{"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":53,"pdf_page":61,"physical_index":61,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"0732530d9ac275e041e2dee332ff5f29e4d52db4ba72dca999f04124192b3e2f"},"chapter":"FOR","content":"Even if we believe that the patchy ATUS data indicate that total work time did modestly decrease in the final decades of the twentieth century, the decline is still small in comparison to increases in productivity. Moreover, Robinson and Godbey acknowledge that regardless of the real trend in discretionary time, there is a pervasive sense in contemporary society that people face a time bind, with ever more demands made on scarce free time. They suggest that part of the reason for this sense of time scarcity is the ongoing accumulation of commodities, which require time for their use. This interpretation implies that capitalist mass production in conjunction with mass consumption leads to an imbalance in the structure of people’s lives, with too much time spent at work and not enough time to make use of the things that work produces. The obvious solution would be to channel increasing productivity into more free time rather than more production and consumption. That this has not occurred to any significant degree is precisely the puzzle under consideration in the present investigation.\n\nParticipation in part-time work is also afected by changes in education. As the number of full-time adult students increased, so too did the number of part-time workers, since many students work part-time in order to help support themselves during their studies. This has the same diluting efect on average hours across the working population as the entry of women into the labor force as part-time employees. John D. Owen’s (1988) research indicates that for nonstudent men, the working week actually increased slightly in the thirty-eight-year period between 1948 and 1986, from 42.7 to 42.8 hours. Owen maintains, more generally, that any reduction in the length of the working week after 1950 can be accounted for by changes in the composition of the workforce rather than by changes of preference among the more homogenous working population prior to 1950. On Owen’s (1988, p. 42 [emphasis added]) assessment: “The series for working hours of non-student men come closest to a measure of changes over time in individual work times because this group has a minimum of other types of responsibilities. And this series has remained constant [since 1940].”\n\nEmpirical Pattern in the United States\n\n53","previous_page":52,"next_page":54}