50 hours per week increased, while the number working less than 30 hours also increased. In short, the economy and employers benefit if some workers have high demands and excessively long days, while other workers have jobs that fail to provide enough time on the job and money to meet workers' needs. The rise of part-time work is troublesome if employees are working part-time because of the lack of full-time jobs. Employers reap major advantages by having a high percentage of employees in part-time work, including having a larger reserve workforce, paying lower hourly wages, and providing fewer benefits. However, for some workers it takes two or more part-time positions, some not captured in official statistics, to make ends meet. For those workers, a full-time position with benefits may be more desirable but less attainable in the current economic landscape.

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