Millions opting out of rat race

MILLIONS of people around Europe are becoming fed up with the rat race and giving up well-paid jobs and moving home in search of a simple life.

A Datamonitor report entitled Simplicity, estimates that 12 million Europeans have chosen to ‘downshift’ their working life, by choosing to reduce their workload. This is an increase of almost one third since 1997.

The report says these people are often highly successful, typically from high-paying, high-stress jobs, such as lawyers and investment bankers, who have decided they are not entirely satisfied or fulfilled by their jobs. They often have children and want to focus more on family life.

Evidence suggests that the events of September 11 sharpened people’s focus on simplicity, but the real drivers of this change in lifestyle have been well established. These include:

* Work overload. The increasing fragmentation of European families and households means more people have to manage their social, domestic and professional lives on their own or in smaller family units

* Knowledge overload. The internet, emails and mobile phones enable people to have greater levels of contact with work and adds to the feeling of being overworked, while also quickening the pace of life.

* Hype overload. People are exposed to more marketing messages than ever before. In Ireland, it is estimated people are exposed to 1,600 commercial messages a day.

“Our research finds that many people employed in full-time jobs are increasingly looking to simplify their lives as they suffer from the mounting number of things they have to deal with daily.

“Too many demands on time, too much information and even too many choices leave many feeling burned out at the end of a day. This is leading some to reassess what really matters to them.

“Is it to earn more and spend more, or is it to focus on family, relationships and other human and family values, ” Dominik Nosalik, Datamonitor consumer markets analyst and author of the report said.