I'm going to give myself and others a break this Labor Day. Most weekends, I send several e-mails to people I hope will respond on Monday when they get back to the office. Those Sunday afternoon e-mails tell us a lot about working life at this time in our history. Work in America is no longer a bounded activity, limited to a set place and time. The boundaries between work and home are eroding.
Work intrudes on leisure and other private time.
Time spent on work has repercussions for family and social life, as well as for the civic health of communities. As many a college professor knows, it's not uncommon for college students to work 30 or 40 hours per week, in addition to carrying a full course load. Despite these abundant signs of industry, a major point of contention among some economists is whether Americans are working longer work weeks. On one side, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has put out several reports indicating that though there are groups of workers putting in longer work weeks, the average nonagricultural worker puts in 39.5 hours a week, while managers and professionals average 42 hours a week. The bureau says those numbers haven't changed much since 1982.