Such arguments involve moving beyond quantifying the volume of (paid and unpaid) hours worked in order to broach the more subtle, qualitative aspects of the meaning and experience of time. They suggest the need to explore the ways in which time is ordered and practiced as well as the density or intensity of the lived experience of time. It is clear that time pressure is complex and multidimensional. Below I will outline a schema that delineates three diferent mechanisms that cause time scarcity. But first let us turn more broadly to the cultural connotations of being busy.
Cultural Acceleration: Busy Lives
So far we have examined a range of economic and demographic factors that contribute to time pressure, such as changes in the labor market, working hours, and the composition of households. We have also considered how contemporary discourses of hyperparenting heighten perceptions of time scarcity. But there are another set of explanations that primarily focus on consumption. These explanations are related in that the dramatic shift in women’s employment coincided with the “overwork culture,” turning workers into “willing slaves” who are prepared to work ever-longer hours in a society that equates busyness with success and status.27
Such arguments see consumption in purely negative terms, as fueling long working hours because of our competitive consumerist culture. According to Schor, we are trapped in a “squirrel cage,” an insidious cycle of work and spend where we compete with our neighbors’ lifestyles and compensate for our lack of time with children by buying them things. Why, she asks, don’t afluent North Americans “downshift” and reduce both their hours of work and levels of consumption as a way out of the work-spend cycle?
If only things were so straightforward. There are deep-seated psychological reasons for apparently unnecessary consumption in a capitalist society in which people’s sense of self and sense of freedom come to be defined by money and possessions. For a long time social scientists have talked about the complex relationship between shopping and individual identity formation and the extent to which purchasing goods is a social practice oriented to others.28 The requirement for individuals to narrate their own identity through styles of consumption brings with it the demands of trying new and varied experiences, and this leads individuals toward the insatiable pursuit of more cultural practices. In short, being busy has become a necessary condition of a fulfilling lifestyle.
Chapter three
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