The Future of
Work and Leisure
By
Alexander G.M. Smith
(99999999)
December 16 1985
Table of Contents
What is Work? ...................................... 2
What is Leisure? ................................... 2
The History of Work ................................ 4
The History of the Work Ethic ...................... 5
The History of Leisure ............................. 6
The Future of Work ................................. 8
Types and Places of Work in the Future ............. 15
The Future of Leisure .............................. 16
Scenarios .......................................... 20
The Near Future with Energy: ....................... 20
The Near Future without Energy: .................... 22
Bibliography ....................................... 24
The Future of Work and Leisure
This essay discusses the future of work and leisure. Before the
future of work or leisure can be considered, their definitions must be
made and their history must be known.
What is Work?
The definition of work depends on the culture being considered. For
hunter-gatherers it is hunting game for food and gathering wild plants.
Hunter-gatherers may also do other work such as building shelters,
making weapons and preparing for ceremonial activities. Later on, in
agricultural (first wave) societies, work is mostly farming. However,
some other classes do other types of work. There may be a few traders,
some religious workers and some governing leaders. For industrial
(second wave) societies most of the work is factory work, office work
and service sector work.
The work becomes more abstract over time and the rewards for working
also become increasingly indirect. For the hunter-gatherer work was a
way of getting food and shelter directly from the environment. For the
peasant work provides food, shelter and a way of keeping his or her
lord happy. For the modern worker, work is a source of money for
paying someone else for the basic necessities and for paying taxes. In
general, work is done to "make a living" and to support the social
institutions of the day.
Workers in the future information (third wave) society may be
1
2
working at home for themselves or for someone else but they will still
be working for the same reasons as people in previous societies have
worked.
For some cultures the western concept of work may not exist. There
may not be a clear separation between work and leisure. For example
the Basuto1 have co-operative work parties in which the work gets done
with singing and gossip in an enjoyable social environment. However,
the goals of work remain the same.
The scope of this discussion about work will be limited to the
western idea of work because most of the new developments in work will
occur in the industrialized countries and their cultures.
What is Leisure?
Is leisure the opposite of work? One definition of leisure is that
it is the time spent not working. Leisure is generally enjoyable; it
shouldn't include things like time spent commuting to work, sleeping
and eating. A better definition is that leisure time is the time spent
doing what
1. pp. 19 Leisure and Work
3
one chooses to do. Usually this involves activities which are done
for pleasure.
Leisure time is spent doing many things. Most of them are forms of
play related to children's play, other activities are of a more adult
nature. Here is one categorization of leisure activities:
- Tests: comparisons relative to other people or to a personal goal
- Tests of strength
- Gladiatorial fights
- Football, boxing, wrestling
- Other contact sports
- The Olympics
- Physical exercise
- Tests of dexterity
- Video games
- Tests of intelligence
- Game shows
- Puzzles
- Chess tournaments
- Some computer puzzle games
- Games of chance
- Gambling of all sorts
- Cards
- Game shows
- Physical pleasures
- Drugs, alcohol
- Sex
- Wire-heading (a future problem: direct electrical stimulation of
the pleasure centers)
- Novelties and other things which people are curious about
- The circus
- Travelling to new places
- Social interaction
- Combines some of the above categories with the presence of others.
A game to improve your impression on others.
- Entertainment
- Being a spectator on all of the above events, vicariously
experiencing it or guessing at the outcome (vicarious gambling).
- Learning
- Improving one's skill at doing the activities listed above. This
is probably why public television is watched and why people go back
to university later in life.
4
The History of Work
To extrapolate the future we need to know a bit about the history
of work. One important characteristic of work is the amount of
time spent working. In subsistence economies 3 to 4 hours are
spent working each day2. Consider the hunter/gatherer. He just
takes his food directly from his environment. The only other work
which has to be done is cooking the food, shelter construction and
making clothing. If the hunter/gatherer lives in a warm place he
doesn't have to do very much work at all. It's almost like having
a nearby super-market where everything is free.
As time passed and the cultures became more advanced, more time was
spent on activities not directly related to staying alive. Extra
time was spent worshipping the gods and governing or dealing with
the government. More time also had to be spent to support the
people in those institutions. For example, the serf of the middle
ages spent most of his time working, partially for himself and
partially for his lord. His life wasn't completely spent working
since there were frequent holy days and other celebrations.
The amount of work was also high in the early industrial societies.
People often started working as children. They
2. pp. 17 Leisure and Work
5
also had long working weeks, with almost no time for leisure.
After peaking at about 70 hours per week (6 twelve hour days)3 the
time spent working started declining in this century. It went down
to 49.8 hours per week in 1955 in West Germany4 and now it is at
about 40 hours per week. This decline is quite significant and it
is still happening. Note that this is in Europe, the average in
the U.S.A. dropped to 40 hours per week and has been relatively
constant since World War II5. People are now working a little over
half as much as they worked a century ago.
The History of the Work Ethic
In non-industrial cultures people worked to stay alive. Work was
directly associated with life. The Greeks considered work to be
drudgery which ruined the mind. However, the Greek citizens had
slaves to do their physical work. Early Christianity thought work
was a punishment for the original sin (one didn't have to work in
the garden of Eden), but they also thought that work was good if it
helped one's needy brothers. Later on in the middle ages work
became more desirable and fashionable. Prayer was still considered
to be a better way to spend your time.
3. pp. 25 Leisure and Recreation
4. pp. xv New Patterns of Work
5. pp. 6 The Leisure Market
6
Protestantism and Luther declared that all should work if possible
and that working perfectly was a path to salvation. Calvin
considered idleness and luxury to be sins and that all must work.
This brings up a bit of a contradiction; people should work to earn
wealth but they shouldn't spend it on themselves. Puritanism came
from Calvinism and brought the Puritan/Protestant work ethic to the
new world.
With the potential lack of available work in the present and
future, the Puritan work ethic doesn't apply quite as well as it
used to. It was more useful when settlers had to work hard to stay
alive. The "Usefulness" ethic has been suggested as a modern
alternative6.
The History of Leisure
Leisure activities have probably been around ever since
intelligence developed. Children's play in the distant past was
probably similar to what children do today7. Many facets of play
provide training for survival. Prehistoric adults probably also
engaged in tests of skill and other leisure activities which
relieved boredom or improved survival skills.
6. pp. xvi New Patterns of Work
7. pp. 31 Recreation and Leisure
7
As societies grew larger and class distinctions increased, more
leisure time was available for the upper classes. In the Athenian
democracy in Greece the citizens led lives of leisure. The Olympic
games are a noteworthy high point of early organized leisure
activities. However, the slaves which supported the citizens
didn't get much leisure time.
The Roman public games provided entertainment for more classes and
more people. These games involved chariot races, gladiatorial
games and other entertainments. They were used in the later part
of the Roman Empire to keep the mobs of mostly unemployed, landless
people happy. If the crowd was unhappy, they would riot. To take
power, a budding emperor needed the support of the mob. He would
bribe the mobs with grain and entertainment, hence the phrase
"bread and circuses". This has ominous parallels to the modern
welfare state. The unemployed voters won't support any cuts to
welfare payments. If there are too many unemployed people, mob
rule may result.
Not much leisure occurred in the middle ages because the church was
in control and secular pleasures were frowned on. However, there
were still fairs and festivals, religious plays and games (like an
early version of football) enjoyed by the serfs.
In the renaissance period the influence of the church lessened and
a middle class started to appear. The leisure
8
of court life was copied to some extent by the middle classes8.
Shakespear's plays came from the end of that time and are still a
source of leisure to the current day. Similarly, classical music
originated in that time, often as music commissioned by royalty for
their entertainment.
With the increase in productivity brought about by the industrial
revolution, more leisure time was available for the masses.
Organized activities such as baseball started appearing in the
1800's9. Sports activities were popular as well as vaudeville
shows and drinking saloons. More "wholesome" recreation could be
found in the parks and other facilities which were springing up.
As time went on, the vaudeville halls gave way to movie theaters,
the saloons became bars and spectator sports were broadcast on
radio and then television. The present day leisure world quickly
grew in size from those origins as more time was available for
leisure.
The Future of Work
The trend towards shorter working hours will probably continue into
the future. This is mostly because of automation and other
increases in productivity. There will simply be less work which
needs to be done.
8. pp 34 Recreation and Leisure
9. pp. 39 Recreation and Leisure
9
Automation affects many different occupations. Most of them
involve work which is routine in nature. In many cases automation
reduces the number of people working.
Mechanization is already familiar on assembly lines. It will be
used more than it was in the past because the technology has
improved. Assembly lines of robots, instead of people, are coming
into existence for making cars, vacuum cleaners, other appliances
and even robots. The factories employing these robots may need
only half a dozen people to watch over them, instead of the
hundreds previously employed. Even factories employing skilled
workers to make custom parts may switch to using flexible
manufacturing10 once the price of the technology goes down.
The office is currently being automated. Word processors reduce
the number of typists which are needed. Financial analysis tools
(spreadsheets and software for preparing business presentations)
are increasing the efficiency of managers; fewer will be needed.
Expert systems are coming into use. These are computer programs
which can give advice about a topic that they have been taught
about. Expert systems will reduce the need for skills and
experience. Secretarial staff will now be able to handle many of
the managerial tasks. Clerical tasks are also being quickly
automated. For example bank tellers are being augmented with
10. The Globe and Mail, Oct. 26 1985
10
automatic teller machines. Direct connections between stores
and credit card company computers are being installed, bypassing
the clerks who used to handle credit enquiries. All this leads to
less work for humans in the office.
The service sector occupations are predicted to grow in the
future. However, not all service sector jobs are safe. The jobs
which involve dispensing information to the public may even be
replaced in the near future. A computer, with voice recognition
and synthesis, running an expert system, could answer routine
questions such as those needed for telephone directory assistance.
The Japanese fifth generation artificial intelligence project is
working on just this type of system11. Fortunately, jobs which
involve human contact will probably continue to involve human
contact. For example, waiters in restaurants will still be human.
The reduction in work needed can be countered with several
schemes:
Less Automation:
Reducing the amount of automation in industry and the office is
in effect turning back the clock. It is impractical since it needs
restraint and regulation. Someone will always take advantage of
automation if others don't.
11. The Japanese alphabet is very large, speech is easier in some
ways than text for them.
11
Unemployment as a Way of Life:
Unemployment is currently not a fulfilling way of life.
Unemployed people are often apathetic and listless. Common habits
include sleeping in late, watching lots of television and a lack of
social contact (compared to the contacts at work). The unrest and
violence which breaks out shows that people don't like being
unemployed. In a society where lifelong unemployment is normal the
Puritan work ethic and other social attitudes to unemployment have
to be changed, meaningful activities have to evolve to replace work
and a new way of distributing wealth (or a new definition of wealth)
has to be devised and accepted. This is not likely to happen in the
near future. It could happen if material resources are in abundance
which means robot factories run as a public service. The final
result will be a race of robots with a few vegetating useless humans
if the human race can't adapt to a life of leisure.
Creation of New Jobs:
It is difficult to create new jobs. Governments have tried but
have not been very successful. Make-work jobs and the "Schemes"
prevalent in Britain have been found unsatisfying to the
participants. Private entrepreneurs have a better record. Small
business is currently one of the largest sources of new jobs in
Canada. However, they currently can't create as many jobs as there
are unemployed people and they can't create more jobs than
automation destroys. In the long run they are the best hope for job
creation. All that is really needed is to create jobs which can't
12
be automated. The best areas for that kind of job are in the
service sector and in leisure industries.
Shorter Working Time:
Based on current trends it seems likely that people will be
working less. The future probably will hold jobs with more vacation
time, sabbaticals and other types of time off (though it may be
unpaid). A second way of reducing the time worked is to reduce the
work week to four days or to reduce the hours worked each day. An
opinion poll of working people rejected the four day work week 309
to 13212. Reducing the hours worked is possible. They have been
reduced quite a bit over the last century. However, people may end
up moonlighting (holding two jobs) to keep their old working habits.
A third way is to reduce the years spent in the work force.
Companies and the government are already retiring people before
their time. For example, INCO used this idea to avoid layoffs
recently. In spite of it all, people will probably want to work as
much as possible. Most people either are
12. Leisure and Work
13
perpetually short of money or they don't know what to do with
spare time, hence they want to work as much as possible.
Part Time Jobs:
This is really a variation on the reduced time spent working.
Part time workers may work only part of each day or they may do
seasonal work. The companies like part time workers since it
increases their flexibility, they don't have to pay out as much for
benefits and there isn't much promotion. These are the reasons why
the workers don't like it. Only a few would want to work less.
Job Sharing:
Job sharing usually means sharing a job between two people. The
two people hold a single job and are treated almost as a single
person. They may alternate days of work, weeks, months or even may
split the year into two halves. Often they both overlap their
working time when a changeover occurs for continuity. The two
partners can be promoted as a pair (unlike part time workers) and
they share a full time worker's wage. The employer gets a bit more
reliability. If one worker is sick the other can be a replacement.
Also, job sharers are often more productive since they are fresher,
more enthusiastic and less burnt out than the equivalent full time
worker.
Job sharing is attractive to people who have extra demands on
their time. Three quarters of the job sharing workers are female,
mostly mothers who want to look after their children. In Britain
14
10% of the female workers and 5% of the male would prefer sharing a
job to working full time13. With less work required in the future,
job sharing should become more popular.
How do all these Options fit Together?
One model of the future company has been suggested by John
Atkinson, a manpower expert14. He envisions companies that are
flexible. Companies that can adjust to fit the demand for their
product. These companies would have a layered structure, like an
onion. The structure gains extra layers of workers on the outside
in times of increased demand. When their is less demand, the
outermost layers shrink and may even disappear. Here are the
contents of the layers (starting from the center):
- The Core. This layer contains the full time workers. Their jobs
are secure. However, they have to be willing to undergo
retraining and accept varying job categories, they have to be able
to relocate; they have to be flexible. This is the only group
which is really
13. pp. 124 New Patterns of Work
14. pp. 13-34 New Patterns of Work
trained by the company for jobs which are specific to the company.
The other outer groups get a little bit of job training but are
left to their own devices for most of their training needs.
- The First Peripheral Group. In this layer their are full time
workers for jobs which are routine and general in nature, for
15
example: clerical jobs. These people don't have the career
opportunities of the core group and are not intensively trained by
the company. There is high turnover in this group which means
that the size of the group is easily adjusted to the need for
work.
- The Second Peripheral Group. This group contains part time
workers, contract workers, co-op students and other people who are
needed temporarily.
- The Externals. This layer consists of workers which are hired to
do particular jobs which need doing and are not specific to the
company. They may be sub-contractors, temporaries, self-employed
people and others. They would do very specialized tasks that
require an expert or routine tasks like cleaning.
Types and Places of Work in the Future
New areas of work in the future will be in information manipulation
and creation, the leisure industry, and in the service sector. Some of
the workers in these areas will be working at home or at local branch
offices. Local branch offices are places where a small group of
workers can get together and link up to their company through the
electronic network. It is similar to working at home except that there
is more opportunity for supervision and socializing.
Estimates have been made15 that at most 5 million of the 200 million
people in the U.S.A. will work at home. Working at home creates new
problems. Overwork can happen quite easily. When there is no whistle
16
at the end of the day, people work until they come to a place where
they can logically stop. Another problem will be with working
conditions. If people are paid by the amount of work, sweatshop
conditions may arise. Unions don't like home workers since they are
difficult to organize, but home workers need some protection. In
addition there are laws against working at home in some cities.
Finally, some people just won't be able to work at home since they
can't stand the social isolation. The net result will be that only
people who want to work at home and who can do so responsibly will be
the ones who work there.
The Future of Leisure
The future of leisure is very similar to the current state
15. pp. 133 OMNI December 1984
of leisure. The changes will be mostly in the proportions of time
spent on each activity. A few new activities will become possible with
improvements in technology (zero gravity weight lifting may become
popular) but many changes will at most alter current activities. For
example, the quality of television pictures and sound will improve,
though the content will be similar to what is now shown since the basic
human values won't change much over time.
If you are unemployed (because of automation) then you won't have
very much money to spend on leisure, though you will have more time for
it. If the unemployed are poor and bored, violence and riots will
17
occur. However, material goods should be cheaper with automation and
governments may start supporting leisure activities to keep the
unemployed happy.
Television will continue to be popular. Viewers may exercise more
discretion when they have Video Cassette Recorders. For example, they
will have the VCR automatically record the movies and other programs
that they want to watch when they are broadcast. Then they can watch
them whenever they want to. With a VCR it is also quite easy to skip
over commercials. Devices are becoming available which automatically
skip the commercials by stopping the VCR (as it is recording) when a
commercial is detected and then restarting it when the commercial is
finished.
Another source of entertainment is available in pre-recorded video
tapes. In the next few years this area will be booming. Eventually
they will be as common as audio tapes and records are today.
More social events will occur in the future. The unemployed (and
the regular workers who will be working shorter hours) will have more
leisure time available for parties and other social activities. For
example, if you are unemployed you don't have to get up early on the
morning after a party. However, workers in the electronic cottages
won't increase the amount of social activity since they will be
socializing less than they would have at the traditional workplace.
Electronic communication will bring about some newer versions of
older leisure pursuits. Electronic mail will provide another way of
socializing. For example, in Control Data's work at home project, the
people working at home insisted on an electronic communications
18
facility and used it to socialize. In effect, an electronic coffee
break. Electronic conferences are also becoming increasingly popular.
Discussions on the existing networks cover everything. In the future
more people will have access to the networks and may even spend large
parts of their days arguing about cats (a major topic on one
information exchange in the U.S.A, really). This is reminiscent of the
Greek love for oratory.
19
Education will be a big leisure activity in the future. Witness the
current increase in University enrollment due to high unemployment.
Electronic universities are starting to appear today. This trend will
continue into the future. A course in the electronic university will
consist of lectures transmitted to the student's computer. The
lectures can contain text, pictures, sound, animation and questions
which the student can use for practice. There is often an electronic
mailbox that the student can use to send questions back to the human
professor. This tends to improve the communication between the student
and the professor since the questions don't all come at the end of a
class; the professor can answer them when he or she has the time. The
final exam is handled in much the same way it is for correspondence
courses today.
Travel will still be popular. Even if there is an energy shortage,
people can still take trips on buses, trains and cruise ships.
Sports and physical fitness will continue; squash, tennis, jogging
and other activities will be a part in many people's lives.
Volunteer work is another leisure activity. It is doubly useful
since it gives a sense of doing something useful as well as being a
leisure activity.
20
Scenarios
The Near Future with Energy:
In this scenario there is a good supply of energy, perhaps fusion
power is being used. Robotics are used to automate the production of
goods. The time is around the year 2020 or later.
Automation takes root and robotic assembly lines can produce goods
with great variety and at a low price. These had evolved from the
flexible manufacturing systems which the big manufacturers had
developed in the late 1980's.
Some people have jobs (either service sector jobs or as specialists
of some sort) and the rest will live on welfare from the government.
The government gets its funds from taxes on the automated factories.
Eventually the government may run some of these factories as a public
service. The people on welfare may have to put up with electronic
monitoring of their activities, to see that they aren't working
illegally. This and other invasions of privacy could lead to the
police state. On the other hand, the masses of unemployed can vote in
democracies. They will almost always vote for programs which increase
welfare, at the expense of the few who still work. The result may be
something like the Chinese cultural revolution.
The big labour unions like the UAW will lose power. If they hold
back on automation, other countries will be able to sell goods cheaply.
This will make the unionized industries go bankrupt which will in turn
result in a decrease in the number of unionized workers. If the unions
permit automation, they will still lose union members.
21
More small stores offering services with a human touch will appear.
People won't like the mass merchandizing discount operations which have
a mostly robotic staff. This results in an increase in the number of
boutiques with human staff.
The leisure industry will grow to accomodate the increased amount of
free time. A large proportion of the service sector workers work in
the leisure industry as tour guides, fitness instructors, professors
and tutors in electronic universities and in other leisure service
occupations.
More emphasis is placed on creativity. With the easy production of
customized goods, more time is spent on design. Even the less skilled
can make designs with the aid of the expert systems which run the
factories. With more attention to design the career of designer will
be open to many.
The less active part of the population spends its time watching
television. There will be a much greater choice of programs to watch;
not just a few block-busters every year. Movies could be created with
computer animation at home and sent over the electronic network. This
could give rise to movies which would be treated like books. You could
collect the works of your favorite authors or you could create your own
movies which you can "mail" to your small circle of admirers over the
network. If you get lucky, you may have made a "hit" production. Of
course, most of these movies will be horrible but, like the current
situation with books, there will be a multitude of good authors.
The more active part of the population will be emulating the old
Greek ideals. Oratory contests (over the electronic network), athletic
22
competitions and artistic exhibits will be common. Perhaps the Olympic
games will be expanded to include these activities.
Part of the population will be dissatisfied with the life of
leisure. They will be able to go off planet to become settlers in the
space colonies.
The Near Future without Energy:
A conserver society based on simple ideas comes about. In this
society energy is expensive so people pay attention to energy
consumption. Much time is spent collecting energy for keeping warm in
winter, for running cars and for cooking. This could involve chopping
wood, setting up solar collectors, tending biomass conversion
facilities and attempting to recycle as much as possible. This society
may come about after the coal and other fossil fuels are used up.
More people will be working on the farm since there will be less use
of heavy farm machinery and more care will be needed to reduce waste.
The shortage of petroleum based fertilizer will require an increase in
the size of the crops, though genetic engineering of the crops may
compensate a bit.
Other mechanized activities will also be converted back to manual
labour or will be abandoned. The increase in manual labour will cut
down on the amount of unemployment and leisure time.
The introduction of automation and robotics will be slowed since it
requires energy to develop and use. However, intelligent controls will
be used to keep the machinery operating at maximum energy efficiency.
People will travel less since travel will be expensive. This will
23
be countered by an increase in electronic communication which uses
relatively little energy. Similarly television will be a popular form
of entertainment.
Eventually a society of small communities linked by a communications
network will arise. There won't be much heavy industry and there won't
be much pollution. Life will be somewhat pastorial though the
intellectual aspect will be interesting due to the communications
network.
24
Bibliography
- Carlson, MacLean, Deppe and Peterson, Recreation and Leisure - The
Changins Scene, 3rd edition, (Belmont CA: Wadsworth, 1979)
- D. Clutterbuck, New Patterns of Work, (England: Gower, 1985)
- W. H. Martin, The Leisure Market to 1980, (London: Morrell, 1973)
- S. Parker, Leisure and Work, (London: Allen & Unwin, 1983)