Full Research Paper Draft

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     I am posting my research paper draft here in hopes of gaining a few reader responses. Any and all critiques are welcome. Thank you for your time!

Rory McIlvenny

Labor and Leisure: America’s losing Battle

American’s free time is under siege. For an extended and growing amount of time, we have been robbed of valuable time that is needed to develop families and relationships, not to mention cultures, by the very system that is meant to uphold all these things: the work force. As we forfeit our personal time for the betterment of American employers, we bring on a number of negative repercussions to the mode that we all live and know. Some of these are in our homes, some are in our minds; collectively, this brings about negative mutation of our social fabric. We all need to recognize that “free time” doesn’t just mean we have the ability to watch T.V. or frolic at the beach, but also to properly raise our children and volunteer ourselves in proactive social programs. The importance of this free time is not being acknowledged. We are losing it, and there will be consequences.

Life is seemingly similar to a scale. We inevitably weigh one side down with our mean of well being: our job. The weight of this necessary time spent provides clothes on our backs, a roof over our head, and food on the table. It enriches us with flashy goods to help publicly proclaim and establish our place in American society, but this weight is growing heavy. As the scale tilts down to one side, the opposing side rises. As time moves on, year after year, the weight gradually becomes no match for its opposing contender. This is not a fair fight, and on the losing side is our free time. With an increasing loss of our leisure time to the imposed extended hours of labor that many Americans have no choice but to take part in annually, a negative affect is happening to us, and in turn, our domestic environments. Collectively, these negative affects promote terrible changes in the fabric of our society.

Some say that the work-before-play type work ethic we possess as Americans arrived here on the Mayflower in 1620 (Pitman par. 9). The English Separatists practiced Protestant Calvinism, a religion that promoted abundant work in exchange for God’s approval. This equated wealth to atonement. With an ideology like this, one would expect vast towns and structures to be built in a short amount of time because of the added incentive (Hill sec. 4). Not only did this happen, but as time pressed on, we became a thriving country and our population grew. As with most populations under a government, laws had to be put into place. These laws were not only put in place for civilian order, but also to govern the business world.

 As you can imagine, without labor laws, employers are legally able to work their employees to any length of time with zero guidelines. It wasn’t until 1935 that our first legitimate labor laws were set in place. First was the National Labor Relations Act, which gave power to labor unions, then the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which set standards regarding minimum wage and overtime pay (“Labor” sec. 3). These enacted laws laid the groundwork on which every applicable American business operates on today. These laws were spelled out for employers in order to protect employees, and social conditions from mistreatment. But as history has shown, labor laws are no match against the laws of supply and demand.

Above all other governors, the length of time that any employee works is ultimately controlled by supply and demand. Supply and demand conditions can be the result of, or result in, a recession. If we take a step back and look at the past history of American recessions, there is a definite “ebb and flow” pattern. During flow (or expansion), businesses often work their employees long hours with a full work crew in order to meet demand. During a recession, however, businesses need to make cut backs. Employees are often laid off at this time to cut payroll. To maintain the level of production prior to the recession, remaining workers must compensate for the untended work as well as their own.

In 1991, the last major recession from what is now known as the Great Recession of 2007-June 2009 occurred (Rampell). In 1991, the average weekly hours worked by Americans was 34.3 (Hatch 16), the federal minimum wage jumped from $3.35 to $4.25 (Walsh 1) and unemployment rose from 5.6 to 6.8% (“United”). While it may have been a bit of a challenge to land a job at this time, the ones who had a job were not complaining, opposed to a few years later in 1994 during an expansion when many people were. Factory workers were working a weekly average of five hours of overtime; one third of Americans worked the weekends (Schor par 6-7), and America had a gross domestic product (GDP) twelve and a half times the size of Canada’s (“GDP”). Concern about an over worked America was visible in multiple media facets.

As we emerge from yet another recession, I anticipate yet another phase of an overworked America. This situation never repairs itself. Rarely, the work lessens, and with the inevitability of recessions and the laws of supply and demand, the work increases. What we are left with is very little tangible free time and a myriad of negative consequences as a result of this. One of the most visible and reported aftereffect of overworking is sleep deprivation.

With so much we all have to do condensed into one twenty-four hour period, it is no wonder our sleep schedule takes a beating. Often people spend so much of their time working, as well as commuting to and from work that little time is left to complete all other necessary tasks in their day. On top of this, and adding to the problem, approximately one out of two Americans does not leave their occupation at the workplace. It is becoming increasingly popular in our country to continue our occupational tasks, and stress, at home (Glavin). We are living in fast times. Information and communication can be passed to and from recipients in a matter of nanoseconds. The information era has paid dividends to business profits, but has offered only debt to our sleep. With our country only sleeping an average of 6.7 hours a night on a week day (National), we can only expect a host of problems to arise.  Close to a third of participants in one study said that they not only worked too much and slept too little, but have also drifted asleep at the wheel. Those who were sacrificing sleep for work also felt that their sex life had taken a toll, according to the National Sleep Foundation.  Others believe that the lack of sleep is not so much found in the actual number of hours Americans spend doing it, but in the quality of sleep they are getting. An active mind is one of the very things that sleep is meant to alleviate (University), but with little time to relax from an overworked day, this is difficult to achieve.

 In 2001, a startling discovery was made by Y. Liu and H. Tanaka of The Fukuoka Heart Study. In their study, a correlation was found between people who were overworked and under slept, and the development of acute myocardial infarction (AMI); commonly known as the heart attack. Overtime work has long been associated with AMI causing conditions such as stress, high blood pressure, depression, and chronic fatigue (Liu). This connection marks the silent bridge that fills the gap between our intensive work schedules and medical conditions that we can live with for the rest of our lives. These conditions are not always so “silent.”

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there was a total of 4,340 work related deaths and 3.3 million work related injuries last year. Many of these could have been avoided had equal attention been paid toward employees rest and the attention that was given to the business they were working for. Muscles weaken and attention fades when people are on the job too long. A taxicab driver could be unaware of an approaching bicyclist. A construction worker could lose their balance on a high rise. A police officer could mistake the cell phone in a suspects hand for a gun. A logger could fall a tree on themselves, or their coworkers. None of these instances are too farfetched; they happen all the time. In 2005, those who worked overtime had a 61 percent greater risk of injury (Dembe). As work presses on into later hours, we cannot remain as keen and aware as we were. Slips, bangs, and bruises are bad enough when they happen to us, but I feel that it is far worse to injure a coworker out of a loss of perception, reaction, or concentration. Losing these skills is a byproduct of the overworking that, often, all parties involved are enduring. This can be an enormous psychological stress. But the strain does not have to come from direct physical injury; it can also come from within.

As humans, we all need goals. Without goals, we have nothing to work toward. Motivation itself is the power behind us that brings us closer to our goals. Whether a goal is attainable or not can determine one’s overall state of happiness. Some people are motivated at work because they can see a clear-cut attainable goal, others are only motivated to go to work, and their goals do not reside at their workplace (Reeve 105). Working long hours takes away time spent at home that could be used to accomplish personal goals. When this happens negative attention can be placed on work, and in return, without goals, depression can emerge. Employees who work excessive overtime are depressed at a rate more than twice that of workers who work moderate to minimal overtime (Galinsky). It is important that we maintain goals outside of our work. It appears that problems arise when work is no longer is a part of our life, but our life is contained in our work. It is at this point that the line between both aspects of our lives, work and personal, becomes blurred. This affect on our personal lives not only effects us but also the ones we care about the most.

The massive amounts of excess labor Americans take on every year is a direct contributor to the breakdown of the domestic/ family life.  The domestic life is a complete job in itself. A brief list of some of the duties that an average family might have to meet on a systematic basis are: pick up groceries, clean the house, take out the trash, handle the bills, wash the dog, fix the car, mow the lawn, home repairs, pick up the kids, teacher conferences, little league games, etc. the list goes on. Once upon a time in America, the average family had a full time worker to handle many of these tasks. That position was held by the “homemaker.” Nowadays, the “homemaker” position is held as a minority as it has become commonplace for both parents to work. With whatever chores that can be done after a long day of work being shared among all parties, much of this “full-time job” goes unattended, or is completed substandard (Schor).

It seems as though the days of the standard tight-knit big American families are gone. It just is not common for multiple generations to live under one roof anymore, let alone keep in close contact as we once did. Some say that with the progressive adding of labor hours over a period of generations, people have generally become wealthier and can afford to take care of themselves in their later years. With more money comes the greater ability to save and invest. This gives Americans the ability to retire and die, all the while supporting themselves on money that is their own without ever having to depend on the support of the younger generation and simultaneously evaporating the need to live close by (Ruggles 5). Another belief is that the main reason that generations are able to remain separate from each other is because of the Social Security Benefit program, incepted in 1935. This program allows money to be paid to retirees regardless of if they are able to save during their career, just as long as they are able to pay into the program while they work. This belief is shared and agreed upon mainly among sociologists (McGarry 221). This sounds feasible in theory, but as of current, the average amount of Social Security benefit money paid to a retired person monthly is $1,177.00 (Social). This figure, multiplied by two (one check for each party of a unified couple), comes to $2,354.00. This is a substantial drop from the average monthly working household income of $4,176.00 (DeNavavas 5). I do not think that living solely from social security benefits is a realistically sustainable life style and will ultimately lead to the necessity of additional income, i.e. more work, or living in with a younger generation. But how does the overworking of one generation affect the upbringing of another? An inspection of these generational effects is necessary.

As indicated earlier, in the not so distant past, the average American household had a homemaker. This position was held more often than not by the wife within a marriage. Conservatively speaking, additional to her daily jobs of cooking and cleaning and much of the housework, she was also the primary caregiver of the children within a family. With it now being commonplace for both parents to work, the question lies in how does this affect the children? According to Childstats.gov, in 2006, nearly 25 percent of participating families made use of a “center-based” child care. Over 15 percent had people that were, other than daycare, not even related to them watch their children (United). If a child is in daycare for the duration of, on average, one of their parents work days, that equals 8 hours a day, 160 hours a month, 1,920 hours a year. This equates to 240 days not spent with a child in the first three years of life if a parent is unable to take a leave of absence from work. Even if they had taken a leave of absence, this time away from their child is only delayed, and the time adds up as the years press on. This time away later takes its toll on a parent’s ability to be involved in a child’s education.

Studies have shown that a lack of participation from parents often shows through in the poor academic achievements of their offspring (“What”). In an additional study it was shown that it is not uncommon, or it could even be described as prevalent, for under-educated young men to follow in a life of deviance and crime (Silva 1050). By the nature of excessive work in America, it appears that we are plaguing ourselves with a crime filled social future. With the less time we are able to spend “mending” the home, the more problems arise for ourselves. Sooner than later these problems cannot be held in by the confining walls of our homes. These problems spread like a pandemic, infecting neighborhoods, communities, counties, states and so on. In the long run, the extended long hours we all, as a country, put in at work is causing a negative impact on the social fabric of America as we know it.

The American workforce is very important, overworked or not, in the social fabric of our country. Not only does it provide us with the bread and butter on our table, but also a pride only found in the richest country in the world. Some would argue though, there is another force that offers an equal integrity to our country, American volunteers. These are the people who work out of the goodness of their heart, altruistically, or for whatever reason they feel fit other than the expectation of compensation. Some of America’s most important jobs are held by volunteers. A few to note include volunteers of firefighting, search and rescue, homeless shelters, domestic abuse shelters, translating, and hospice care. The act of even looking out of your window and taking notice of suspicious activity is a part of what is entailed in the Neighborhood Watch program, another program comprised of volunteers. As important as these jobs are, the reality is that the volunteer rate in the United States has been in a decade long downturn (Grimm 2; “Economic” par. 8; BLS par.7). I would predict this slump will become even more profound with the exiting of the baby-boomer generation. With the poorly organized work situation our country is in, the people who need to work, cannot find any, and the people who do work, work too much. With a problem like this, there is little room for volunteering. Those who need work are looking to sell their time and cannot afford to give it away. On the other end, people who are overworked are in dire need of free time, and do not have enough of it to give away. Some would argue that these people contribute in other ways such as monetary donations, and this is true. But, following the volunteering trend, “charitable” contributions in America are also at a down turn (Bond par. 1).

The utter lack of gratuitous time, or the disparity for work that Americans endure, inevitably places our focus locally as we try to make everything all right for ourselves and our loved ones.  Unfortunately, the nature of this survival-type-mode that labor and economic conditions put us in does not spawn an extended amount of giving. When we stop extending a helping hand to the ones in need, we are at risk of inadvertently creating a self barricade. The result of this is a society with little communication.

Many Americans do not know their neighbors, and many don’t want to. According to a survey that was published by American Demographics, “a full 13 percent prefer that their closest neighbor live five miles down the road.” This figure, added with those who would prefer to communicate with their neighbors at an extremely minimal level, constituted over half of the population surveyed (Lach 1). It seems that a lot of people just do not want to be what they may consider as, bothered, by neighbors. I suspect this falls in line with areas explored previously. When people have little time for themselves and their family, it may seem frivolous to build relationships with surrounding neighbors. But social communication does not stop within the neighborhood. The Parent Teacher Association, the local Parks and Recreation Committees, the City Council, and the local police department are all organizations that, with positive communication, American’s can enforce a more just society. When there is clear communication among neighbors and groups, a positive effect is significantly shown in the number of neighborhood crimes (Bellair, 1). Unfortunately, much of this communication is lost or disregarded when people spend great amounts of their time at work. The runaway trend of excessive working hours in our country subtracts from the time that we need to maintain our homes, ourselves, and our societies. This time without communication greatly influences the positive amount of crime we live among.

Unfortunately, some of the things that make America beautiful also have an ugly side. I do not need to demonstrate the qualities and abilities that America has that makes our country a powerhouse, but as we have seen, America has the ability to drop an iron fist on trespassers; this is not without a cost. With a current national debt of over fourteen-trillion dollars, some think that leisure time is counterproductive. Annually, American citizens currently pay hundreds of billions of dollars in taxes to pay only the unusually low interest rate on the debt. It is expected this rate will rise to its average state in a short amount of time, rendering our tax dollars inadequate (Anonymous). With staggering statics like these, it is plausible to think that big government doesn’t just want us to work more; it needs us to work more. With more work comes more taxes, and a popular route to a lower deficit, is to raise taxes and cut government spending. This opinion contradicts the fact that President Obama signed the Bipartisan Tax Package in December of 2010. This package entailed tax cuts from the rich, on down to the poor (Associated). It appears that putting us to work in order to pick up the check that was raised by the government may not be the plan at all.

            Will we take back what is ours? Will the importance of leisure time ever be recognized here, in America, as it is in Europe? Europeans work so little compared to us. They place a high price on their leisure time. Maybe it is in our culture, passed down by our founding fathers, or maybe it is in our economic system’s ebb and flow. Either way, the overworking of America is seriously harmful to our society; first, contaminating ourselves, and then our families and homes. This negative social change spreads throughout the social fabric that bonds us, all the while building momentum. We must be aware of this and not be so eager to give up our free time. If we don’t have time to raise our families, who will? Daycare?

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