strikes each year. Similarly, while reports on all strikes become less common in the 1990s, they do not vary in number by that much over the preceding decades. So, at least until the last decade or two of the century, the dramatic decline in the number of reports about strikes over hours cannot easily be explained just by a general reduction in industrial action. Now it could be that union leaders post-1945 simply ignored the preference of rank-and-file members for fewer hours. Yet it seems very improbable that, had concerns about hours been as intense in the postwar period as in the first fifth of the century, so few strikes would have taken place about the issue after 1945. Union leaders are, after all, elected oficials.
- The stabilization of work hours in the postwar period was partly encouraged by the state because of concerns about maintaining production during the Cold War. Fear of a return to depression also played a role, particularly with respect to union attitudes. Since the received narrative about the Depression was that it was caused by inadequate efective demand, pushing for higher wages rather than shorter hours seemed like a way to secure jobs. For a rich synthetic discussion of the political economy of this period of US history, see James Sparrow (2011).
- Something akin to what Hochschild describes—the embrace of work as an alternative to the discontents of family life—certainly seems to have been a big factor in in the decision of women in the middle decades of the twentieth century to enter the workforce. Indeed, the trade-of between leisure and work was (and probably still is) diferent for women than for men, as not being at work for women meant being constrained by traditional gender roles (Friedan 1963). To the extent that work was an alternative to the shackles of domesticity, it is not surprising that many women threw themselves into paid labor.
- Indeed, the fact that from the mid-century onward pay and conditions were set by collective bargaining meant that it would have been easier to coordinate a general move to a new work-time regime.
- As philosopher Elizabeth Anderson (2000) has noted, the idea of unpopular norms, kept in play because of intersubjective ignorance about real preferences, does not give a good account of how such norms take hold in the first place. The theory of unpopular norms presupposes that people are quite passive with respect to the making of norms, following them purely in order to avoid the consequences of violating them. Yet for any norm to get up and running, some significant part of the population must be willing to sanction those who fail to follow the norm. Especially in the early stages of the development of a norm, people’s motivation for sanctioning others for failing to follow the norm cannot be reduced to fear of others sanctioning them for failing to do so. While a norm could conceivably live on even after everyone has ceased to believe in it, that state of afairs is, as Anderson observes, likely to be highly unstable.
- The social security safety net, which began to be extended with the Social Security Act of 1935, arguably lessened the urgency of saving for life after retirement—yet this still leaves the question of why not having to save led people to spend more rather than work less.
- Another possible argument that adduces life expectancy as a variable to explain people’s preference for more income over more free time during their working lives is that income and life expectancy are correlated such that at higher incomes, life spans are longer. While there is certainly an empirical relation between income and life span, this is, I think, nonetheless a rather weak argument. At the aggregate level, higher average incomes do not necessarily mean longer life spans. For example, Costa Rica has a higher life expectancy than the United States, even though its per capita GDP is only 12 percent of that of the United States (Ofer 2006). So, it is certainly possible for a society to have a high life expectancy at quite modest levels of income. Moreover, under conditions of afluence, the correlation between income and life expectancy is mediated by the correlation between income and lifestyle. It is possible, once a certain minimum standard of living has been achieved, for people on relatively modest incomes to live in a healthy manner, increasing longevity. In addition, work is itself often a source of profound physical and psychological stress, which tends to reduce life expectancy. It might well be the case that working less, given the right background conditions, would decrease stress to a degree that would make up for the life span increasing efect of income.
Notes to Pages 59–64
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