From the letters in The Age today:
CHANGES in the approach to work hours, in relation to family or rest time, are long overdue — but this applies to all sections of the workforce, not just those with an obvious “family” reason such as children, elderly or disabled relatives. Single, unattached members of the workforce require that their own needs are recognised in terms of reasonable work hours, matters of their own health or in their requests for vacation time. Instead of the mindset that these single workers “have nothing to go home for”, together with the added expectation that they will pick up the slack of those with parental or carers’ duties, all workers should be given equal benefit under any new approach to working conditions.
This comment is in relation to this report (more here) and I couldn’t agree more. According to the ABS (link) 1.6 million people in Australia are “living as lone persons” and in 2001 around 35% of families were couples without children (link).
We of course also have the ‘baby bonus’ which gives you a few thousand dollars in exchange for the hundreds of thousands your bundles of joy will actually cost you, not to mention the $2.7 billion dollars in family income tax breaks currently doled out by the federal government.
So, at what point does ‘helping families’ become discriminatory against the other sections of the community? Doesn’t this type of attitude towards the value of families in effect amount to a social edict dictating the ways in which it is acceptable to spend time and money (i.e. producing and maintaining offspring)? Is the implication that those without families should be expected to work more than those with families reasonable?
‹conspiracy theory›Is there a broader political or commercial agenda at work promoting population growth in order to sustain an economic system heavily dependent on endless growth?‹⁄conspiracy theory›
I’m happy for you to have time to pick your kids up after school. I just want to be allowed to go to the pub while you do it.
Not really in line with the theme of the article, but I often wonder how shops can be open solely in standard 9 to 5, 5 days of the week and still make money.
There’s a computer shop diagonally opposite my house, specialising in home computer systems. He’s open Monday to Friday, 9 to 5. In the 5-ish months that I’ve lived next to this computer shop, I’ve been home less than a handful of times during their opening hours.
Why not open late on Thursdays? Or Saturday morning? It’d give us workin’ types the opportunity to visit the shop and buy stuff with our hard-earned cash.
Nice No Fun at All reference in the title by the way. (what’s the emoticon for “tongue in cheek”)
Actually it’s an Elvis Costello song from ‘My Aim is True’ - is the No Fun at All version a cover I wonder?
I totally agree about shops, it drives me insane. Every time I need dry cleaning done it’s a ridiculous ordeal to find a place that is open at a time when I am able to get to it. I mean, who uses dry cleaners most? People who wear clothes that require dry cleaning a lot - i.e. people who work in offices wearing suits, who typically work 8-6 type hours. When are most dry cleaners open? 9-5. It’d be better if everyone opened later and closed later. Also in this category, banks and motor mechanics.
On the other hand, who wants to be the sucker working irregular hours to suit the rest of society’s schedule?
I suspect the work-life balance issue has mainly arisen from the fact that the cost of living is now based on the buying power of somewhere between 1 & 2 full-time workers, as opposed to simply 1 full-time income as it was in the good ol’ days. Back then a wife was an expense, but these days you almost need a partner just to be able to afford to rent! When you think about it, it’s quite a reversal in thinking, and I think most people aren’t aware of the shift.
To me it seems a logical consequence that if the average household has two working adults, then any households with less than two incomes will struggle, and noone (least of all single people) will have any free time left. Ever.
If you have kids, you lose half your income AND land a bunch of expenses at the same time. So on closer inspection I guess it doesn’t seem all that evil / controlling / conspiracy-theoryish if the government recognises this fact and throws a few bucks the way of new parents. As you imply, it won’t come anywhere near making baby-making into a moneyspinner.
What irritates me is well-paid professionals who seem to want their cake & eat it too. If you want an expensive lifestyle (which you may not even recognise is expensive until you try living amongst commoners), generally you need to put in long hours to pay for it. It’s certainly easier than working in the mines.
I think the real question is - how do we make everyone in the world spontaneously and suddenly agree that 3-day weekends are the way to go?
i see this situation a LOT in my work, most notably in call centres which rely heavily on rostering and i am yet to work out a clear cut resolution as there are so many factors to take into consideration.
the most hilarious example i can give is the shit fight that went down between two members and a manager who were essentially arguing over what was more important - the single unmarried members regular pilates class or the married mother of two and her ongoing child care commitments.
as for your conspiracy theory - i dont think it’s much of a secret that the government wants us to continue to churn out the babies at lightning pace as demonstrated by the baby bonus, which i believe was a knee jerk reaction to ongoing pressure to deal with the issues of an aging population/workforce (as well as an obvious election sweetener).
the problem as i see it is that once you do pop the blighter out you are faced with inadequate levels of paid maternity leave which force parents to come back too work early in many cases (the impacts of which are far more worrying than missing pilates again this week), incredibly long waiting lists and high costs associated with child care centres (all of which close at 6pm by the way) and the brutal reality that on average, most women are forced to cop a reduction in pay and status in order to accomodate this new addition to their world.
As much as we hate to admit it, single, childless people just dont have to contend with this - and so yes, while this statement is reasonable i believe it is somewhat short sighted in the grand scheme of things. Of course everyone should be treated equally in the workplace but put it into context - if you were an employer and were forced to mediate the problem as outlined above - what would your decision be? which commitment would you determine to be more ‘important’?
ps - for the record: i am not married and i do not have children.
“If you have kids, you lose half your income AND land a bunch of expenses at the same time. So on closer inspection I guess it doesn’t seem all that evil / controlling / conspiracy-theoryish if the government recognises this fact and throws a few bucks the way of new parents. As you imply, it won’t come anywhere near making baby-making into a moneyspinner.”
Yeah, but I guess the real question is: why should the world at large pay for it just because it’s expensive? If I start collecting vintage sports cars, will the government “thow a few bucks” my way? I doubt it, somehow.
Having kids is a choice. Yes, it costs a lot of money. But so do a lot of choices. For example, what (if any) kind of house you buy is a choice, which might involve greater or lesser expenses. Why, rationally, should the particular choice to have children be rewarded with time off work, tax breaks, special treatment, etc etc? The obvious answer is, because society (whatever that means) values children and the fact that people have children. But where do you draw the line? How many children should you be rewarded for? At what point are you just crazily pumping out a bunch of offspring instead of working and contributing like the rest of the world?
I’m playing devil’s advocate to a certain extent, and I do in fact think that there should be better parental (NB: not ‘maternity’) leave - but it’s worth questioning the assumption that “children = something to be rewarded for”. It’s definitely worth considering whether those who choose not to have kids shouldn’t be given equal leeway to spend their time on something other than working while everyone else is on leave with the kids.
“as for your conspiracy theory - i dont think it’s much of a secret that the government wants us to continue to churn out the babies at lightning pace as demonstrated by the baby bonus, which i believe was a knee jerk reaction to ongoing pressure to deal with the issues of an aging population/workforce (as well as an obvious election sweetener)”
…with the obvious problem being that this requires ever more children, who then get old, who then require even more children to support THEM, and so on… perhaps we can outsource ’supporting our aging population’ to China and India?