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24/7 Society—The New Timing of Work?

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Abstract

Public debate on societal rhythms, in particular working hours, has been dominated by a (fear) scenario about a shift towards a 24/7 society. Factors such as the services- and information-driven economy, deregulation of opening hours, changes in the rhythms of consumer culture have been expected to disrupt “normal” working time. The term ‘24/7 society’ is part of the popular discussion and occasionally encountered in academic writing as well. 24/7-society is expected to create both new opportunities and new risks. In this chapter, we produce up-to-date literature review to examine how the post-industrial, services-dominated economy changes work and leisure time practices. This chapter also employs different data sources (e.g. European working conditions surveys from three decades as well as Time Use Surveys from selected countries) to assess empirically changes in timing of work and time use.
... Over the last few decades, major changes in the world of work have eroded standard working times and led to the emergence of new working time arrangements [1,2]. Economic requirements for leaner, more flexible business processes in a globalized 24/7 economy are being fueled by digitalization [3][4][5][6]. At the same time, employees now have greater expectations and stronger preferences concerning the balance between private and work life, resulting in more working time autonomy and working from home [7][8][9]. ...
... WTC was operationalized by the question "How are your working time arrangements set?" (Q42), (Item numbers from EWCS 2015 in brackets) which was answered with four Likert-scaled categories (1 = "They are set by the company/organization", 2 = "You can choose between several fixed working schedules determined by the company/organization", 3 = "You can adapt your working hours within certain limits (e.g., flexitime)", 4 = "Your working hours are entirely determined by yourself"). For our analyses, the variable was coded either as low WTC time arrangements (1)(2) or as high WTC (3)(4). WTV was measured with four items (Q39a-d). ...
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Working time control (WTC) and working time variability (WTV) are two important dimensions of working times, especially with regard to the dynamics of irregular working hours in a changing world of work. Both dimensions are closely related, and the terms are sometimes used synonymously. However, a high degree of WTC does not automatically lead to variable or irregular working hours. On the contrary, WTV is often imposed by the employer and does not necessarily occur in conjunction with high WTC. This article gives an overview of different European WTC and WTV regimes using a typological approach. Based on the European Working Conditions Survey 2015 (EWCS, n = 27,607), four employee groups are compared: those with (1) high WTC and high WTV, (2) high WTC and low WTV, (3) low WTC and high WTV, and (4) low WTC and low WTV. Firstly, the analyses aim to assess whether WTC and WTV vary across European countries due to different working time regimes and in different occupational sectors, i.e., hospitality, retail, and health and social work. Secondly, multi-level analyses are used to describe correlations with health (self-rated health, psychosomatic complaints), sleep (sleep problems), and well-being (WHO-5-Scale). The analyses suggest that WTC and WTV differ between European countries: in the northern countries, high WTC/high WTV is most prevalent, whereas low WTV/low WTC is more common in the other countries. As far as employee health and sleep are concerned, high WTV is associated with poor health, i.e., a greater number of psychosomatic health complaints, worse self-rated health status, and more sleep problems. However, the correlation appears to be weaker for psychosomatic health complaints when employees have high WTC. Significant correlations could not be found for WTC. Low WTC and high WTV is more common in occupational sectors in hospitality, retail, and health and social care; however, these occupational sectors show the same correlations regarding health, sleep, and well-being. The analyses indicate that it is crucial to consider WTV and WTC together in order to understand the dynamics of irregular working hours and health.
... The 2010s-up until the Covid-19 pandemic-show that in two-parent households with children, increasingly, both parents participate in working life (e.g., OECD, 2021). Furthermore, due to the emergence of a post-industrial, service-and information-intensive 24/7 society, working hours have become more fragmented (Anttila & Oinas, 2018), entailing that in many families, one or both parents have non-standard work schedules, including shift work or (ir)regular work during non-daytime hours or at weekends (see Presser, 2003). The interface and reconciliation of work and family life-or making the "corporation called 'Family' to work", as one of the interviewed parents in this study said-can be a challenge and "a daily puzzle" for the parents in such families. ...
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Chapter
The concluding chapter summarizes the core arguments by reviewing three themes that run throughout the preceding chapters: the dominance of the clock, commodification and acceleration in framing understandings of time; coordination and synchronization of everyday activities and the declining strength of collectively timed events; and, the formation and reproduction of socio-temporal rhythms through the organization of practices. It highlights three important contributions for social scientific understandings of time and society: the necessity of analysing multiple temporalities; to establish that consumption and temporalities are indivisible; and, temporalities cannot be explained through recourse to the discretionary time allocation choices of individuals. Returning to contemporary societal problems, particularly sustainable consumption and well-being, it is argued that conventional approaches which treat time as an objective variable to be intervened in—by substituting, extending, dis-placing or resisting the allocation of activities in (clock) time—overlook the capacity of ‘temporal thinking’ for providing solutions to societal problems. Rather, focus on the organization of practices and the socio-temporal rhythms that they shape offers alternative options for addressing major societal issues. Such an approach would place emphasis on the temporal alignment of practices and re-institution of collectively timed events.
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