The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline Of Leisure

Aspects of this work are dated but Shor's book invigorates the term "wage slave" with new meaning. In this work you'll learn:* USA citizens are the most overworked and among the least rewarded in real terms in the industrialized world.* Most USA citizens would rather have more time off than higher pay.* Overwork brings stresses to families and individuals that have huge costs which are largely unknown.* The assault on the 40 hour work week, which itself is onerous and unnecessary.* The so-called golden age in the 50's and 60's of the stay-at-home mom is largely a myth.* Had Social Security been allowed to thrive instead of tampered with by elected officials, a retirement age of 50 would have been possible in the 1990s.* How a 4-day, 32-35 hour work week at full pay is not only possible but economically desirable as well.We've been duped by the American (over)work ethic, which is little more than an ideology that has evolved to enrich others by making overwork seem both inevitable and natural. Shor shows us that overwork is neither.

Juliet Schor presents many balanced and interesting facts, stats, and trends in the past and present individual and collective work environment in the United States. Do most Americans realize this or even think about it?....I've met only a few who do. Since World War II worker productivity per capita has more than doubled. And, the hours worked has increased so steadily that work hours will be at the levels of what they were in the 1920s. The average American takes 12 days off per year, which is the lowest in the industrialized world. Yet Americans are in more personal debt than at any time at our history. Most today, will work into their 70s as the thing called retirement is not possible for most.Question: is it worth it? The Puritanical work-consume-work-consume-die mentality is being questioned by some Americans, now that their investments, pensions, and 401-Ks have lost the principal to allow them to live and do what they have always been wanting to do. This book may seem contrary to the way most Americans have been raised and advised throughout their lives.Do Americans have time to reflect, think, relax, and pursue anything to their liking? The answer depends on who you are, so ask yourself that question. This is a relevant book for a very relevant topic.

I read this book for my Econ labor and technology class in undergrad, and it is a really great book that describes a phenomena that can be see clearly now especially during the recession. This book can also be technical (if you want) because Juliet Schor kindly includes her regression series and extensive notes in the back of the book which as a rising economist I found fascinating. However, for the regular Joe/Jane Smith on the street, this book can easily be read for pleasure and understood without the regression series. I would highly recommend this book to anyone with an interest in consumerism, luxury, and work within the US. Great Book!Also, Juliet Schor is a well- known, Harvard economists, so she has great credentials. Also, her other books are really good too!

This is one of the most important issues of our time. Schor's treatment is exemplary. She might have included a discussion of Keynes's argument that the development makes necessary a dramatic reduction of work hours with no reduction in pay lest the economy be mired in an eternity of "secular stagnation."

Highly recommend this book. Though written in the 1990s arguments are still cogent today. Good articulation, research, and philosophy.

This book is full of interested information and observations. It really informed my view of the world. I find myself talking about it often, years after having first read it.

Extremely opinionated. If you area republican you will hate it and if you are a democrat you will love it.

Juliet B. Schor, The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure (Basic Books, 1992)Fifteen years ago, when The Overworked American came out, I was, in fact, one of those overworked Americans: a retail manager, one of the demographics Schor singles out (for the outrageous practice of requiring fifty or more hours of work per week on a salary exempt from overtime). I soon came to realize that quality of life was more important than paycheck, and exited that position stage left, but didn't get around to reading the book that had so piqued my curiosity until this year. I have to say that while I wholeheartedly agree with most of Schor's conclusions here-- I would find it odd for anyone not to-- the ways she goes about reaching some of them leave a great deal to be desired.Schor, as has been noted in a number of reviews, is (at least in these pages) an unapologetic socialist, and as the old saying goes, "when all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail." It doesn't occur to her that there might be other ways to practically apply her otherwise sound advice than aggressive unionization or other such measures (the dark sides of which, of course, are never mentioned even in passing), despite the fact that she notes a number of other countries where reforms such as those she advocates have taken root without such measures. The basic paradox inherent in that sentence pervades the book; it raises the rather odd idea that Schor started with her conclusions, then went back and filled in the blanks, never bothering to make sure that research A gelled with opinion B. It's no wonder, given this, that Library Journal said of this book that it has "an important message that will probably not be taken seriously."In that light, I'd like to say that the importance of those conclusions cannot be overstated, and that a decade and a half later we're still wallowing in the same morass. Don't listen to those who say that instituting these reforms will cause an economic collapse; as Schor points out, American workers get less than half the paid holidays of the second-stingiest nation (and with the collapse of sick and vacation time into this loathsome "paid time off" category, which has allowed companies to shave weeks off the average employee's time off, it's just gotten worse in the past few years), but I haven't seen any other major Western democracies falling into economic chaos because their workers just aren't working enough. There is valuable stuff at the destination, however suspect the journey may be. ***

Excellent review of our shocking work system. Things, to my dismay, have not changed one bit since this book was written, quite the contrary. One thing you won't find in this book - and this is simply because the book was written some 30 years ago - is that corporations have managed to create an even worse disbalance of our reality, one in which they hold an even higher degree of control than before over people's time and leisure.In perhaps one the worst of all possible outcomes of rampant capitalism, we somehow managed today - despite the terrible cost we've paid since the 1920's - to glorify work instead of time well spent and meaningful. A must read.

Un classico della letteratura economica, citato in moltissimi testi, perciò imprescindibile per chi come me sta facendo la tesi in questo campo. Schor cita molti studi e statistiche. Ovviamente è un testo scritto più di 20 anni fa, perciò i dati non valgono più tali e quali, ma i discorsi sviluppati sì e sono molto stimolanti.