Leisure and Work in the Pre-Industrial and Industrial Era - Essay Example

HEALTH AND SOCIAL CARE Introduction Leisure can be defined, as time when one is free from work or other duties. This means that during leisure time one is free to do anything he/she wishes without using a plan. On the other hand, work is a term that can be applied to whole range of human activities. In its widest sense, work means any human activity whether manual/physical, intellectual or both. In this sense, work includes everything that human beings do. The issues concerning leisure and work can be traced as back as in the creation story found in the Book of Genesis where God created all things in six days and rested in the seventh day (Morris 2000). Massive changes has occurred as regard he relationship between work and leisure over time and this can be attributed to the increased secularization of society. The key factors that have contributed greatly to this change include: the waning control of the church, the multicultural facet of Australian society, augmented geographical mobility, changing work patterns and the significance of the weekend. People are increasing taking part in leisure activities than in the past and this is due to the need for social involvement, peer group associations, building of self respect and personality, community expectations and morals. Leisure and Work in the Pre-Industrial Era It is difficult to ascertain whether the pre-industrial societies engaged in leisure activities as they had no clear demarcations between time spent engaging in work and time spent on other leisure activities. However, we can say that the time they left over from such activities might probably be deemed leisure time. The importance of taking part in leisure activities gained momentum with the emergence of the middle and working classes during the industrial era. All through, there has been a slackening of work requirements (Dumazedier 1967). Early scholars such as Haworth and Smith (1975) noted that the traditional aboriginal societies he came in touch with in the 19th and early 20th century, met their restricted material needs with restricted expenditure of time. This left them with extra time, energy and passion to be spent on other secondary needs after having satisfied their when basic needs. During this time they engaged in leisure activities such as having a rest, singing and dancing, fellowshipping and conducting religious rituals. The increase in population called for specialized occupations such as chiefs, warriors and priests, ‘the leisure class’, who did not engage in any labor-intensive work, but got their income from the rest- a phenomenal which remained persistent even in the industrial era. Members of the elite were exempted from work, thus creating the class divide between work and leisure (Cunningham 1980). One of the more well-known postulations during the 19th century was that new forms of technology, which saw workers being replaced with machines replacing, would lead to decrease in work and increase in leisure. Philosophers like Karl Marx and John Stuart Mill predicted a leisure society where material wealth would decrease the call for demanding workdays and create time for more authentic pursuits. Even so, things did not turn out as anticipated. Advanced technology combined by social, religious and economic factors emphasized on hard work and obstructed the possibility of leisure. According to Heidegger, we have been integrated into the technological world and hence we invariably fall prey to its assumptions and habits which emphasis on speed, competence, efficacy and productivity. The technology era has made our lives to become busier. These historical drifts, signifying that working hours of most workers in pre-industrial era were considerably shorter than those of industrial workers at the height of the industrial revolution, are widely accepted (Thomas 1997). Leisure and Work in the Industrial Era The 19th century saw the growth of organized labor and associated political movements designed to curtail the most terrible extremes of employer abuse. They mostly campaigned for women and children who were mostly affected. They pushed for better working conditions, improved pay and reduced working hours (Cunningham 1980). In the 1960s noticeable by fast rising wealth and retreating remembrance of war, we experienced a fall in working hours and increased holiday claims, leading to a renewed talk of a ‘leisure society’( Dumazedier 1967). This condition was worsened by the incentive thoughts of a post-industrial period. Whereas industrialization certainly led to increased working hours for industrial workers, the last half of the 19th century and thereafter foresaw the formations of workers organizations to campaign for less working hours not only because of the desire of more leisure time but also because it was felt that this could led to creation of more jobs and increased wages. This stand was also supported by politicians and social reformers and even by some industrialists because they believed that such a move would lead to increase in production and workers performance, and have positive effects on ‘health, citizenship, and morality, family and religious duties’ (Hunnicutt 1988:15). The decline in working hours come to a halt in 1950 and remained static until 1977. Hunnincutt (1988) observed that the achievement of the 40- hour week in the post-second world war era brought to an end a century of campaigning for less working hours. In the 1970s the west became unsettled by the apparently more intense work ethic of the Japanese, and later the lately industrialized countries of South-East Asia, which enabled most of those countries to penetrate into the markets of the West. In turn this has led to flexible working hours in these countries due to globalization and increased foreign capital investment in these low-cost developing countries. As a result, they have moved from the five and a half day to the five working days per week and the introduction of yearly holiday’s payment privileges. However, looking back just a few hundred years to pre-industrial Australia reveals an entirely different picture concerning the relationship between work and leisure. In pre-industrial era, people used to work from morning to evening; the concept leisure was unknown to them. Leisure and Work in the Post-Industrial Era In the pre-industrial society, ‘The aim of work was not economic progress’ (Le Goff 1988:222) In post-industrial society the balance between work and leisure has remained since the Enlightenment period, an serious matter for the reason that work is perceived to be the means to human advancement. Sahlins argues that absence of material wealth is an indication of societies that have achieved a satisfactory balance between material needs, work and leisure. Attaining such a balance has been a major undertaking for human civilization throughout history and is at the heart of heated debate about work and leisure today. Economic forces have played a significant role on the changing relationship between leisure and work. The economic theory of “income/leisure trade-off” hypothesizes that work and leisure time functions in connected markets, arbitrated in particular by the wage rate. This made employees to decide to work more or less depending on their own requirements, desires and existing pay rate. Hence, the less leisure time one enjoys the more money one gets. In fact, employers have started paying more money on extra hours worked, what we commonly refer to as overtime. This has seen many people forego their leisure time to continue working in order to earn a higher income. This circumstance has been deteriorated by the economic crisis which has been experienced globally. With food prices and other prices going higher and higher, there is no option rather than to work for extra hours to be able to satisfy our basic needs. As a result, few and few people are engaging in leisure activities. The Renaissance era marked by industrialization and urbanization saw progress as being paramount for wider human society here on earth (Haworth 2005). Despite the fact that working hours dramatically fell between the height of the industrial revolution in the mid-nineteenth century and the middle of the 20th century, it is feared that the trend have gone into reverse in the recent years. Contemporary scholars are now concerned with the recent growth in working hours in some western countries and hence the examination of trends in working hours in the middle of the 19th century. Women have been ignored when it comes to leisure in the pre-industrial era; however, researchers in the contemporary era have tended to focus more on women and leisure. The contemporary period of globalization concentrate on the reality that non-industrial work and leisure is still the custom for most of the people on earth and that for millions of people the experience of industrialization is the present and the future, not the past, where as for other the experience of industrialization can be avoided, with a speedy translation from non-industrial to post-industrial lifestyles (Morris 2002). In the contemporary world the relationship between work and leisure depend on quality of life concerns and differs with each person depending upon the type of work they engage in. Leisure activities are connected to job contentment and participation in work. Work also provides the financial means with which to take part in leisure. This has led to creation of two kinds of leisure class; one that can afford the luxury of time away from work and the other one which cannot afford due to their limited financial means (Veal 2008). Globalization, economic progress and transformations in social surroundings have placed the relationship between work and leisure in the limelight. Immense changes in the nature and organizations of work are taking place which produces potentially extensive social and economic consequences. Organizations are demanding greater elasticity from their workers and are initiating new technologies and practices in reaction to the worldwide competitive pressure. At the same time many workers are experiencing long working hours, job insecurity, increasing workload and the problem of balancing work and domestic responsibilities. These changes pose as a threat to the long-term increases in leisure time. The leisure environment has changed drastically. Leisure services and experiences have become highly commercialized and professionalized. People are spending most of their leisure time in the internet, gambling and hence few people are participating in community-based activities. Leisure has become a product to be bought and has resulted to the segregation of some groups in society. Market forces leave out the jobless, the underprivileged and the aged from engaging in leisure activities (Veal 2008). Conclusion The issues as concerns changes in the relationship between work and leisure has been dealt with in a variety of ways in a huge and growing literature. However, one that thing that comes out very clearly in all these literatures is that the relationship between work and leisure has changed over time in both qualitative and quantitative measures. This balance has been influenced by customs, religious conviction, globalization, technology and social and economic forces and the emergence of the class society. However, nothing much has changed as regards leisure and work and hence there is need to conduct research to come up with proper policy mechanisms which are fair across all the classes in the society. More research should be carried out to find out other causal factors in the changes we experience today in the relationship between leisure and work (Haworth 2005). References Cunningham, H. (1980) Leisure in the Industrial Revolution. London: Croon Helm Dumazedier, J. (1967) Towards a Society of Leisure. New York: Free Press Haworth J. and John T. (2005) (2eds) Work and Leisure. London: Rout ledge Haworth, J. and Smith, M.A (1975), work and leisure. London: Lepus Hunnincuut, B.K. (1988) Work without Stopping: Deserting Shorter Hours for Longer Hours. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press Le Goff, J. (1988) medieval Civilization: 400-1500, trans. J. Burrow. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Morris, W. (2000) Work, and Leisure – Academic Journal of Recorded Thoughts 61:3, 493-512 Thomas C. A. (1997) Technology and the Decline of Leisure, Proceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, Vol. 70, 1 Veal A.J. (2008) A Brief History of Work and its Relationship to Leisure. 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