Abstract : There is a paradoxical relationship between, on one hand, the observation that, in general, people feel busier now than they did previously, and on the other, the evidence (from time diary data) that societies have somewhat less, or at least overall, no more work than they had previously. But the connections between amounts of work and feelings of busyness are in fact neither direct nor simple. In what follows, a line of theoretical argument from Thorsten Veblen, and dating from the end of the 19th century, concerning the social construction of leisure, is redeployed, in the context of the changed economic circumstances at the start of the 21st century, to the construction of feelings of busyness. Work, not leisure, is now the signifier of dominant social status. Evidence from three UK time diary studies (1961, 1983/4 and 2001) shows that over this period the Veblen-type negative relationship between social status (as indicated by human capital) and work time is reversed high human capital is now associated with longer hours of work. This is consistent with the Veblen-derived theoretical line; however a complete demonstration of the theoretical position would require historical evidence on both time allocation and feelings of busyness for the same individuals, which is not available for the UK.
Source : Institute for Social and Economic Research
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