Media Release
February 13 2012
New book warns of 'Time Bomb' for Australian workers
The
‘time bomb’ facing busy Australian workers squeezed by the demands of
work and care is the focus of a new book by
University of South Australia
researchers being launched this evening by Premier Jay Weatherill.
The book, “Time bomb: work, rest and play in Australia today”, by
Professor Barbara Pocock,
Dr Natalie Skinner and
Dr Pip Williams draws on five years’ research by UniSA’s
Centre
for Work + Life on how work affects the lives of Australian men,
women and children.
Prof Pocock says the title of the book was inspired by the “time bomb”
that many Australians are living as they try to put together jobs, home
and community life.
“People are putting together two types of time, the ‘clock time’ of work
with the ‘natural time’ of care, and this is putting the squeeze on
workers, almost half of whom are now women,” Prof Pocock says.
“Many Australians say they are fatigued, don’t get enough sleep, don’t
take their holidays, and struggle to find the time for their
relationships and families. Many feel they spend too much time
commuting.”
Pocock, Skinner and Williams say managers, professional workers, women,
carers and the sizeable proportion who work long hours or who lack
control over their working time are most affected.
“Many jobs are now very intensive, and weaker boundaries around the time
and space of work, fuelled by new technologies, means work spills out to
affect home time, leisure and personal life,” they say.
“A ‘new clock’ governs working life for many workers, especially in
expanding services, professional and managerial jobs. Our book explores
this different ‘time clock’ and the ways in which it clashes with the
other times of care and home, differentially affecting women, men and
children.
“In these differing – and clashing – time worlds, flexibility can be
both a useful servant and a demanding master and experience varies by
the nature of supervision and workplace culture, the extent of
flexibility, the ability to change working time and place, the
predictability of working time and the hours of work.”
On the home front, the book explores how men and women are attempting to
manage their household and personal lives over the life cycle, showing
how poor transport options put women on shorter ‘spatial leashes’ given
their continuing main responsibility for care and domestic work.
The book explores teen experiences putting together work, education,
home and community, showing how many suburbs plan much better for the
adults, infants and school children who live in them, than they do for
teenagers, contributing to inequality, social exclusion and poorer
wellbeing.
Pocock, Skinner and Williams argue that the time squeeze affects
workers’ ability to increase skills and qualifications, and say that
many Australians, despite working harder and longer, struggle to take
holidays and find time for recreation.
“The book shows that Australia is now a long way from the relaxed land
of the long weekend and extended beach holiday,” they say.
They examine how the ‘time bomb’ can be defused and say the notion of
work-life balance is now pathetically inadequate to the task.
“Individuals can only do so much in the face of greedy workplaces,
poorly planned transport or urban planning, and rigid clock schedules
for time that refuse the reality of ‘natural’ or ‘care time’,” Dr
Williams says.
“We reject the idea of ‘work-life balance’ – the notion that puts the
clever individual at the centre of work-life success. Many people are
not ‘masters of their own universe’, controlling how things fit together
on terms that allows the easy construction of well-articulated jobs,
families and rich community relations.
“Some people are increasingly excluded by current arrangements and in a
rich first-world country like Australia, there are many things that
citizens, governments, employers, developers, unions and community
service providers can manage better. Taking control of the length of the
working day, better managing technologies and workloads, increasing
flexibility and providing more leave are a good start.
“The future of gender relations will be shaped in part by how we manage
the real and intractable differences between the work, home and
community experiences of men and women. And whether we are able to
narrow the gaps in opportunity between people and increase social
inclusion while reducing inequality, will be affected by how well we
design and implement work, household and social relations.
“We hope that people can enjoy their work, do it alongside a larger
life, and wrangle its demands and rewards over the life course so that
lifetimes are fulfilling, sustaining, sustainable and productive.”
Media contact
- Kelly Stone office (08) 8302 0963 mobile 0417 861 832 email kelly.stone@unisa.edu.au