Hochschild's time bind: work prioritized over family and community

¶ … Bind

Russell Hochschild, Arlie. The Time Bind: When Work Becomes Home and Home Becomes Work. New YOrk: Owl Books, 2001.

Explain the title. What is the "Time Bind"?

The author of The Time Bind, Arlie Russell Hochschild, states that for many parents today, particularly women, when the formal, paid part of their work shift ends, another unpaid work shift begins. This second shift comprises the demands of home and family care and is effectively another full-time job. This creates a tension, or time bind between work and home, leaving no time for private leisure, much less devoting time to making a better world and community life for the next generation.

More and more women are working, and these women working full-time rather than part-time, despite the demands of their children. Also, men are working more rather than fewer hours, leaving husbands and fathers even less available to help raise the children or to work around the home, much less be equal partners to their spouses regarding chores and child-rearing obligations. (7)

What is cultural transformation?

Once upon a time in America, corporate professionalism was less important than giving back to one's family and social community. The cultural worlds of family and private life were paramount. Even in families where men and women embraced the traditional roles of breadwinner and homemaker, the working father worked put food on the table, he did not work merely to serve the CEO. Now, however, as evidenced at the Amerco Company that Hochschild was studying, a cultural shift in attitude has occurred in America. This cultural transformation makes paid professional work a priority over family for both men and women. One's value as a person is equated with one's salary and the hours one spends at one's occupation.

Part of this cultural transformation has occurred because parents are so worried about losing their jobs. In contrast, the social worlds with which Americans had traditionally associated their deepest values, the family, have receded in the personal and social capital they give the laborer. Once the purpose of working hard was to make a better life for one's family, now the social life of workers often center around their places of employment -- sometimes willingly rather than unwillingly, because the demands of home can seem so burdensome. Hochschild points out Americans work two more weeks a year than even Japan, another highly work-focused country. (xxi)

What is "zero-drag"?

To have zero-drag, as an employee, is to come to the corporate environment footloose and family free, utterly unattached to his or her community outside the company. The perfect zero-drag employee is willing to relocate anywhere, take extra assignments, and is always on-call whenever he or she is needed. This perfect employee has no family, no social life, no community ties. The zero-drag employee regards the workplace as his or her home, and his work colleagues as his or her best friends. (xix)

The elements of life that were once thought to promote employee stability, like children, church, and community service, now are seen as rivals for the time an employee should ideally be giving to the corporation. (xix) Thus, the ideal worker is a young, single male trying to make 'good' in his first job.

What is the contradiction? How do you balance the schedule between your family and work?

The contradiction is that eventually even the ideal zero-drag worker will want to settle down and have a family -- or at least a life, and demand more money in return for what he or she has given to the company. Treat an employee as disposable, however, and employees will not want to devote so many hours to a company. Also, a far wider range of people in today's diverse America are working today, requiring more rather than less flexible scheduling policies. If the demands of the workplace continue to cut into the needs of the family, non-traditional employees will eventually leave their jobs in greater numbers, forcing companies to make huge expenditures on retraining.

As noted by Hochschild, although balancing work and family can be difficult, what is often the most difficult hurdle is to show management that even if one has a family, this adds to one's value as a person and an employee, rather than 'drags' away from it. Careful scheduling an understanding partner can combat the time bind, but often to show management that one is a good parent and a loyal employee requires 'face time' and corporate events, extra hours in the classroom to bolster one's resume, and other feats that take away the little private 'me' time one has in the day.