If we think of human history as an inexorable path to progress, we will always live better in the future than in the past. Or in the present. This is the case when it comes to work: if in 1870 we dedicated around 3,000 hours a year, today we barely reach 1,500. But it is not in other aspects of life, which explains the unease that attends the younger generations. We work less, yes, but we also have less “free time”. Less leisure.
In figures. They are offered by the OECD. Between 1980 and 2010, the number of hours spent in “leisure” fell in eight of the thirteen developed countries. 14% in South Korea, 11% in Spain, 6% in the Netherlands, 5% in Hungary and 1% in the United States. Other country-by-country studies show the same pattern: if in 1970 the British enjoyed 6 hours of leisure a day, today it is 5 hours and 23 minutes. A “time poverty” that has increased in at least ten OECD countries.
Why? There is thus a paradox. “Free time” has entered a crisis at the same time that our working hours have been reduced. This Financial Times article tries to answer the question. The key seems to revolve around children: the time we spend on their education has doubled since the 1970s, taking us away from other idle tasks like going to the movies, reading a book, or meeting friends. “Taking care” of our children is today a priority activity. The parents of yesteryear fitted her into the general framework of things.
Helicopters. This squares with other studies on modern forms of parenthood. If in the sixties Spanish mothers allocated barely half an hour a day to their children, today it is more than two and a half hours, a pattern that is repeated in all developed countries. It is the triumph of “helicopter parenting”, an educational trend popularized in the 1970s and that imposes a very intense role of mentoring and supervision on parents.
Faced with the traditional extremes of authoritarianism and libertarianism, “helicopter parents” yearn to prepare and position their children in the best possible way in a socio-economic environment perceived as more hostile. This requires a lot of attention. Long time.
Back to leisure. Along the way we have left our leisure. Also for other reasons. As this article in The Atlantic suggests, technology has blurred the “free time” and “work” barriers. Our working hours may have been formally reduced, but in practice it has gained porosity by merging with leisure in a single device, the mobile phone. Similar words can be written about telecommuting. There is greater availability in exchange for other amenities.
Variability, future. Of course, each country experiences this phenomenon differently. Germany or France dedicate a smaller percentage of their daily time to work compared to China, where the 996 shift is the new prestigious standard in the technology industry. We all have in common a greater sense of lacking time (“I don’t have time for everything”) and in general we attribute it to work. Hence, the four-day week, the six-hour shift or the UBI have gone from mere post-labor utopias to serious and debated political proposals.
The point, in view of the data, is that taking work hours does not seem to have contributed to adding “free time”. And for that problem we still have no solution.
Image: Unsplash