by the Sandwichman
Neely Tucker at the WaPo does a very thoughtful riff on the Boston Fed study, "Measuring Trends in Leisure," the Sandwichman castigated a couple of weeks ago on MaxSpeak, here and here.
Excerpt:
Hurst and fellow authors report working-age Americans (ages 21 to 65) have the equivalent of five to 10 extra weeks of leisure time each year, compared with 1965, thanks to better technology and shorter work hours. Most of it is in 20-, 30-minute chunks. People spend most of it watching television. A companion study, with a longer lens, says that Americans spend about one-third fewer hours at work today than they did in 1900.
This would be truly startling were it not for the herd of researchers who compute the same data and come to the complete opposite conclusion -- that Americans work harder and longer than perhaps ever before. Work, in this view, has become something between a religion and a cell-phone-and-BlackBerry-fueled neurotic obsession that goes on in the office, at home and in between.
Posted by sandwichman at February 19, 2006 07:11 AM