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    "title": "Visions of the Future from Leading Thinkers [Binder] [2]",
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        "Records of the Domestic Policy Council (Clinton Administration)",
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    "ocrText": "HARVARD UNIVERSITY\nCommittee on Degrees in Women's Studies\nBarker Center, 12 Quincy Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138-3879\nJuliet B. Schor\nTel. (617) 495-9022\nDirector of Studies\nFax. (617) 496-9855\ne-mail: [email protected]\nJanuary 28, 2000\nDear President Clinton,\nI am writing in response to a request from one of your staff to share my views on the major\nchallenges of the new century. I am happy to do so.\n1 am now convinced that the major challenge we face is global warming. Recent data\n(temperature, weather patterns, trends in polar ice) are very disturbing. You know the literature\nbetter than I and I know you share my sense of urgency. What I can contribute is a discussion of\nhow trends in time use and consumer spending (the issues I have been studying) might be used to\nmobilize public support for combatting global warming.\nSince the nineteen fifties, there has been a structural bias in the economy toward what I call \"work\nand spend.\" The key feature is that productivity growth is not used for reductions in working\nhours, but is channelled into income (and sometimes into profits, without income growth). This\nbias has been most evident in recent years as new labor-saving technologies have failed to bring\nabout reductions in average hours per job. Why the difference between the first half of the\ncentury, when rapid productivity growth was associated with a large decline in weekly hours of\nwork? One reason is that by the fifites, the trade union movement stopped pressing for shorter\nhours. Now the unions are not powerful enough to win hours concessions, even if they want\nthem. The second reason is that the cost structure of employment developed in such a way that a\nlarge fraction of costs were incurred on a per person rather than a per hour basis (fringe benefits,\ncontributions to unemployment, workers' compensation, etc.). This has given firms a strong\nincentive to maximize hours per person.\nThe result is that average working hours per person have risen in the 1980s and 1990s. The\nUnited States now has longer average hours than Japan. The growth of hours is not merely\nbecause more married women are in the labor force, but because employed people are working\nmore hours per week and more weeks per year.\nLonger hours of work have contributed to a growth in time pressure and an acceleration of the\npace of daily life. Although longer hours are not the only cause, they are an important reason that\nso many families, particularly those with children, feel their lives are too hectic, that not"
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