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[Review]
Back in the late sixties, thinkers on both sides of the Atlantic were troubled by
problems which may seem strange to us today: they were worried that the leisure age
which they believed was fast approaching would leave people with too much time on their
hands. They were worried that the work ethic was losing its grip on a new rebellious
generation and they pondered how they would motivate people to work.
They needn't have worried. The much-predicted "leisure age" promised by technology
has not materialized. In fact, quite the reverse: people are working harder than ever.
There is less leisure time and, most surprising of all, the very workers with the greatest
bargaining power are choosing to work the hardest. The problem is the burnout of white-
collar Britain.
For over a century, the average number of hours spent working over a lifetime slowly
declined in Britain. The historian James Arrowsmith has calculated that in 1856 our
ancestors put in 124,000 hours over a 40-year working life and, by 1981, it was 69,000.
There it remained for a decade, but in the early nineties it began to increase again. On
average full-time British workers now put in 80,224 hours over their working life, and that
figure rises to 92,000 for those on a 50-hour week, which is common among the self-
employed, the skilled, and professional and managerial workers. Many are working the
kind of hours that would have been familiar to factory workers in the middle of the 19th
century. The only difference is that now it's the bosses who are more likely to be putting
in the hours than those on the shop floor.
Britain has followed a US model of all work, no play, in contrast to continental Europe.
Full-time workers in Britain now work the longest hours in Europe
an average of 43.6
hours per week compared with an EU average of 40.3. Even more marked is the
difference in holidays between Britain and continental Europe; the UK has, on average, 28
days a year, well behind France with 47, Italy with 44 and Germany with 41. Add the
difference in weekly hours and holidays and it amounts to the British working almost eight
weeks a year more than their European counterparts.
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