Leisure time has become increasingly important

Uncertainty of work shifts priorities to family and home

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By Annakaisa Pirilä-Mänttäri
     
      In the coming years employers will be hard-pressed to prevent the mass exodus of physically fit working-age Finns to early retirement.
      The impact of efforts to extend working careers will be put to the test now that free time has become a clearly more important priority for Finns. At the same time, work has lost much of its meaning as a foundation of people’s identity.
      One indication of the importance of free time is a study on the issue by special researcher Mirja Liikkanen, which is scheduled for publication in January. According to the study, more than 60% of Finns see free time as very important. The share has increased by 12 percentage points since the last time that the assessment was made in 1991.
     
The less leisure time there is, the more important it seems to be.
      Although free time has increased among the whole population in the past two decades, working Finns find that they have less time for themselves after work, home chores, sleeping, and eating. In the 1990s those with jobs saw an average one hour and a half of their weekly free time eroded.
     
Young people have always put a high priority on free time. What is new is that of those born in the 1950s, two thirds see leisure time as very important. In the previous study, just half of those born in the ‘50s felt that way.
      This is the very age group who are in the prime of their working life, whom society wants to entice to stay at work longer than their predecessors. This might prove to be a vain hope. On the basis of the study, it would seem that the ‘50s generation hopes to retire as soon as possible.
     
Mirja Liikkanen says that the emphasis on work has been replaced in people’s priorities by matters related to their private lives.
      In the years 1991 - 2004 the proportion of the population who consider work to be very important in their lives declined by nine percentage points, and the decline has been sharpest among those aged 35 to 54.
      Hobbies have climbed up the ladder of importance. They are now considered to be so important that even men have begun identifying themselves as hobbyists of some kind, not necessarily as representatives of a job or profession.
     
However, the issue is not merely a selfish desire to focus on one’s own hobbies, or to simply loaf around: it is more an indication of the increased importance placed on family and home.
      Spending time with the family is very important for 71% of Finns - 26 percentage points more than in the early 1990s.
      Mirja Liikkanen finds it surprising that the importance of the home and family has increased especially among the younger age groups. Among those born in the 1970s, the number of those prioritising family and home has increased by as much as 50 percentage points.
      For older age groups, home and family were important already in the early 1990s.
     
One possible factor in the greater appreciation of aspects of life not related to work could be the increasing uncertainties of working life.
      Now that there are fewer guarantees of the permanence of work, with jobs being shifted abroad at short notice, it makes more sense to build one’s life and identity on factors that are not related exclusively to work.
      According to Mirja Liikkanen, the increase in the importance placed on free time is a long-term trend, which seems to be continuing. However, the priorities placed on issues related to free time can vary, even though this study indicates that the family is the most important part of people’s private lives.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 1.12.2004

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ANNAKAISA PIRILÄ-MÄNTTÄRI / Helsingin Sanomat
annakaisa.pirila-manttari@hs.fi