When I was a young man in the 1950s and 1960s it was common to see articles in the press explaining what the results of “automation” would be over the next 50 years or so. At that time “automation” was seen as something slightly threatening that carried the prospect of robots that looked and sounded rather like artificial people. Changes to factory production methods and the introduction of electronic processes were the main changes that most people were becoming aware of.
Remember too that this was a time before personal computers. In those days, as a psychologist and researcher, I used to get my data analysed with a huge batch of punched cards. Even before these cards could be prepared and fed into the computer, the data had to be coded onto special sheets together with lines of carefully prepared FORTRAN code that would tell the computer what analyses to carry out. I would wait expectantly overnight for the results – usually to be confronted with an error message because I had missed a full stop or comma somewhere in the code – which meant starting the process again and another overnight wait!
Despite what now seems an antiquated and extremely time consuming process we could already see glimpses of the changes that electronics and information technology would bring. It seemed clear at the time that many things, even relatively “modern” activities such as preparing the punched cards that were currently done by people, would be automated in the future. Although this prospect generated a certain amount of unrest and anxiety amongst the trades unions, there was also a very strong view that it would make life easier for many people. Commentators would often talk about how people would only need to work two or three days a week and that leisure time would be significantly expanded … what went wrong!?!
In this country we have the longest working hours in Western Europe and there are very few people with successful careers at senior levels who work part-time. The obvious conclusion to draw is that, rather than take additional leisure time when presented with time-saving technology and processes, people prefer to improve their standard of living. In fact, the material standard of living in the country has improved markedly since the 1950s, while our levels of happiness have declined – the proportion of people saying they are “very happy” fell from 52% in 1957 to just 36% in 2006. So why do we make this choice or thinking error?
It occurs to me that one possible solution to the economic difficulties that we are in at the moment, which have created many job losses and will create yet more, would be to employ more people on a part-time basis. Of course, there are many reasons why this is not a straightforward solution. Many people “need” full-time jobs to ensure their current standard of living – but, bearing in mind the happiness levels given above, what value is this high standard of living based on material things anyway? Maybe it’s time to realise that we’ve gone far enough down that road and that happiness needs to come from something else in life.
There is a lot of interest nowadays in happiness and well-being. I can’t help feeling that until we re-evaluate the balance between work and non-work including the actual importance of material things, as a nation, our happiness levels will continue to go down rather than up.
Interesting perspective. Perhaps we should be much more forceful about teaching our children that it is not about bablance but about fit. Find what you love and work in it. Result – happy people
For some people in difficult financial situations scaling down their expenditures and finding part time work might help them to be less stressed. Having no job and a high overhead can be quite stressful. If they reduce their stress levels they might even be happier as well.