Life’s Not Just 'Busy' – Young Australians Have Less and Less Time Outside Labour

Sometimes it feels like life’s getting busier. But for young Australians, who are increasingly in “time poverty”, it actually might be. 

The phenomenon refers to a lack of potential time outside both paid and unpaid work hours, factoring in domestic duties and caring responsibilities. Everyone feels it from time to time, but it has consistently affected people aged 18 to 39 more than anyone else in Australia. And the rise of remote work – and technological connectivity in our jobs – continues to shrink what little time we have left outside our labour.

“This is not some issue on the fringes affecting some workers in a specific type of work – all workers experience this in our economy [and] it is young people doing the most unpaid overtime,” senior economist at the Australia Institute’s Centre for Future Work, Eliza Littleton, told VICE. 

The Australia Institute has gathered annual data since 2009 on the unpaid overtime and unsatisfactory working hours Australians face. Its latest report found, on average, people in their 20s work 5.2 hours of overtime every week – more than double what people in their 50s and 60s do. 

For the average worker on the average salary, that’s an annual loss of about $8000. 

“When we think about time poverty, we’re often thinking about parents who are juggling paid and unpaid work – and raising children is incredibly demanding on people’s time, but it does leave a lot of the story untold for the rest of the working population,” Littleton said. 

The report found a range of reasons why time poverty affects young people more acutely: they often have to juggle study and work; a power imbalance exists between them and their managers which leaves young people more vulnerable to exploitation; young people are less versed ins “office politics” and are therefore at a negotiating disadvantage; and are they often don’t have partners or family around to help shoulder the burden of unpaid domestic work. It’s a lonely road. 

But Littleton said that although the amount of unpaid overtime the average Australian worker does each week has sat between four and six hours since 2009, there is a broader trend of that number growing over time for young people due to technology integration in the workplace. And thanks to the rise of remote work – and a boom in tools like online meetings and instant messaging platforms since the pandemic – things could get worse.

Respondents in the survey said the top reason for working unpaid overtime was workplace culture or the expectations of their managers.

“This is being facilitated by how contactable people are,” Littleton said. 

“People calling after hours or on the weekend, people have work emails on personal phones, and people attend meetings outside hours.

“We’ve become more contactable because of communications and our work has become less contained to the hours we’re supposed to be working.”

Littleton noted the use of technology has changed not just between generations, but also with age, because the older we get, historically, the less we use it. 

But the added punch of high inflation and the diminishing affordability of rent and utilities is deepening the time poverty epidemic for young people, whoneed to simply work more than other generations did to afford the cost of living.

“Young people earn 13 per cent less than the average worker so they’re of course struggling and have to spend more time doing paid work,” Littleton said.

On top of that, the maldistribution of working hours in Australia – that is, while some work significant unpaid overtime, others scramble to pick up shifts to make ends meet – is seeing underemployment rise. 

Australia’s unemployment rate is low, at just 3.6 per cent as of April. But this number doesn’t consider the people in financial stress because their workplace won’t give them enough shifts. And low welfare support payments, including Youth Allowance and rent assistance, are far too inadequate to make a difference. 

“Some people have too much work and some people have not enough,” Littleton said.

 “A four-day work week would absolutely help address this issue and help redistribute working hours that suit workers better.” 

In March, the Senate Work and Care Committee, chaired by Greens senator Barbara Pocock, called for a suite of policies to give workers a legal right to a better work-life, including a trial for a 4-day work week and legislating the right to disconnect after hours.

Pocock said at the time Australia was “an international outlier in terms of our support for workers with caring responsibilities. 

“We have slipped too far behind and we are paying a price in labour supply, stressed workers and gender inequality,” she said.

“It is time for a new social contract, fit for the 21st-century workplace, that does not put the burden on workers juggling care responsibilities around their jobs.”

Littleton said better industrial relations laws to define the boundary between work and non-work was the first step. 

“84 per cent of workers said [in the report] they would support the Federal Government nationally legislating the right to disconnect,” she said. 

“That way it’s universal and can be applied to all workplaces. That needs to be set at that level so everyone can get access.

“Then we need better definitions for what is and isn't reasonable unpaid overtime and better monitoring of it.” 

Littleton said if we didn’t protect the mental, physical, emotional and social wellbeing of workers in Australia, the consequences would continue to ripple throughout society.

“The common consequences workers identified as a result of unpaid overtime were physical tiredness, stress and anxiety, and being mentally drained,” she said.

“A quarter said it interfered with their personal lives and relationships and made [life] not as fulfilling.

“If we have this many people experiencing these side effects then it impacts our macro economy, how much people move around jobs, our tax revenue and eventually our GPD.” 

Aleksandra Bliszczyk is a Senior Reporter for VICE Australia. Follow her on Instagram, or on Twitter.