{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3","title":"Time for Things Labor, Leisure, and the Rise of Mass Consumption","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9780674250529","requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3","id":"10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3","uuid":"10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3","title":"Time for Things Labor, Leisure, and the Rise of Mass Consumption","normalized_title":"timeforthingslaborleisureandtheriseofmassconsumption","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9780674250529","isbns":["9780674250529","9780674250536","9780674979512"],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":355,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/Time%20for%20Things%20Labor%2C%20Leisure%2C%20and%20the%20Rise%20of%20Mass%20Consumption","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/10f0f318-a2eb-4ea9-8798-d4fb0304f8c3/search"},"page":{"printed_page":48,"pdf_page":56,"physical_index":56,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"02826449c171b398bc7318433142f2f9eeb0a3360a408491165868d08b835759"},"chapter":"FOR","content":"39.3 in 1990 (Lebergott 1996). Average hours per week for manufacturing workers dropped from 53 in 1900 to just over 40 at the turn of the twenty-first century.10 The National Bureau of Labor Statistics population survey found that in 2011 the average workweek for all workers was 38.3 hours, while the workweek for those who usually work full-time was 42.4 hours (for nonagricultural work, the numbers are 38.2 and 42.3, respectively). However, most of the decline in work hours since the late nineteenth century occurred before 1940. Economic historian Robert Whaples (2001), in an overview of historical research on work time in the twentieth century, notes that, although there are a variety of series measuring the workweek over time, using inconsistent measurements, they all show more or less the same pattern, “with weekly hours falling considerably during the first third of the century and much more slowly thereafter.” The length of the working week fell precipitously between 1900 and 1920, from about 60 hours to about 50 hours (a full workday).11 It subsequently continued to fall but at a significantly reduced rate, such that between 1920 and 1929, it dropped only a further 2 hours, to 48 hours per week. William Sundstrom’s (2006) analysis finds that the length of the workweek fell an average of 3.4 hours per decade from 1900 to 1950, thereafter declining only very slightly until 1980, after which it increased again to what it had been in 1950. By 1940, the full-time workweek had more or less stabilized at around 40 hours per week, and although it continued to decrease for the rest of the century, the rate of decrease became very gradual. While some recent analysts disagree with Juliet Schor’s (1991) contention that work hours actually increased toward the end of the twentieth century, the evidence shows that since the Second World War, hours have not fallen by very much, if at all (Lebergott 1996).12 Moreover, a significant number of Americans have always worked two or more jobs—according to one study, as much as 6 percent of the population (Owen 1988). This means that the average length of the workweek per job underestimates the average amount of time spent at work for each working individual.13 There has been some increase in vacation days per year, which obviously has the efect of reducing the average amount of time spent at work each week. However, economist John Owen (1988) estimates that even when vacation is taken into account, the reduction in the working week for nonstudent males between 1950 and 1986 was a mere twenty-four minutes per week (from 39.9 to 39.5 hours). Owen makes the point that nonstudent men are a good measure of underlying trends in work time because, unlike students and women, they are less likely to have other responsibilities. A decline for that population of twentyfour minutes per week between 1950 and 1986 is very small relative to the impressive increases in productivity during those years. Over the century as a whole, there was an increase in output per hour of labor of approximately 850  percent, while during the same period the working week declined by only 30 percent. Increases in labor productivity were most significant during the “big wave” period, between 1940 and 1973 (Gordon 2010). As noted, work time did fall rapidly between 1900 and 1940, but from 1940 onward, further decline in the length of the working week was minimal, despite continued increases in productivity. Across all sectors of the economy, annual work hours in the United States declined by about 10 percent between 1950 and 2014, while in the same period productivity increased by 350 percent.14\n\n48\n\nTime for Things","previous_page":47,"next_page":49}