Less is More

 
March 2005
 
 
According to Part-time work and productivity: Trends and Initiatives, a major report released last month by the EEO Trust, New Zealanders are lengthening their working lives but spreading their life’s work more thinly. The report argues that accommodating this lengthening but lightening working life will potentially increase labour force participation and productivity.
 
This coincides with news that the main source of growth in New Zealand jobs in the last quarter was part-time work. Business commentators believe that employers are being forced to be more flexible in the current tight labour market. in the current tight labour market. 
Rights debates around part-time work, flexible work hours, and work-life balance are likely to snowball as working part-time becomes more popular in New Zealand.  Most New Zealand women have spent most of their lives in part-time work to accommodate their family responsibilities, and recent to accommodate their family responsibilities, and recent UK and Australian tribunal cases are strengthening the legal trend of protecting the rights of part-time workers with parenting responsibilities. 
 
But youth, older workers, and people with disabilities are also groups that are less likely to work full-time. 
 
The UK Changing Demographics report also discovered that men are more likely to prefer working part-time to care for elders rather than children.  report also discovered that men are more likely to prefer working part-time to care for elders rather than children. Men are increasingly asserting their rights to their flexible-working entitlements according to Australia’s Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. Federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner Pru Goward stated: “Men need to be able to access family-friendly work arrangements or have time at home with the children if they like, just like women do.”
 
Flexible work and older workers
 
Older workers may be the next group to assert their rights to quality flexible and part-time work. 
 
Older workers should be afforded as much flexibility as those caring for young children, UK academic Sarah Vickerstaff has commented in an article for the Equal Opportunity Review entitled ‘Managing the Older Workforce’. Extending the length of the average working life, and looking at ways of managing the older workforce, has become a focus for the UK government, which is planning to provide greater protections for workers approaching the new default retirement age of 65. 
 
Supporting research on older workers in New Zealand is a key priority for the Ministry of Social Development, which hosted a multi-agency forum on ageing last week. By 2051 people over the age of 65 are projected to increase from 12% of the population to 25% of the population. The Research on Ageing: Future Priorities and Capabilities forum was an opportunity for government agencies and researchers to:

 

  • establish a dialogue about key policy and priority areas
  • discuss how best to build capacity amongst groups researching ageing
  • ensure a coordinated, multidisciplinary approach.
 
Part time work and work-life balance
 
The EEO Trust report  found that people generally choose rather than are forced to work part-time – for family or personal reasons – despite the comparably lower pay. Part-time work and increasingly, temp work, are seen as better for Work-Life Balance, according to reports from recruitment agencies. 
 
Despite these preferences, New Zealand is still one of the most overworked wealthy countries. 21.3% of New Zealand workers work in excess of 50 hours a week, second only to Japan (28.1%) in an ILO survey of five developed countries. Working Time and Workers’ Preferences in Industrialized Countries: Finding the Balance  associated longer working hours with limited government regulation of working time.  associated longer working hours with limited government regulation of working time.