Our thanks to Nigel for this. He writes:
“Reported in other papers its interesting that what worries them is that there has been a rise in the proportion of men wanting to work “part time” (full time surprisingly defined as 30hours a week when I did this hours I thought it was part time). Of course they point out that this is “worrying” because men are the backbone of the economy. Intriguingly the male age group with the biggest rise is precisely that which in reality increases their hours usually driven by the birth of children and the taking on of additional responsibilities as their partner goes part time. So with the “fertility crisis” , exhortations about “work life balance”, demands fathers do more childcare and “emotional work, demands men don’t rely on their partners for “emotional work” and the simple observation that their female colleagues get away with “flexible working and “spending three hours chatting about TV programmes” as admitted by a female journalist in a piece I read last week.
It seems unsurprising that men aspire to spend less time working. Lets be honest men in general have far less need of money because they are far less consumers of goods and services than women. So without the pressure to “provide” for a family it should be no surprise to find many men quite fancy following women into a “work life balance” like their female peers. Even if the actual employment figures show they are far less likely to work part time in reality. It took a couple of decades but in public services where I worked men eventually cottoned on that hard work didn’t lead to promotion, if not in a favoured group, that they too could claim “carers leave” etc., that they too could have “flexible hours to suit”, that the shifts they used to do over bank holidays Easter, Xmas so “mums” could be with their families were just unfair and that putting in extra hours was “presentism” and not appreciated. I expect men in other sectors have cottoned on too.”
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