Most people today work a five-day week. But who decided that we should work all day – and that it was necessary to have a ‘job’?
Work is a fact of modern life. Children grow up knowing that one day they will have to earn a living. As adults we divide our waking hours into work and leisure, in the rueful knowledge that we have to submit to the former if we want to enjoy the latter. For most, work takes up five-sevenths of a week and about the same fraction of each lifetime. Our work is central to our sense of self, even at times when we are doing other things. Most, when asked who or what they are, will reply by stating their paid occupation: ‘I am a teacher … a doctor … a farmer …’