In a report published by the American magazine “Women’s Healthmag”, author Ariel Sicklet says that making the most of time lies in how it is used and how to set priorities in life, and since people do not have the same amount of free time, every additional minute provides basic rights and privileges Excess hours become a luxury that the “time poor” people do not possess.
“Time poverty” is a subjective experience, says Ashley Whelans, author of Smart Time: How to Take Back Your Time and Live a Happier Life. You face it if you’re constantly working late, you have kids, or you have the responsibility to do housework.”
Mothers’ priorities
The author explains that according to a recent study in the Journal of World Health, it is the women who do the most housework and end up as mothers who are supposed to be the most affected.
“Women will cut back hours, even withdraw from the workforce, or simply try to do both paid and unpaid work, leaving less free time for leisure and sleep,” says Lyanna Sayer, director of the Time Use Lab in Maryland.
The writer points out that the epidemic has exacerbated these current problems, as it resulted in regarding 3 million women leaving the labor force at the beginning of February 2021, noting that although some women benefited from working from home, 80% of those surveyed in the Deloitte Global report For 2021 they said workload prospects had risen due to the pandemic; Almost half of them adapted their working hours to accommodate increased caregiving duties, and this hindered their relationship with their employer.
Low wages and heavier time burdens
The author shows that low-income women face the largest wage gap, which ends with the division of their time and the complexity of their paid and social jobs; “They are starving for the time it takes to invest in relationships with the family or the community,” says Angela Glover-Blackwell, resident founder of the Research and Action Institute for Racial and Economic Justice PolicyLink.
She notes that these women may hope to integrate into parent-teacher meetings, but when there is no paid vacation and shift assignments are announced the day before, they end up with impossible to-do lists.
Wages are related to ethnicity
According to the Center for American Progress, black women bear the brunt of “time poverty,” with 68.3% of them representing the primary financial support for their families, which is more than double the percentage of white women, and more than 50% of white women. For Hispanic women, relaxation time can also be scarce, even at home, where cooking and homework are chores.
She adds that 21% of black families headed by women did not have the ability to buy a car in 2017, which means spending precious minutes on public transportation, and therefore the determination and productivity of the “hustle culture” that other departments celebrate, in This case, is just a way to get money.
Time required to cross the poverty line
Those who struggle to make ends meet often do not have enough time to take care of themselves, they are unable to schedule routine doctor’s check-ups, exercise or adequately treat their mental health, and even nutritious dinners are rarely beneficial to them.
It turns out that women who work multiple jobs often rely on fast food restaurants to make a living, because groceries are few and far between in low-income neighborhoods, and even if people in these neighborhoods find time to stock their stores, buying in bulk is out of the question unless They don’t have a car.
The effect of ‘little time’ on well-being
It can be seen that things like relying on friends when you’re tired, getting more sleep, and keeping healthy meals on hand are not here. In this regard, Whillans adds, as quoted by the author, that time pressures negatively affect happiness more than the effect of the unemployed, and “which increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, high body mass index, and depression.”
The author quotes a survey conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation that 77% of mothers take their children to doctor’s appointments, compared to a fifth of fathers, and those who do not receive paid sick leave do not have a medical examination on their cards.
Intelligence in time management
The writer believes that the issue requires a systematic restructuring, that is, changes in the current situation, as she quotes Whillans as saying that material constraints are “not only the main factor that perpetuates the cycle of poverty, but also time constraints,” explaining that poverty will not be confronted until the makers recognize policies and organizational leaders as the result of both financial and temporal inequalities.
According to Seklet, among the solutions offered is what Saru Jarayaman, director of the Center for Food Employment Research at the University of California at Berkeley and president of One Fair Wig, said of the need to raise the minimum wage; This simple step of raising wages from $2 to $15 an hour – in America for example – with the addition of tips will reduce women’s having to work 2 or 3 jobs, allowing them to spend time with their children.
“Diving” to focus on what you love
Jarayaman also referred to the 2020 headlines related to women who had the opportunity to spend more time with family, to focus on hobbies they were ignoring, but did not reconcile with work, which resulted in them leaving their jobs.
Those options are off the table for millions of Americans, as low-income women whose businesses mightn’t afford to work from home have spent hundreds of hours calling recruitment agencies in the hope that the next few hours will be better than the last.
In the conclusion of her article, she asserts that knowing the resources differ between people can help to see why the list of necessities is also different; Often it is not regarding the choices made, but regarding the circumstances in which we live.
