Pressed for time the differential

impacts of a time squeeze

Dale Southerton and Mark Tomlinson
Abstract
The time squeeze is a phrase often used to describe contemporary concerns about
a shortage of time and an acceleration of the pace of daily life. This paper reviews
analysis of the Health and Lifestyle Survey (HALS), 1985 and 1992, and draws upon
in-depth semi-structured interviews conducted with twenty British suburban house-
holds, in order to shed light on senses of time squeeze. 75% of HALS respondents
felt at least somewhat pressed for time, with variables of occupation, gender, age
and consumption signicantly increasing senses of being pressed for time. This is
not surprising given theories of the time squeeze. However, identication of vari-
ables only offers insights into isolated causal effects and does little to explain how
or why so many respondents reported feeling usually pressed for time. Using inter-
view data to help interpret the HALS ndings, this paper identies three mecha-
nisms associated with the relationship between practices and time (volume,
co-ordination and allocation), suggesting that harriedness represents multiple
experiences of time (substantive, temporal dis-organisation, and temporal density).
In conclusion, it is argued that when investigating harriedness it is necessary to
recognise the different mechanisms that generate multiple experiences of time in
order for analysis to move beyond one-dimensional interpretations of the time
squeeze, and in order to account for the relationship between social practices and
their conduct within temporalities (or the rhythms of daily life).
Time, like money, has become a basic unit of measurement during modernity.
E.P. Thompson (1967) demonstrated how organising the production process
according to time-oriented action was central for the development of indus-
trial societies, while Veblens (1953: 43[1899]) account of the leisure class
where conspicuous abstention from labour . . . becomes the conventional
mark of superior pecuniary achievement highlighted how time can be asso-
ciated with social status. Yet, contemporary anxieties about time go beyond
measurement and display. Put simply, time is often viewed as being squeezed,
that people can no longer nd the time to complete the tasks and activities
most important to them and that the pace of life is increasing (Cross, 1993;
DEMOS, 1995). There are many explanations as to why this is the case. Some
explore substantive changes in the duration of time spent on particular tasks,
The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review 2005. Published by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.,
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such as paid and unpaid work (Gershuny, 2000; Schor, 1992). Others consider
the temporal organisation of societies (Zerubavel, 1979), while qualitative
accounts examine narratives and experiences of those most vulnerable to
time pressures (Hochschild, 1997; Thompson, 1996). The problem remains,
however, that little agreement can be found regarding whether experiences
of a time squeeze (or being harried) are as pervasive as popular discourse sug-
gests, what socio-structural mechanisms generate a time squeeze and whether
its effects are distributed evenly across society.
This article reviews analysis of the Health and Lifestyle Survey (HALS),
1985 and 1992, and draws upon in-depth semi-structured interviews conducted
with twenty British suburban households in order to shed light on senses of
time squeeze. The HALS is interesting because it asked respondents whether
they felt pressed for time and therefore presents a quantitative source of data
which can be associated with the notion of being harried a term often
employed by people interviewed in the qualitative part of this study.
1
Liter-
ally, the verb harried means to harass and to worry (Oxford English
Dictionary). However, since Linder (1970) appropriated the term to describe
the harried leisure class, its meaning has come to be associated more directly
with both a lack of time and the acceleration of daily life. For example, to be
harried is similar to being hurried and harassed in the sense that people hurry
to complete tasks within limited time frames or feel harassed by the burden
of obligations to others. To this, the term harried adds a degree of anxiety
regarding the temporal over-load created by the proliferation of simultane-
ous demands (Southerton, 2003).
Following a brief review of the many accounts which address why a time
squeeze may be emerging results from the HALS are presented. Accompa-
nied by analysis of interview data, these results demonstrate how occupation,
gender, age and consumption held various implications for the degrees to
which people felt harried. When the data sources are taken together three
mechanisms which generate different experiences of harriedness are
revealed. This suggests that when analysing time it is necessary to consider
how multiple inter-connected, yet relatively distinct, mechanisms are at play
in the conditioning of temporal experiences, not all of which relate to the dis-
tribution of practices in time but to the conduct and collective organisation
of practices in time (and space).
Explanations of the time squeeze
Explanations of the time squeeze, of being harried and pressed for time
can be broadly summarised within three themes of social change economic,
cultural and technological. The themes are not mutually exclusive, although
they do indicate contrasting approaches to the study of time. This review
is not exhaustive. Rather, it represents the theoretical orientation of key
accounts that address this subject of social scientic enquiry.
Dale Southerton and Mark Tomlinson
216 The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review 2005
Economic change
Those who point to economic change as the root cause of a time squeeze iden-
tify mechanisms related to employment and the provisioning of goods and
services. Some highlight the pressures placed on people to work longer hours.
Two related processes are widely identied. The rst focuses on workplace
competition, employees being pitted against one-another (with respect to
career progression) in a way that generates a culture of working long hours
the principal means of demonstrating commitment and ambition by employ-
ers (Rutherford, 2001; Kunda, 2001). The second emphasises the organisation
of capitalist workplaces. Schor (1992, 1998) explains the economic benets
for rms of training a limited number of employees who work long hours as
opposed to a larger number of employees who work limited hours. She also
highlights the signicance of consumption in ratcheting upwards the hours
people spend in paid work. Assuming that people value their consumption
relative to others and that a global consumer culture places the lifestyles of
the most afuent as the key consumer referent group, then the average indi-
vidual needs to earn more money (Schor, 1998: 123). Overall, the logic of
global capitalism is that people work more to consume more. The difculty
with these arguments is that much, although not all, time use data suggests
that people are not working longer hours. Robinson and Godbeys (1997)
analysis demonstrated that Americans felt more rushed in 1995 than they did
in 1965 despite having signicantly more leisure time. Importantly, analysis of
social change is dependent on the historical time scales taken for compara-
tive analysis. Gershuny (2000) demonstrates that the general trend in the UK
is a decrease in hours worked until the mid-1980s when hours spent in paid
work increased slightly.
The changing distribution of time spent in work and leisure is important,
but says little about the temporal organisation of daily life. Garhammer
(1995), describing the shift toward post-Fordism, identies a process of ex-
ibilization whereby working times and locations are increasingly de-regulated
and scattered. The consequence is a temporal shift from 9 to 5, Monday to
Friday to the 24 hour society, from collectively maintained temporal
rhythms toward individually organised temporalities. While Breedveld (1998)
demonstrates that the 9 to 5 model remains the dominant practice in the
Netherlands, his analysis of scattered working hours does suggest that those
with higher socio-economic status are best placed to utilise exibilization and
gain greater control over their own daily use of time because they have auton-
omy over the allocation of tasks within their working day and over which
hours of the day that they work. By contrast, exibilization for lower socio-
economic status groups tends to be controlled by employers and it is this
group who suffer most from the temporal fragmentation caused by working
irregular hours. Wouters (1986) discussion of informalisation, whereby
group-based norms are eroded, also implies a reduction in the rigidity of insti-
tutionally timed events. A clear example is the growth of grazing patterns of
Pressed for time the differential impacts of a time squeeze
The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review 2005 217
eating and decline of the family meal (Charles and Kerr, 1988). Taken
together, exibilization and informalisation imply a weakening of socio-tem-
poral structures that, in the absence of xed institutional temporalities, make
the potential for co-ordinating practices between social actors increasingly
problematic (Warde, 1999; Southerton et al., 2001). These are theories that
can be described as indicating a process of de-routinization of societys col-
lective temporal organisation.
A third set of theories refers to the growing number of women entering
the workforce. It is suggested that women in dual income households
experience a dual burden as a consequence of juggling both paid employ-
ment and their continued responsibility for domestic matters (Thompson,
1996). One symptom of the squeeze placed on womens time is the require-
ment to multi-task or do many tasks simultaneously in order to t them all
in to nite amounts of daily time (Sullivan, 1997). Perhaps more profound
are the implications for how people interpret and organise time in their
daily life. In her ethnographic study of a major American corporation,
Hochschild (1997) draws together accounts of how intensifying global com-
petition increases hours of paid work and the temporal implications of a dual
burden. She argues that as hours of paid work increase (what she calls
the rst shift), time for domestic matters (the second shift) become squeezed,
creating the need for a third shift whereby people attempt to create quality
time for their loved ones. This is a process of rationalisation because the
principles of Taylorization, whereby tasks are broken down into their com-
ponent parts (fragmented) and re-sequenced to maximise temporal efciency,
have become applied to domestic matters. Consequently, the second shift
becomes time pressured and, Hochschild suggests, the process spills into
the third shift where even quality time becomes regulated by the principles
of efcient time use and time itself comes to be viewed as a means to an
end.
Crucial to the dual burden thesis is the claim that women have compara-
tively less leisure time than they did in the past and than men. Bittman
and Wajcman (2000) demonstrate that in OECD countries, when taking paid
and unpaid work together, there is very little difference in the number
of minutes men and women spend in work. While undermining the dual
burden thesis, Bittman and Wajcmans study does reveal important distinc-
tions in the quality of leisure time experienced by men and women. They
distinguish between pure and interrupted leisure and show that men
enjoy more leisure time that is uninterrupted. Womens leisure, by contrast,
tends to be conducted more in the presence of children and subject to punc-
tuation by activities of unpaid work. In addition to implying that womens
leisure time maybe less restorative than mens, Bittman and Wajcman show
how the socio-economic organisation of time, particularly in terms of the
domestic division of labour, can produce qualitatively different experiences
of time.
Dale Southerton and Mark Tomlinson
218 The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review 2005
Cultural change
Linder (1970) was the rst to identify cultural changes in leisure practices and
associate them with shifting cultural orientations toward time use. Turning
Veblens theory of the leisure class around, Linder argued that the relation-
ship between status and leisure today rests on the volume of leisure experi-
ences rather than on the conspicuous display of idleness. To display status
through leisure requires the consumption of more and more leisure practices,
a process which in turn renders leisure less leisurely as people attempt to cram
more activities into their daily life (Roberts, 1976). This basic argument is
taken further by Darier (1998) who suggests that being busy is symbolic of a
full and valued life. In his conceptualisation of the problem, reexive mod-
ernisation and the emerging demands on individuals to narrate their identity
through styles of consumption (see Bauman (1988) and Giddens (1991) for a
detailed exposition of this theory) brings with it the demands of trying new
and varied experiences, and it is this which leads individuals toward the in-
nite pursuit of more cultural practices. In short, being busy is now a necessary
requirement of reexive identity-formation.
Accounts of changing orientations toward consumption lend some support
to Linder and Dariers theories. Peterson and Kern (1996) discuss omnivo-
rousness an orientation toward consumption where good taste is judged less
by a depth of knowledge in specied cultural practices and more by a broad
understanding of many different genres. From a different theoretical position,
Lamont (1992) points to the orientation of the professional middle classes
toward cosmopolitanism and self-actualisation the serious and committed
pursuit of many novel cultural activities. Both accounts imply that changing
cultural orientations toward consumption make it a set of social practices both
more demanding on time use and more central to social life. It follows that
such cultural changes bring with them new experiences of time that, when
taken in conjunction with the theories of Linder and Darier, indicate that con-
sumption might be a central mechanism in generating the time squeeze.
Technological change
Accounts of socio-technological change highlight how emerging technologies
impact on the temporal organisation of society. Innovations in the form of
labour-saving domestic appliances have received most attention. The basic
conundrum is whether labour-saving technologies also save time. Vanek
(1978) demonstrated that the amount of time devoted to domestic work by
women in the USA remained constant between the 1920s and 1970s. Given
that this period featured the rise of domestic labour-saving technologies,
Vanek explains this consistency by recognising that such technologies increase
domestic productivity and with this comes a corresponding increase in (cul-
tural) standards of domestic work. In other words, labour-saving technologies
Pressed for time the differential impacts of a time squeeze
The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review 2005 219
contribute to an increased frequency, range and quality of domestic work.
As Schwartz-Cowan (1983) indicates, net gains in time saving are therefore
limited while expectations of time saving are high, leaving impressions that it
is time which has become squeezed rather than that domestic technologies
have not delivered time saving (see also Shove, 2003).
Summary
Explanations of a time squeeze all take the position that contemporary life
is at least perceived as an experience of increased harriedness, even if
empirical accounts are inconsistent in their prognosis of the condition. Analy-
sis has tended to focus on the relationships between work, home and con-
sumption, with attention paid to the changing distribution of practices within
and between these spheres of daily life. Whether quantitative methods are
employed to investigate use of time or qualitative methods to explore expe-
riences of it, the problem tends to be addressed through one-dimension that
some practices take up increasingly more time to the detriment of others
(Bittman and Wajcman being the major exception). The consequences of such
changing distributions of practices in time are then associated with broader
social changes such as those outlined above.
Despite the theoretical and analytical gains presented by these approaches,
what remains unclear is how the idea of a time squeeze has come to be so
pervasive in popular discourse. Current accounts tend to identify specic
groups as being susceptible to the same one-dimensional problem through a
plethora of largely unconnected processes. For example, dual burden theories
identify women in paid labour as being the harried, while theories of con-
sumption and workplace competition tend to focus on the middle classes. This
article is less concerned with which social groups are most pressed for time
(although the identication of why different social groups might feel pressed
for time is important to the analysis). Rather, using a combination of quan-
titative and qualitative data, our concern is with understanding whether
harriedness is a uniform experience and with revealing the mechanisms
that generate such experiences. As a starting point, we examine explanations
of economic, cultural and technological change in relation to the available
variables that affected subjective statements of the degree to which
HALS respondents felt pressed for time. The article continues to reveal three
different mechanisms responsible for generating multiple experiences of
harriedness.
Pressed for time results from the Health and Lifestyle
Survey (HALS)
2
The HALS data were collected in 1984 and 1985 to form a random sample of
9003 respondents aged 18 or over and resident in private households in Great
Dale Southerton and Mark Tomlinson
220 The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review 2005
Britain, and included many variables related to the areas of consumption and
lifestyles. For example, detailed data on food consumption, smoking, alcohol
consumption, hobbies, exercising, as well as socio-demographic variables
including social class, household composition, age and gender were gathered.
The respondents were traced and re-interviewed seven years later (referred
to as the follow-up survey) and almost all the original questions were
repeated. Thus we have similar data from two points in time for the
same people. However, a number of respondents from the rst wave could
not be traced or had died when the second survey took place, reducing the
size of the second wave from 9003 to 5352. This merits some caution when
analysing the second wave of the survey as we do not know what effects
this attrition of the sample may have on the results. The models use data
pooled for the two years so that time can be taken into account. Also note
that all models, with the exception of model 1, were restricted to employees
only. Attrition is controlled for in the models below by including a dummy
variable (called lost) indicating that a respondent in wave 1 was absent in
wave 2.
3
Crucially for our analysis, questions were asked about day to day habits
and use of time including a variable reecting harriedness: Indicate how well
the description Usually pressed for time ts your life. Respondents had four
options in reply not at all, somewhat, fairly well, very well. Taking these
responses as the dependent variable in ordered logistic regression models, we
analyse the extent that people reported feeling pressed for time in terms of
social class, age, gender, life-course, and consumption orientations. We were
also able to analyse the data in relation to a number of less commonly used
variables, such as the effect of shift work and going out to meet people, in an
attempt to isolate possible causes of being pressed for time. These variables
are described in table 1.
Interpretation of the survey results was aided by qualitative interview data
conducted in 2000. Twenty suburban households were interviewed regarding
their impressions of whether people are increasingly squeezed for time. The
sample comprised single households, couples with and without children and
respondents age varied between 25 and 65. Some were dual income house-
holds, some professionals and some retired, thus providing a range of demo-
graphic and socio-economic status groups. Interviewees were contacted via
letters sent to every other house in the most and least expensive areas of the
town.
4
Interviews lasted, on average, two hours. Adopting a conversational
approach (Douglas, 1985) toward semi-structured interviews, interviewees
were asked about whether society was, in general, more time pressured than
in the past, whether they felt pressed for time, to recount and reect on the
previous week and weekend day, and to recall moments when they felt
harried. In this article, interview data is used to illustrate and help interpret
the signicance of the HALS results (for a more detailed analysis of the qual-
itative data see Southerton, 2003). What follows is a general description of the
survey ndings, starting with responses to the initial question and followed by
Pressed for time the differential impacts of a time squeeze
The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review 2005 221
regression analysis of how occupation, age, gender, life-course and consump-
tion affected the degree to which people felt pressed for time.
How many people are pressed for time?
Figure 1 reveals that little change has taken place between 1985 and 1992 with
regards to feeling pressed for time. This is perhaps not surprising given the
Dale Southerton and Mark Tomlinson
222 The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review 2005
Table 1 Complete list of independent variables included in the models
Variable name Description
y92 Dummy: 1 if year = 1992, 0 if year = 1985
lost Attrition dummy set to 1 if no response in second wave
i Occupation professional (RG I)
ii Occupation manager (RG II)
iiin Occupation routine non manual (RG IIIN)
iiim Occupation skilled manual (RG IIIM)
iv Occupation semi skilled (RG IV)
6
unemp Unemployed
sickdis Sick or disabled
retired Retired
student Full time student
hwife Full time housewife
thirties Aged 3039
forties Aged 4049
fties Aged 5059
sixties Aged 60 and above
7
female Female
wk1120 Hours worked 1120
wk2130 Hours worked 2130
wk3140 Hours worked 3140
wk4198 Hours worked 41 or more
8
drive2-drive4 Indicators of drive and ambition from a 4 point scale (base 1 is
lowest)
shift Whether has shift work
super Whether supervises others
/mi etc. Occupation interacted with gender (e.g., = female class I,
miv = male class IV etc.)
kids04m Man with children aged 04
kids04f Woman with children aged 04
kids511m Man with children aged 511
kids511f Woman with children aged 511
logomni Omnivorousness score
gooutlot Indicator of people who go out a lot
seeppl Indicator of people who go out to see people a lot
spur People who indicate they do things on the spur of the moment
carefree People who describe themselves as carefree
relatively short time scale between the two sample years, and because expla-
nations of an increasing sense of feeling harried tie the process to a broader
time frame. Figure 1 suggests that three quarters of the population report
feeling at least somewhat pressed for time but whether somewhat pressed for
time constitutes being harried is open to interpretation.
Impact of employment status and occupation on harriedness
Initial regression results
5
(see table 2) show that all classes are more pressed
for time relative to classes IV and V (note that the non-employed are not
assigned to a class in this analysis). The professional and managerial groups
reported being most pressed for time and non-employed groups, other than
housewives, were signicantly less pressed for time than those in work. Thus,
the unemployed, students, the sick and disabled, and the retired are all less
pressed for time. There is a marginal decline in being pressed for time in 1992,
but this is only just signicant at the 5% level. More importantly the attrition
indicator appears to be insignicant so we can be more condent that attri-
tion in the second wave is not having a dramatic effect on the results. Other
signicant effects from the rst model show highly signicant age effects with
time pressure declining as respondents get into their fties and beyond, and
a highly signicant gender effect with women much more likely to describe
themselves as pressed for time than men.
The class effect persists even when we control for number of hours
worked among employees in the sample (table 3), but only for managerial
and professional workers. Thus among the employed the most harried seem
to be at the upper end of the white-collar spectrum. When we only consider
employees there is no signicant change in harriedness over time (y92 is
insignicant) and again the attrition indicator is insignicant. It may be the
Pressed for time the differential impacts of a time squeeze
The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review 2005 223
Indicate how well the description Usually
pressed for time fits your life (%)
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
Not at all Somewhat Fairly well Very well
Year
1985
1992
Figure 1 degrees of feeling pressed for time in 1985 and 1992
case that some generalisable characteristics of professional and managerial
jobs make them more demanding in terms of time. This argument gains
support when the variable pressed for time is analysed in relation to whether
people work shifts or whether they supervise others. Table 4 demonstrates that
supervisory roles, which require a degree of responsibility for the time man-
agement of others, and not working xed hours (i.e. not working to a shift
system) increases senses of being pressed for time. This provides some support
for Garhammers theory of the impacts of exible work and Breedvelds
claims to a process of de-routinization, whereby an erosion of structured work
times makes collective action a case of individual time management and has
the effect of intensifying the immediacy of time. However, the class effect
remains even when these things are taken into account.
Explanation as to why being professional middle class served as a signi-
cant variable might be found by generalizing about the workplace and social
status. Rutherford (2001) and Kundas (2001) ethnographic accounts of time
and professional occupations suggest that the corporate world encourages,
if not demands, high degrees of employee competition as an incentive for
Dale Southerton and Mark Tomlinson
224 The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review 2005
Table 2 A basic model with occupation, age and gender all respondents
Number of obs = 10,356
Ordered Logit Estimates chi2(17) = 1,664.76
Log Likelihood = -13,239.853 Prob > chi2 = 0.0000
Variable Coef. Std. Err. P > |z| Pseudo R2 = 0.0592
y92 -0.0933702 0.0471658 0.048
lost -0.0722766 0.0489713 0.140
i 0.8874785 0.1176081 0.000
ii 0.867675 0.090162 0.000
iiin 0.4642229 0.0993753 0.000
iiim 0.415411 0.0884631 0.000
iv 0.1567807 0.0997465 0.116
unemp -0.5803457 0.126371 0.000
sickdis -1.065291 0.1816903 0.000
retired -0.8239733 0.1149354 0.000
student -0.4924166 0.112017 0.000
hwife -0.1459078 0.1016325 0.151
thirties 0.0557434 0.0599808 0.353
forties -0.0877262 0.0620595 0.157
fties -0.2478916 0.0646654 0.000
sixties -0.555723 0.0830194 0.000
female 0.3291287 0.0386622 0.000
_cut1 -1.156138 0.0981035 (Ancillary parameters)
_cut2 0.4564696 0.0972167
_cut3 1.812553 0.0992585
ambitious employees. Apart from placing pressure on employees to work
longer hours, workplace competition has the effect of intensifying work rates,
meaning that even those who did not work long hours still felt the impact of
time pressure. This was also an explanation offered by interviewees such as
Suzanne:
in the seventies stress wasnt a word was it? . . . in the commercial world,
and you know a lot more is expected of you compared to that era . . . I think
companies . . . they demand blood . . . that makes it very competitive . . . The
knock on effect of that then when youre looking at your personal life and
that sort of thing, then you havent got time! Because youre directing all your
time in trying to be successful in your career.
Rutherford and Kundas studies also indicate how being harried has become
an important part of professional middle class identity and source of social
status. Take for example Stevens remarks about career success:
Pressed for time the differential impacts of a time squeeze
The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review 2005 225
Table 3 Effects of hours worked employees only
Number of obs = 5,908
Ordered Logit Estimates chi2(16) = 399.59
Log Likelihood = -7,675.1401 Prob > chi2 = 0.0000
Variable Coef. Std. Err. P > |z| Pseudo R2 = 0.0254
y92 -0.0597711 0.0534919 0.264
lost -0.020583 0.0666777 0.758
i 0.6927484 0.1498345 0.000
ii 0.5871587 0.1294274 0.000
iiin 0.2377826 0.1364008 0.081
iiim 0.1634402 0.1278771 0.201
iv -0.1139742 0.1365585 0.404
thirties 0.1311829 0.0726211 0.071
forties -0.0261868 0.073514 0.722
fties -0.1653488 0.0795361 0.038
sixties -0.30182 0.1124572 0.007
female 0.6749304 0.0579366 0.000
wk1120 0.3600338 0.1159055 0.002
wk2130 0.5460537 0.1197813 0.000
wk3140 0.4706091 0.1042179 0.000
wk4198 1.143891 0.1125365 0.000
_cut1 -0.7232272 0.1689376 (Ancillary parameters)
_cut2 1.148328 0.1686873
_cut3 2.509649 0.171139
if youre successful or have a high status job then youll be busy and not
have enough time for yourself because youll have so much to do. Its the old
money rich time poor syndrome.
To not identify oneself as harried within the context of dynamic careers was
tantamount to admitting that one did not belong to the successful professional
middle classes and was lacking ambition and personal determination to
succeed within that environment.
HALS does not contain variables of workplace competition to allow for
direct testing of this hypothesis. However, it does ask questions regarding the
degree to which respondents felt they were ambitious. As Table 4 indicates,
ambition was related to an increased likelihood of reporting being pressed
for time. Whether being ambitious is a personal characteristic particular to
Dale Southerton and Mark Tomlinson
226 The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review 2005
Table 4 Models including other work oriented variables employees only
Number of obs = 5,908
Ordered Logit Estimates chi2(21) = 772.83
Log Likelihood = -7,488.5195 Prob > chi2 = 0.0000
Variable Coef. Std. Err. P > |z| Pseudo R2 = 0.0491
y92 -0.0569811 0.0538156 0.290
lost -0.057432 0.0671888 0.393
i 0.4985009 0.1529758 0.001
ii 0.395934 0.131889 0.003
iiin 0.1141724 0.1377934 0.407
iiim 0.0856758 0.1290255 0.507
iv -0.1271915 0.1376565 0.355
thirties 0.2184767 0.0735777 0.003
forties 0.1059875 0.0748754 0.157
fties -0.0360448 0.0808012 0.656
sixties -0.2352873 0.1131939 0.038
female 0.8265935 0.0594302 0.000
wk1120 0.3749939 0.1167885 0.001
wk2130 0.5269522 0.1208173 0.000
wk3140 0.3561772 0.1066145 0.001
wk4198 0.9243931 0.1156808 0.000
drive2 0.5584821 0.0817706 0.000
drive3 0.8648146 0.0812849 0.000
drive4 1.70397 0.100324 0.000
shift_ -0.267912 0.0715689 0.000
super_ 0.1935124 0.0548396 0.000
_cut1 -0.0465987 0.1805062 (Ancillary parameters)
_cut2 1.894702 0.1817661
_cut3 3.325726 0.1851352
the professional middle classes or an outcome of increased workplace com-
petition in professional occupations is a debate beyond the scope of this
article. At the very least it seems that being harried has become intimately
connected with being a member of the professional middle classes in addition
to any personal ambitions they might have.
The effects of gender
We saw in table 2 that gender was highly signicant. Table 5 demonstrates that
women in the same occupations as men generally reported feeling more
pressed for time. Professional and managerial women reported feeling the
most pressed for time of all female employees and more so than their male
counterparts. This nding is consistent with the effects of workplace compe-
tition having a greater effect on women compared with men in the same occu-
pation (Rutherford, 2001). However, the largest gap between men and women
of the same occupation can be found in the intermediate classes occupations
less readily associated with workplace competition over career progression.
Pressed for time the differential impacts of a time squeeze
The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review 2005 227
Table 5 Gender and occupational interaction effects employees only
Number of obs = 5,961
Ordered Logit Estimates chi2(16) = 235.99
Log Likelihood = -7,828.0971 Prob > chi2 = 0.0000
Variable Coef. Std. Err. P > |z| Pseudo R2 = 0.0148
y92 -0.032267 0.0531224 0.544
lost 0.0102972 0.0658993 0.876
0.8131743 0.1726698 0.000
mi 0.6115915 0.1652358 0.000
i 0.8290091 0.1309003 0.000
mii 0.5620387 0.1297832 0.000
iin 0.4947467 0.140924 0.000
miiin 0.0960335 0.1467161 0.513
iim 0.419361 0.1289212 0.001
miiim 0.0475298 0.1271188 0.708
v 0.2330796 0.1427538 0.103
miv -0.3380453 0.1472103 0.022
thirties 0.1281205 0.0712439 0.072
forties -0.0012553 0.072553 0.986
fties -0.1545216 0.0783178 0.048
sixties -0.4321708 0.1096457 0.000
_cut1 -1.567225 0.1308244 (Ancillary parameters)
_cut2 0.2737908 0.1284503
_cut3 1.604649 0.130285
The gap between men and women appears only partially attributable to dif-
ferential pressures in the workplace.
It is interesting to note that Bittman and Wajcmans (2000) time use study
reports the total paid and unpaid working hours of men and women for the
UK in 1985 (the same year as the rst wave of the HALS). Using this data,
we can see that UK men and women worked approximately 47 hours each
per week. However, women were responsible for 76% of total time spent in
unpaid work. Taken together with the HALS results it appears that women
report feeling pressed for time more than men regardless of occupation and
despite similar total hours of paid and unpaid work. This lends some support
to the dual burden theory as explained by Thompson (1996). It implies that
the dual burden is less about total hours worked and more about the respon-
sibilities and obligations that accompany unpaid work and particularly the
work of caring for children. Thompson (1996) employs the metaphor of jug-
gling to capture working mothers experience of time and the personal anx-
ieties that arise through managing motherhood and career. Yet surprisingly,
table 6 demonstrates that having very young children (under 5) had little
bearing on the degree to which women felt pressed for time when compared
to men. Indeed it appears to be men with small children rather than women
that are the more pressed for time, all things considered. The survey
data, therefore, either indicates that dual burden theories are mistaken in their
prognosis that juggling paid work and caring for the family create senses
of harriedness or that the survey question fails to capture particular experi-
ences of time that might otherwise be described as harried. Both men and
women with children aged 511 showed a marginal effect on being presses for
time.
Interviews with women did indicate that having young children signicantly
increased senses of being harried even if those women did not describe them-
selves as lacking time. Cindy provided a good case in point. She described
use of time during the day of interview as a mix between leisure and domes-
tic tasks:
I worked out in the gym . . . Then I came home, had my lunch and pottered
around the house for a bit which is quite unusual for me because I usually
tend to go to the shops or see friends or whatever . . . I had to be back to the
school for about three . . . Then we walk home from school and I spent a
whole hour getting her [daughter] to eat her tea ready for gym club which
was quarter to ve.
Given this description of events it was not surprising that Cindy suggests she
is not short of time. However, she was clear that she was sometimes harried:
I nd the mornings very very hectic what with trying to feed her, get her
dressed, to get myself dressed and get her out the door in time to get her to
school. Like this evening she got back from school, we had about one hour
Dale Southerton and Mark Tomlinson
228 The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review 2005
and then she had to go to gym club and I was like, thats not enough time,
she needs to eat her tea and you would think an hour is plenty but, so I nd
myself stressed all the time by trying to get her to places for the time she needs
to be there.
What is important about Cindys case is that she demonstrates how being
harried should not be conated with feeling pressed for time because
harried is a term which describes a density of social practices within specic
frames of time. Pressed for time, by contrast, implies a general shortage of
free time.
Of course, one reason why working mothers may not have reported addi-
tional degrees of feeling pressed for time is that they are more likely to have
some form of childcare. Dual burden theories suggest that women maintain
responsibility for the organisation and transportation of children to the
Pressed for time the differential impacts of a time squeeze
The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review 2005 229
Table 6 Impact of children employees only
Number of obs = 5,961
Ordered Logit Estimates chi2(20) = 257.76
Log Likelihood = -7,817.2155 Prob > chi2 = 0.0000
Variable Coef. Std. Err. P > |z| Pseudo R2 = 0.0162
y92 -0.0340488 0.0531607 0.522
lost 0.0163995 0.0659705 0.804
0.8213948 0.1736224 0.000
mi 0.5955452 0.1657334 0.000
i 0.8481595 0.1318441 0.000
mii 0.5472701 0.1305113 0.000
iin 0.5244022 0.1416063 0.000
miiin 0.098522 0.1471445 0.503
iim 0.4371475 0.1299953 0.001
miiim 0.0322492 0.1278308 0.801
v 0.2543633 0.1435184 0.076
miv -0.3556183 0.1478064 0.016
thirties 0.0399756 0.0756705 0.597
forties 0.012943 0.0739842 0.861
fties -0.0979907 0.079697 0.219
sixties -0.3685517 0.1107295 0.001
kids04m 0.2378405 0.0683029 0.000
kids04f 0.1071713 0.0992041 0.280
kids511m 0.1088399 0.052991 0.040
kids511f 0.1254814 0.0542904 0.021
_cut1 -1.507913 0.1317126 (Ancillary parameters)
_cut2 0.3369538 0.1294723
_cut3 1.671726 0.1314261
various forms of day care available to them. Sarah served as a good example.
As a single working mother, Sarah admitted she was fortunate to be able to
afford a nanny to care for her two children during the daytime. She was also
adamant that Im not pushed for time because Im organised. However, she
did admit that predictable moments of her daily schedule were harried:
it is a case of getting up, feeding the two boys, making their breakfasts,
getting them off to school . . . we have this set routine, they get up, we have
our breakfast, we hoover, they have a bath, I get them dressed and then we
are ready for school. The latest that I can go upstairs for that bath is 8 oclock.
Otherwise, we are very pressured for time and then we are rushing.
Cindy and Sarah captured how mothers in the interview sample experi-
enced time, whether working mothers or not. These narrative accounts also
tally with the qualitative accounts of Hochschild (1997) and Thompson (1996)
and together indicate that the limitations of the survey question (are you
usually pressed for time) for revealing experiences of time and highlight that
a dual burden refers more to the quality of time than to the quantities of
time spent in paid and/or unpaid work.
Consumption and lifestyle
We saw in tables 2 and 3 (above) that increasing age generally has a negative
impact on being pressed for time. Life-course effects could explain why
younger adults felt more pressed than those aged over fty. However, it seems
unlikely that starting a family is signicant given the limited effect that having
young children had on women although the strong signicance for men sug-
gests that life-course is an important factor for them. Orientations toward con-
sumption offer a different account of the relationship between age and feeling
pressed for time. Schors theory that consumer culture generates the time
squeeze implies a generational effect. Consumer culture is a process that can
broadly be traced to the 1960s (Harvey et al., 2001), making those aged in
their forties and under more susceptible to the inuence of this process. To
examine this claim, it is necessary to consider the impacts of consumption and
lifestyle on survey responses.
While the Health and Lifestyle survey holds no data on the volume of time
respondents devoted to practices of consumption, it does contain variables
related to leisure activities. This allows for analysis of omnivorousness a
concept that suggests an orientation toward consumption where individuals
consume a wide variety of cultural pursuits but do not necessarily devote sig-
nicant volumes of time or energy to them. Using a measure derived from
Warde et al. (2000), where participation in various activities is combined into
a score, we were able to construct a variable to measure omnivorousness.
Table 7 shows that omnivorousness had a signicant impact on degrees of
feeling harried. Despite being unable to measure the frequency that cultural
Dale Southerton and Mark Tomlinson
230 The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review 2005
activities occurred for each individual, the signicance of omnivorousness
does suggest that it may be the range of consumption interests rather than the
amount of time spent on consumption in total which increases senses of
feeling pressed for time. Indications of why this might be the case can be found
in variables regarding sociability. As Table 7 also shows, going out, in itself,
makes little difference to feeling pressed for time but going out to see people
does. It follows that the task of co-ordinating with others and with having tem-
poral deadlines for meeting others enhances senses of being pressed for time.
This was a point made by many interviewees:
Our problem is that when we arrange to go out you can guarantee that what-
ever time we need to leave by Karen will not be ready and that makes things
Pressed for time the differential impacts of a time squeeze
The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review 2005 231
Table 7 effects of lifestyle all respondents
Number of obs = 10,356
Ordered logit estimates LR chi2(22) = 1,873.77
Log likelihood = -13,135.345 Prob > chi2 = 0.0000
Variable Coef. Std. Err. P > |z| Pseudo R2 = 0.0666
yr92 -0.1470373 0.0477677 0.002
lost -0.0646442 0.0491892 0.189
i 0.7817256 0.118458 0.000
ii 0.7969043 0.0907899 0.000
iiin 0.3902125 0.0999473 0.000
iiim 0.3850488 0.0886054 0.000
iv 0.1338496 0.0999785 0.181
unemp -0.6223712 0.1267945 0.000
sickdis -1.05596 0.1828032 0.000
retired -0.8418699 0.1153555 0.000
student -0.544319 0.1124722 0.000
hwife -0.1582944 0.1016999 0.120
thirties 0.1043857 0.060403 0.084
forties 0.0003151 0.062969 0.996
fties -0.1311548 0.0659491 0.047
sixties -0.4178277 0.0844001 0.000
female 0.2949099 0.0390883 0.000
logomni 0.2533645 0.0326249 0.000
gooutlot 0.0456961 0.0388151 0.239
seeppl 0.1495254 0.0398839 0.000
spur 0.2468636 0.0371008 0.000
carefree -0.370981 0.0393145 0.000
_cut1 -0.8616358 0.113354 (Ancillary parameters)
_cut2 0.7735507 0.1130085
_cut3 2.1467 0.115055
difcult because we are late and then we have to try and make up time to get
there on time and its not really a very good start to an evening out. (Steven)
its okay if youre going out alone or down the pub but if youre going to
the cinema and youre late and youve arranged to meet friends then you do
rush more because of the thought of them sitting around waiting for you
(Kathryn)
Hypothetically, being omnivorous is likely to increase the range of people with
whom sociability occurs by arrangement because it will potentially expand
social networks, and together this might further exacerbate senses of being
pressed for time. More prosaically, consumption and sociability have direct
implications for how time is experienced, although the survey data is not
extensive enough to conclusively tie this either to Schors (1992) work-spend
cycle nor Linders harried leisure class.
Mechanisms generating harriedness: substantive overload,
disorganised rhythms and temporal density
The survey data is instructive in identifying variables that effected senses of
feeling pressed for time and for highlighting which social groups felt rela-
tively more pressed than others. However, isolating variables and compar-
ing groups tells us little about the mechanisms that make harriedness appear
so widespread. While analysis in relation to interview data and other empiri-
cal accounts helps interpretation of why specic variables might affect expe-
riences of time, these accounts remain fragmented and connections between
variables remain inadequately explained. Identifying the mechanisms that
generate senses of being harried is, therefore, necessary if analysis is to move
beyond a description of the problem and towards an explanation of processes.
As it stands, the survey only tests isolated causal models of why occupation,
gender, age and consumption were signicant.
Three mechanisms can be isolated from the data to explain senses of feeling
pressed for time. First is the volume of time required to complete sets of tasks
regarded as necessary, and refers to the changing distribution of practices in
time. This is a straightforward process identied in rational action theories of
time use (Becker, 1965) where, for example, working long hours reduces the
amount of time available to spend on other sets of tasks, such as domestic
work, time with family and friends, consumption and leisure. This raises issues
of what constitutes need and whether some groups are pressed for time
because they place greater value on certain practices that other groups regard
as less necessary. For example, some professionals might work longer hours
in order to gain advantage over others in the advancement of their career, or
younger people might work longer hours in order to consume more, or spend
more time devoted to consumption because it is regarded as a need rather
Dale Southerton and Mark Tomlinson
232 The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review 2005
than a want. Regardless, volume of time devoted to work and/or consump-
tion practices is one mechanism that increased senses of harriedness.
The second mechanism is co-ordination, which refers to the difculties of
co-ordinating social practices with others in a society where collectively organ-
ised temporalities have been eroded. In a similar sense to the process of ex-
ibilization discussed by Garhammer and Breedvelds de-routinization, this
mechanism points to the challenges of co-ordinating collective social practices
in circumstances where institutionally derived and relatively stable temporal
rhythms are undermined by the individualised scheduling of practices. The
impact of exible working hours on degrees of feeling pressed for time serves
as a good example of this process. Omnivorous orientations toward con-
sumption are also associated with the mechanisms of co-ordination. This is
because practices of consumption often involve interaction within social net-
works (Warde and Tampubolon, 2002), and accounts of network formation
suggest that individuals develop network ties based around specic cultural
practices (Bellah et al., 1985; Fischer, 1982). Consequently, those who are
more omnivorous in their consumption orientations are likely to have a
greater range of networks in which issues of co-ordination will be central to
the organisation of those consumption practices. Allan (1989) demonstrates
that, when socialising, the working classes use public spaces where there is a
strong likelihood of meeting network members by chance rather than arrange-
ment. For the middle classes, such network meetings are pre-arranged. In both
cases, co-ordination becomes increasingly problematic in circumstances where
collective temporalities are eroded. It means that turning up in public spaces
is less likely to reveal known others because networks might, for example,
work at different times of the day, thus undermining normative meeting times.
In terms of meeting by arrangement, increasing fragmentation of collective
temporal rhythms is likely to make common agreement on suitable times to
meet more difcult. In this way, co-ordination is a mechanism which explains
why exible working hours, omnivorousness and socialising with others were
signicant variables that increased senses of feeling pressed for time.
The third mechanism refers to the allocation of practices within time.
Rather than suggest actual increases in volume of practices, allocation refers
to certain practices being located within temporal rhythms that create a sense
of intensity in the conduct of those practices. Allocation is not a mechanism
revealed by the survey data and this is important because it indicates how
experiences of time can be evaluated according to multiple criteria. For
example, narratives of juggling practices and multi-tasking that are found in
accounts of the lives of working women (Hochschild, 1997; Sullivan, 1997;
Thompson, 1996) all concern the challenges of allocating practices within par-
ticular parts of the day. Allocation is also linked to a notion of the boundaries
that separate practices. Hochschilds account of domestic work suggests that
what were once task-oriented practices have now become time-oriented,
meaning that the boundaries between domestic tasks are no longer driven by
completion of those tasks in a sequential manner but according to principles
Pressed for time the differential impacts of a time squeeze
The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review 2005 233
Dale Southerton and Mark Tomlinson
234 The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review 2005
of time-related efciency. Consequently, the boundaries between tasks are
eroded in the course of generating more efcient means of completing those
tasks (see also OMalley, 1992). Importantly, the allocation of practices, which
no longer have clearly dened boundaries, into particular parts of the day can
generate senses of being harried, irrespective of whether the bulk of that day
is experienced as being pressed for time. This mechanism is not restricted to
the home and can also be found in work-place practices where the allocation
of tasks is subject to personal management and where multiple tasks are con-
ducted simultaneously.
Isolating these three mechanisms reveals that harriedness is not a one-
dimensional experience. Indeed, the three mechanisms seem to generate three
distinct senses of harriedness. The mechanism of volume can be held as the
basis for substantive senses of being harried. Bradley summarised what being
substantively harried means:
between my working 5 days a week and then taking Alex [his daughter]
places at the weekend and then in the summer you have to come home and
cut the grass every week and you just have, the household management is
just like almost a day gone . . . But most of the time I leave for work at 7, get
home about 6, 6.30, do household management, sit down at 10 and if Ive
got the energy read for 20 minutes.
A second form of harriedness refers to temporal dis-organisation and is the
outcome of the mechanism of co-ordination. This sense of harriedness is less
conspicuous than the substantive form because it accounts for experiences
that are not obviously connected with an absolute shortage of time. Tempo-
ral dis-organisation takes many forms. For example, Charlotte described being
rushed:
This morning was typical, rst Mike rushes about to get out the door by
quarter to seven, then I get the girls up, dash about getting them ready and
then myself. Then its out the door, rush to school and I have to drop them
at ten to nine or I am late for work. I do my cleaning [paid work] and get
home about two, have something to eat and then get the girls from school
and generally from then on its plain sailing.
Senses of rush always related to the difculty of meeting co-ordination points
within the day, such as to collect children from school or meet with friends or
work colleagues. As Charlotte illustrated, this was caused by the problem of
co-ordinating between her personal schedule and the schedule of her daugh-
ter. However, dis-organisation was also expressed in terms of an inability to
competently organise ones own time. As Cindy explained:
I do nd that I get easily distracted, you know going to the school in the
morning, and its like Ive got to come back and I must do this and I must
do that. At the school Ill chat to friends, chat, chat, chat, chat, chat, chat,
chat, and then its oh no, come back, oh no, I was gonna do that at that
time you know.
In other cases, temporal dis-organisation was presented as the outcome of
obligations to others:
because he [his brother] works typical hours he thinks I can meet up for a
drink at 5. If I dont he thinks Im avoiding him, that my jobs more impor-
tant than he is . . . So I will try and meet up and I either rush everything to
get it nished before I leave or know its waiting for me the next morning.
(Ashley)
Ashley, who worked exible hours, neatly illustrates the difculty of aligning
personal schedules in conditions where others work xed (shift) hours. It also
illustrates how senses of harriedness were exacerbated by senses of obligation
to overcome temporal dis-organisation and create time for signicant others.
Normative expectations surrounding obligation was also found in statements
such as quality time, chill time and bonding time.
Finally, density of practices allocated within time frames acts as a third
sense of harriedness. Temporal density accounts for experiences of time that
can be described as juggling and multi-tasking. As Sarah and Cindy illus-
trated when describing their day, it suggests an uneven experience of tempo-
ralities in which parts of the day are packed with activities while other parts
are relatively empty. Take Chloes description of times when she felt harried:
Some mornings are chaos, after getting them off to school Ill have a cup of
tea and a sit down, then Ill try and get all the housework done so that I can
get off to work for 12.00 and thats as busy as getting the kids off, you know,
start the washing, do some ironing, make the beds, then the washing nishes,
so I stop what Im doing and peg it out . . . Work is easy, the most relaxing
part of the day because I only have to do one thing . . . Tuesdays and Thurs-
days are not so bad because I dont do housework, Ill meet friends or go
swimming or shopping.
For Chloe, temporal dis-organisation is apparent in that she rushes to meet
an institutionally dened meeting point (school), but the multi-tasking of
housework is equally an experience of harried because of the density of tasks.
However, when asked if she felt generally pushed for time she answered: no,
Im busy some of the time but not others. This helps explain why having small
children did not necessarily register as signicant in relation to reporting
feeling usually pressed for time in the survey. Interviewees such as Sarah,
Cindy and Chloe did describe being harried but were always quick to point
out the partiality of that experience, and in doing so avoided describing the
emotional work of childcare as being substantively harried.
Pressed for time the differential impacts of a time squeeze
The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review 2005 235
Isolating mechanisms that explain why people might feel harried or pressed
for time and distinguishing between different forms of harriedness is instruc-
tive in accounting for multiple experiences of time. It suggests that when
analysing time it is important to account for the mechanisms that impact on
experiences of time, recognising that different methodological approaches
offer insights into particular experiences. In this case, the survey data gener-
ated understandings of the factors that led to outcomes of being pressed for
time while qualitative data shed light on the mechanisms that generated mul-
tiple experiences of being harried. Moreover, while scope for analysing which
mechanisms and forms of harriedness were most applicable to specied
social groups was beyond the scope of this article, the identication of multi-
ple experiences does offer a framework for exploring the (changing) socio-
structural circumstances that lead to particular senses and experiences of the
time squeeze.
Conclusion
Approaches to the analysis of a time squeeze tend to account for experi-
ences of time through one-dimensional processes that explore the changing
distribution of time spent on certain practices to the detriment of others. This
has produced valuable insights into changing time use and provided indica-
tions as to why particular social groups might feel increasingly harried.
However, such accounts are limited in their capacity to either generalise their
ndings beyond specic groups or to provide sufciently nuanced accounts of
differential experiences of time. Consequently, while insight is gained into
many social changes that might generate substantive shifts in the distribution
of practices within time for many social groups, little progress has been made
in the identication of key mechanisms that generate senses of harriedness
nor of distinguishing between different senses of being harried.
Analysis of the HALS data and in-depth household interviews offered the
opportunity to bring together the many theoretical and empirical accounts of
the time squeeze and to reveal underlying mechanisms that effect multiple
experiences of harriedness. Occupation in relation to the number of hours
worked, whether respondents worked exible hours, supervised others and
degree of ambition all had signicant independent effects on degrees of
feeling pressed for time. Socio-economic status was also important, as was
gender, age, consumption orientations, and socialising with others. The mech-
anisms which contributed towards how and why these variables impacted on
senses of being harried all related to the organisation of personal and collec-
tive social practices within time and according to the temporalities of every-
day life. Consequently, the volume, co-ordination and allocation of social
practices were the key mechanisms that generated harriedness and each
mechanism was associated with different experiences of time. This demon-
strates that when investigating the time squeeze it is important not to con-
Dale Southerton and Mark Tomlinson
236 The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review 2005
ate experiences related to being pressed for time to factors concerning only
lack of time for the conduct of particular activities (such as domestic work
or sociability with friends and family).
By identifying different mechanisms that generate, and different forms of,
harriedness, this research also suggests a framework for future investigations
of the time squeeze. Of particular importance is analysis of which forms of
harriedness are most closely associated with specic social groups, and under
what conditions are the mechanisms that generate harriedness produced (for
example, is the mechanism of allocation most pertinent to housewives or does
it also have general currency in, say, the workplace). Further understanding
of the mechanisms of co-ordination and allocation is also required, and analy-
sis of the organisation or sequencing of practices is one potentially instructive
approach. This would not only provide insights into how temporalities, or the
rhythms of daily life, are changing, but also further demonstrate how it is the
relationship between the conduct (and particularly the temporal challenges
of collective conduct) of different types of practices (rather than increases of
time spent on one set of practices at the expense of another) that is crucial in
accounting for the signicance of these two mechanisms in contemporary
experiences of time.
Notes
1 Many time use diary surveys contain a survey component that enquire into subjective experi-
ences of being time pressured. HALS data is not superior in quality to these other data sets
but is longitudinal and therefore allows for pooled analysis of two points in historical time.
2 Data were supplied by the Data Archive, Colchester, Essex and the interpretation of the data
is solely our responsibility.
3 The pooling of the cases means that the 1992 responses are all 7 years older than the 1985, and
since there is no replacement of cases this means that there are a lot fewer respondents in their
twenties in 1992 and a lot more aged over 59. As a result, and given that over 59 year olds
reported feeling less time pressured, it is likely that the marginal decline in overall senses of
feeling pressed for time is a consequence of the panel survey sample. Secondly, further analy-
sis that uses the panel, rather than pooled, data is possible. This would allow us to answer ques-
tions such as whether changed individual circumstances over the seven year period lead to
changes in degrees of feeling pressed for time. While these is not scope within this article to
consider panel data analysis, such an approach would provide an opportunity to model changes
in harriedness in terms of the mechanisms that generate harriedness as identied by pooled
data.
4 The term respondent refers to those responses from the HALS data, interviewee for those
from the qualitative interviews.
5 One may interpret these coefcients as one would interpret binary logistic regression coef-
cients except here the dependent variable has more than two values. In other words a positive
coefcient indicates an increased chance that a subject with a higher score on the independent
variable will be observed in a higher category of being pressed for time. A negative coefcient
indicates that the chances that a subject with a higher score on the independent variable will
be observed in a lower category of being pressed for time.
6 Base class is class V (unskilled).
7 Base age is under 30.
8 Base hours worked is less than 10.
Pressed for time the differential impacts of a time squeeze
The Editorial Board of The Sociological Review 2005 237
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