We need to get a life outside the workplace
The slogan supporting this initiative proclaimed ‘It’s about time!’ and the literature suggested that getting the balance right could “make us more efficient at work and at life”.
There was a welcome place in the calendar for reflection on the balance between work and life and the encouragement of initiatives promoting greater flexibility from employers.
Suggesting we make better use of the time we do have tends to obscure other important areas of debate.
Other factors that impact on our work/life balance include work overload, incessant pressure to increase productivity and efficiency, diminution of employment security, the impact of globalisation on employment opportunities and conditions, stress, lengthy commutes to and from work, individualisation of tax bands, the threat of job migration and the reshaping of citizenship towards a less inclusive model of the ‘citizen worker’.
How can one get the balance right when paid employment makes us so tired we cannot meaningfully engage with family and friends, cannot afford to purchase a home, endure increasingly lengthy journeys to work, as well as childcare costs?
It is particularly disheartening to see the language of the market applied to non-work domains - telling us to be more ‘efficient’ at life.
Why? Will this make us happier and less critical about work and associated quality of life factors?
Maybe it is time for something other than the relentless preoccupation with efficiency and productivity.
Kenneth Burns
Department of Applied Social Studies
University College Cork
