The boundaries of working time

The advent of the service society wrought profound changes in the forms, places and contents of work. The manufacture of material goods gave way to the supply of personal services and the processing of information and symbols, standard stock production gave way to ‘personalized’ and just-in-time production, large organizations to small units, and closed hierarchies to open networks. The variability and uncertainty entailed by the new modes of producing goods and services require flexibility in the technologies employed and in the use of the workforce. Whilst the former requirement has been met by the spread of information technologies, the latter has bred new forms of employment and new working time regimes. Desynchronization of work commitment during the day and permeability between working and non-working time are therefore two aspects that should characterize today’s way of working. Nevertheless, at least in Italy, empirical studies have not to date gone beyond analysis of the diffusion of specific working-time arrangements - part-time, shift work, work at night or at weekends - and have failed to consider whether the standard work day is indeed being destructured for a large number of workers. Besides addressing this question, the time use survey has enabled us to determine the extent to which work has ‘invaded’ non-work time.