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This is a repost from this blog:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2008/02/why-is-friendship-on-decline.html
Friendship is not yet an endangered species, but it is on the wane. Studies in the US and France both found that people are spending less time with friends, neighbors, and relatives.
The amount of hours worked, not surprisingly, seems to have to do something with this pattern, since a reduction in the workweek in France led to an uptick in social time.
But the researchers seem to miss another pattern: it isn’t just hours but priorities. At least in the US, for many people a job is not just a job, it’s a much more important part of their identity than it used to be, and perhaps than it is in other cultures.
One phenomenon that is very common in New York, and I assume in other large cities, is that people are very casual about canceling social engagements at the last minute for work-related reasons. I used to be good about sticking with my plans, but I felt like a chump (I cut way back on my entertaining when a number of people cancelled on a dinner party the same day. This was in the 1980s, and things have only gotten worse since then). Peoples’ actions said that seeing me wasn’t a high priority, so why should I treat them better than I was being treated?
That sort of casualness degrades social ties in ways that might not be easily captured but I have found are corrosive. And you can still have a competitive economy without having that degree of subservience to work. In Australia, “mateship” is valued very highly and people place much more emphasis on their social life. But Australia has tougher labor laws than the US; it’s harder to fire people. Might there be a connection between job security and emphasis on social interaction? Most Americans I know are afraid to say no to work demands.
The French example would seem to say dispute that since France has strong unions and are stereotyped as have strong boundaries between their work and personal lives. Have enough of them caught the Anglo-Saxon disease to shift the culture a bit?
From VoxEU:
People have fewer friends and visit them less often than in the past. A popular explanation suggests that we’re working longer and have less time for friends, but recent research finds little tradeoff between working hours and social hours. The relevant tradeoffs, this column suggests, are between types of social interaction.Do you know who your friends are? Have you seen them lately? Data from both the United States and France show that some important forms of social interaction are on the decline (Putnam 1996; Blanpain and Pan Ké Shon 1998). While membership in social groups has remained relatively stable over time, there has been a decline in visiting friends, neighbours, and relatives. This decline in visiting is not simply due to friends switching to email communication and socializing at work. Evidence of a true decline in friendship is provided by McPherson, Smith-Lovin and Brashears (2006), who document a decline in the reported number of close friends over the past 20 years. Understanding the determinants of the decline in visiting has attracted interest in both the academic literature and in the popular press. It raises concerns on both sides of the Atlantic because social interaction is thought to have positive effects on the mental and physical health of individuals and the efficiency of economic institutions.
Are work and friends complements or substitutes?
An intuitively plausible reason offered for the recent decline in social interaction is growth in hours of work per capita. In particular, the increase in female labour force participation has increased hours of work per capita, which could result in less social interaction. However, it has also been argued that individuals who work longer hours are more inclined to both civic engagement and visiting with friends and neighbours. This could occur if there were an important unobserved third factor such as ambition that affects both working hours and social contacts. For example, an individual who is ambitious may choose to work long hours and to participate in civic organisations and meet with friends and neighbours more than a less ambitious individual. In this case, hours of work and social interaction would be positively related.
The theory of household production, developed by Gary Becker (1965), provides the basis for an empirical model of social interaction. Becker’s theory emphasises the role of time in consumption and that time is a limited resource. We (Saffer and Lamiraud, 2008) employ Becker’s theory to derive a demand for social interaction. This demand function, like any other demand function, shows that the quantity of social interaction demanded depends on its own price, the price of other goods, income and taste. The price of social interaction is positively related to the individual’s valuation of their non-working time.
This price is usually approximated by the individual’s wage. However, in our study, we assume that the price of non-working time is a function of the supply and demand for this type of time. As hours of work increase, the supply of non-working time decreases. This raises the price of non-working time. Education is also an empirical proxy for the price of time. Education is assumed, to varying degrees, to increase productivity. An increase in the productivity of time reduces the time cost of social interaction.
An empirical examination
Empirically isolating the effect of hours of work on social interaction requires an exogenous change in hours of work. Our research focuses on France’s enactment of a new employment law that mandated an exogenous decline in hours of work. The 1998 legislation reduced the legal number of hours worked per week from 39 to 35. The employment law consisted of three parts: the first part covered firms with more than 20 employees, the second part covered firms with 20 or fewer employees, and the third part covered civil servants. Firms of more than 20 employees were required to conform to the law by January 2000, while small firms and civil servants were covered by January 2002. The changes in hours of work resulting from this law are exogenous to individual characteristics.
The empirical results clearly show that the employment law reduced average hours of work by 1.5 to two hours per week. These results are consistent with findings of Estevao and Sa (2006). However, the results show no evidence that these extra hours went to increased social interaction. That is, hours of work are not found to be an important determinant of social interaction. This remains true for sub-samples defined by gender, marital status, and children.
What shapes social interaction?
Human capital, however, is found to be an important determinant of social interaction. The effect of human capital, as measured by education and age, is positive for membership activities but negative for visiting relatives and friends. This is not an intuitive result and requires some explanation. One possibility is that this effect results from the productivity-enhancing aspect of education. Membership activities, like employment, are goal-oriented. Education increases productivity both at work and in membership activities. However, education has little effect on the productivity of time spent visiting. Thus, an increase in education results in greater productivity in membership activities and greater utility for the individual. To put this more intuitively, education makes membership activities more interesting and visiting less interesting. This shifts social interaction to membership activities and away from visiting.
Other factors were also found to be important determinants of social interaction. Higher income increases memberships and decreases visiting, which seems consistent with the education effect. Marriage tends to reduce all social interactions, which suggests that a spouse is a substitute for other social interactions. Children have a positive effect of membership in school and church groups, which is probably the result of complementarity between these activities and child care. Males tend to have less of all social interactions, which is a familiar result.
Finally, a comparison between France and the United States shows that the response to human capital and other variables are much the same in both nations. Since the time data show that visiting has declined while education has increased, it is possible that the true cause of the decline in visiting is rising education. Trends in social interactions, it seems, are not driven by a simple trade-off between work and play but by education and choices in consuming different types of socializing.
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The Teabagger Socialist-Free Purity Pledge
I, ________________________________, do solemnly swear to uphold the principles of a socialism-free society and heretofore pledge my word that I shall strictly adhere to the following:
I will complain about the destruction of 1st Amendment Rights in this country, while I am duly being allowed to exercise my 1st Amendment Rights.
I will complain about the destruction of my 2ndAmendment Rights in this country, while I am duly >being allowed to exercise my 2ndAmendment rights by legally but brazenly brandishing unconcealed firearms in public.
I will foreswear the time-honored principles of fairness, decency, and respect by screaming unintelligible platitudes regarding tyranny, Nazi-ism, and socialism at public town halls. Also.
I pledge to eliminate all government intervention in my life. I will abstain from the use of and participation in any socialist goods and services including but not limited to the following:
- Social Security
- Medicare/Medicaid
- State Children's Health Insurance Programs (SCHIP)
- Police, Fire, and Emergency Services
- US Postal Service
- Roads and Highways
- Air Travel (regulated by the socialist FAA)
- The US Railway System
- Public Subways and Metro Systems
- Public Bus and Lightrail Systems
- Rest Areas on Highways
- Sidewalks
- All Government-Funded Local/State Projects (e.g., see Iowa 2009federal senate appropriations--http://grassley.senate.gov/issues/upload/Master-Approps-73109.pdf)
- Public Water and Sewer Services (goodbye socialist toilet, shower, dishwasher, kitchen sink, outdoor hose!)
- Public and State Universities and Colleges
- Public Primary and Secondary Schools
- Sesame Street
- Publicly Funded Anti-Drug Use Education for Children
- Public Museums
- Libraries
- Public Parksand Beaches
- State and National Parks
- Public Zoos
- Unemployment Insurance
- Municipal Garbage and Recycling Services
- Treatment at Any Hospital or Clinic That Ever Received Funding From Local, Stateor Federal Government (pretty much all of them)
- Medical Services and Medications That Were Created or Derived From Any Government Grant or Research Funding (again, pretty much all of them)
- Socialist Byproducts of Government Investment Such as Duct Tape and Velcro (Nazi-NASA Inventions)
- Use of the Internets, email, and networked computers, as the DoD's ARPANET was the basis for subsequent computer networking
- Foodstuffs, Meats, Produce and Crops That Were Grown With, Fed With, Raised With or That Contain Inputs From Crops Grown With Government Subsidies
- Clothing Made from Crops (e.g. cotton) That Were Grown With or That Contain Inputs From Government Subsidies
- If a veteran of the government-run socialist US military, I will forego my VA benefits and insist on paying for my own medical care
I will not tour socialist government buildings like the Capitol in Washington, D.C.
I pledge to never take myself, my family, or my children on a tour of the following types of socialist
locations, including but not limited to:
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- The socialist Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson Monuments
- The government-operated Statue of Liberty
- The Grand Canyon
- The socialist World War II and Vietnam Veterans Memorials
- The government-run socialist-propaganda location known as Arlington National Cemetery
- All other public-funded socialist sites, whether it be in my state or in Washington, DC
I will urge my Member of Congress and Senators to forego their government salary and government-provided healthcare.
I will oppose and condemn the government-funded and therefore socialist military of the United States of America.
I will boycott the products of socialist defense contractors such as GE, Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, Raytheon, Humana, FedEx, General Motors, Honeywell, and hundreds of others that are paid by our socialist government to produce goods for our socialist army.
I will protest socialist security departments such as the Pentagon, FBI, CIA, Department of Homeland Security, TSA, Department of Justice and their socialist employees.
Upon reaching eligible retirement age, I will tear up my socialist Social Security checks.
Upon reaching age 65, I will forego Medicare and pay for my own private health insurance until I die.
SWORN ON A BIBLE AND SIGNED THIS DAY OF ____________ IN THE YEAR ______________.
___________________________ ___________________________
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