To ask why young people without children work part time?

[RosesinGranGransgarden]

Going to get flamed for this but here goes!

In every single job I've been in I've worked with people younger than me who work part time hours. I can't quite get my head around it.
In my previous job I was a retail manager. Most of the staff were young, 20-30, none had kids apart from me and one other lady. We used to have a sheet of overtime shifts up and I used to have to beg staff to work it. These are young people, not studying, none with disabilities that they disclosed to me, most were renting/ house sharing. I never understood why they didn't want to work more hours, get more money for house deposits, travelling etc.
Another job I was an admin assistant and two or three of the other admin were young women, married with no children, who worked three or four days a week. Why?! Even if their husbands earned enough to support them, shouldn't they have worked to save for maternity leave, holidays, nice car etc.
I know money doesn't motivate a lot of people but as a young, childfree person, I would have never thought to apply for a part time job, unless I could be assured there was overtime. If not for financial reasons then just out of boredom, as all my friends would have been working full time.
Currently I work 32 hours due to no afterschool club, my colleague works the same hours. She said to me yesterday she wants to drop a day as she's exhausted. She's 28?! We work in an office together. She moans about not being a homeowner, why not work more hours?
Sorry rant over.

[bee222]

I used to use my own experience to teach them how to not waste their lives working in a shop and go look at graduate schemes (they never listened.)

You sound a bit bitter and judgemental. Not everyone has to follow the same path.

There is nothing wrong with working in a shop.

[Gwenhwyfar]

Wouldn't most people work part time if they could afford it?

I've never been able to afford to work part time, but I certainly wouldn't want to work overtime or have two jobs. Work is a necesary evil, not something I want to do more of.

[ScrapThatThen]

I was exhausted in my twenties and used to find being out doing sport one evening a week for two hours too much! I definitely lacked stamina. I persuaded my boss to promote me and let me drop a day (so paid same money) and ponced around doing a writing course on my day off. Goodness knows why dh indulged it. Young love. Now I work full time in a demanding job with two children and do sport or exercise five days a week and cook from scratch.

[hula008]

Ughhhh... I'm not starting to think they work part time to be around you and your ego less to be honest.

Yeah this

[AngryPrincess]

Ummm, because she’s exhausted?

[holidaydisaster2020]

because they want to I suppose.

It's not something I've come across at all to be fair. Normal for me is that the youngsters are full time then people drop to part time when they've had children or are close to retirement.

The people in your work place all have their own reasons🤷‍♂️

In the next few years working part time and job sharing could be a good way forward whilst redundancies are high.

If everybody that wants to and is able to work part time then will that not create more job vacancies?

[dontdisturbmenow]

In every job I've had it's been mostly the younger staff members working full time and the staff members in their 50s with grown up children who work about 10 hours a week
Let's see, maybe because once you hit your 50s, you have much less mental and physical energy than in you 20s?

I have worked FT all my life, even when my kids were babies. In my 20s and 30s, it was a breeze. Now the menopause has hit with dreadful sleep that nothing sort out, my concentration and stamina are a real battle every day. I work ft but by Thursday, I'm done and only counts the hours to Friday evening. I'd love to work PT.

[Andwoooshtheyweregone]

I’ve never come across what your saying OP. I guess where I live is too expensive for anyone to live and work part time without kids. All my childless friends work every hour god sends and so do my friends with children!

[SparkLee]

I worked full time until I was 26, then my mental health took a very bad nose dive and I left work altogether for 6 months while I recovered. Came back again full time for a year and a half and mental health turned to shit again. Went part time after that and life has been so much better since (well, until bastard covid hit). For me, my mental wellbeing is far more important than working full time. Can't pour from an empty cup.

[sst1234]

People who don’t work full time or at all when the can are the same people complaining that houses are unaffordable for them or that they done have the same opportunities as their parents or their grandparents had or that everything in life is someone’s else.

[SparkLee]

Oh and no kids.

[Gwenhwyfar]

@Shinebright72

I don’t think many young people will be working part time unless they earn a fabulous wage though. I’ve not come across it that often tbh. Most people probably can’t afford to live off of a wage that’s just 30 hours a week even with no kids.

Thinking about it, the only young people working part time I've known were ones who could only find part time work, or only part time in their field and were hoping for more hours.

[Scrumpyjacks]

I'm 24 and have worked since I was 16. In that time I've only worked full time for 3 years. My first day job I could only get part time hours in but I hated being there so never did overtime. I now work part time because of my children

[VettiyaIruken]

When I was young my job was nothing more than time I had to surrender in order to afford to live.

I gave the amount of time necessary in order to fund my life and no more.

Which is a perfectly valid choice. Your job doesn't have to be your priority in life or how you define yourself.

[Chocolateandamaretto]

In my local area if you want to work in the profession I’m in it’s really quick hard to get full time work on the bottom rung of the ladder. I know plenty of people in their twenties who work part time. They’re all also pretty skint though so swings and roundabouts!

[FizzFan]

If I could give anyone one piece of advice it would be to work part time if you can. I see how run ragged some of our younger staff at work are and think they’d really benefit from working 4 days as I have always done since I had my kids. I did work full time before I had them but even now they are both in high school I don’t want to do it again.

[BlueyBee]

When I was in my mid twenties I dropped down to three days a week, had no children at the time. We had, however, just bought a bigger, run down house and DH and I agreed that I would spend time doing it up; he was the much higher earner so it wouldn’t have made sense for him to cut back his hours. I was also studying for my masters so would fit my studying into that time and would also do the housework for that week. It meant that at the weekend, we were completely free to have leisurely time together. We still pooled our money together at the end of each month, so whilst we had slightly lower earnings, we also weren’t having to pay for people to do the work for us. We just preferred it that way.

My mental health had also suffered in my work so it was a way of balancing that out. It worked.

[Redwinestillfine]

Mental health? I know a single childless mid 30's who has always worked 3-4 days to keep things manageable. No- one at her work knows as she won't disclose. Also money isn't everything. I wish I had started working part time younger instead of doing all the overtime I could. In reality it never went on houses/ cars / pensions, it was just spent partying.

[DancingWithTheDevil]

Presumably they were happy with those hours and the money.

It's nobody else business.

[Choice4567]

@RosesinGranGransgarden because they want to? Why does it bother you so much?

I don’t follow people around the supermarket asking why they are not buying carrots. I like carrots, I just can’t understand why you aren’t buying them. They’re cheap and good for you. Why is no one listening to my carrot advice when I clearly know so much better what’s good for you than you do?

[Chocolateandamaretto]

They are usually also looking for more hours as well!

[GarlicSoup]

@SquidwardTennisballs

Because they want to 🤷🏼‍♀️ Not everything revolves around children and I don’t understand why it bothered you about what hours people work.

^
This

Why do you feel the need to ‘rant’ about it OP?

[Waxonwaxoff0]

Why is working in a shop "wasting your life?" Some people enjoy that. You sound very unpleasant.

[SachaStark]

When I graduated, and moved out to live with my now DH, I worked three jobs for a couple of years: one at the weekend, one during the week, one in the evenings, to earn as much money as possible.

Then I trained to be a teacher in a post-graduate career, then worked full-time as a teacher (60-70 hours per week) until I had a total breakdown due to severe work-related depression at 29.

Just before I turned 30, I quit full-time teaching, became a self-employed supply teacher, whilst making teaching resources on the side, and I only work when I want to, or when I need the spare money. This means that I tend to work between 2 and 4 days a week in my favoured schools, and I have weekends to myself.

I’ve re-taken up dance, which I used to do for 19 years until I became a teacher, and now (before COVID) get to travel around competing. I have time for reading and filmmaking again, and when I’m socialising with friends and family, I am actually PRESENT with them, rather than always with half a mind on work.

Best decision I’ve ever made. I wasn’t happy working full-time, my life was consumed by work. My advice to anybody now would be that if you don’t WANT to, or don’t HAVE to work full-time in a job, then just don’t. There is so much more to life than work.

OP, possibly you should read the book “Bullshit Jobs” to learn more about this phenomenon? Perhaps you feel this way about your part-time colleagues because you don’t have anything else that fulfils your life? You mention having had no interests in your twenties that would have taken up much time. Perhaps you should find something to enrich your life more?

[Dramalady52]

The ones with the arts degrees are probably working on building a career in that sector and need the "free" time to develop their specialism, whether writing, acting or producing. They work to pay rent and eat and work on their passion on the side for low or no pay to get the experience which hopefully will lead to paid work in the arts.