Work/life balance
Early last month, I blogged about our need to slow down and spend more time doing the things that mean the most to us.
The Quality of Life survey suggests that many New Zealanders work too hard to be able have an adequate work/life balance. 45 percent of those surveyed said they experienced barriers that made it difficult to take part in free time activities that were important to them.
Unsurprisingly, the people most likely to experience barriers to free time activities were those aged between 25 and 49, the period of life that most people are busiest with work and bringing up their families. The most common barrier to physical activity was “not enough time”.
However, money doesn’t buy you leisure time: the same proportion of people earning more than $100,000 a year cited not enough time as a barrier to leisure activities as people earning between $30,000 and $70,000. We’re also quite stressed: 41% of us feel stressed rarely or never, compared 59% who experience stress some, most or all of the time.
Conversely, we seem to be a happy bunch, with 85% of those surveyed saying they were satisfied or very satisfied with their lives. As New Zealanders get wealthier, they get happier, up to a certain threshold (about $70,000 a year) after which satisfaction levels seem to plateau, as follows:
Less than $20K: 78% are satisfied or very satisfied
$20-30K: 81%
$30-50K: 84%
$50-70K: 86%
$70-100K: 91%
$100-150K: 92%
More than $150K: 89%
Thus, if the point of government policy were to ensure the greatest amount of life satisfaction among its people, then there’d be no qualms about people earning more than $70,000 a year being taxed much more heavily than they are now in order to better invest in public services. After all, once you’ve reached $70,000, you’re as happy as you’ll be when you’re earning $200,000.
May 3rd, 2005 at 3:31 pm
Your conclusions are spurious and don’t make a lot of sense.
From the table above it looks as though people earning $100-$150k are happier than those earning $70-$100k. Also, surely it is self regulating. i.e if you are 92% happy at $100k and $89% happy at $160k, then surely you could make that decision for yourself to earn less.
“45 percent of those surveyed said they experienced barriers that made it difficult to take part in free time activities that were important to them.”
How ridiculous. I am surprised that the number is not closer to 90%. Time is a finite resource so people are forced to make choices between two or more opportunities. We all know that there is NEVER enough time to do all the things we want to do. It will always be this way because there are infinite things to do and finite time to do them in.