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.

My ex who is my children's father and one of my closest friends died in March - cause is unknown, sudden death or similar BS wording. He worked 7 days a week, constantly on call when he could have financially survived on part time wage. He was stressed, had a lot of pressure that his boss kept piling on refusing to hire more people as was desperately needed. Hes gone now, his last days he was on medication to help him sleep and spent each day feeling anxious and stressed. I wish so much he had listened to his family and cut down the hours and had a far better work/life balance to enjoy his life more. He was only 32 and worked straight from doing GCSE`S, first as an apprentice. We get one go at life if you can afford it then address the balance because there is no retake and no going back and the pain of his last few days lives on in his family members its a hard pill to swallow. Not everyone wants kids, not everyone wants to travel, some people just want to enjoy their lives with people they care about and have hobbies.

My ego? I was telling them to do the opposite of what I did?! I loved retail but to be honest no one graduates and thinks 'let's get down Tesco and see if they're hiring.'
The problem is that people get stuck, you graduate, you find a job you don't hate, it's easy, there's banter and free food, you have a few knock backs in your chosen career, the next minute you've been there ten years.
It happens so often!
We live in an expensive city and there's no way you could save for a house deposit and work part time in a shop. Even renting a flat on your own would be impossible, without help or a partner/friend. The trouble is they couldn't see that house shares get boring after five plus years. Either that or they had a trust fund

I have met a few part time single women in their twenties, all of them had a mum and a dad paying for all the essentials (food, accommodation, transport, etc...) while they used her earnings as pocket money.

There was no motivation to work more hours, and to be honest I am not surprised.

Not everyone measures their worth by paid work.
Not everyone thinks that work is the be-all and end-all of their lives.

As long as they can pay their way, good luck to them.

The only part time jobs I had before I had my child were the shit ones- retail, bar and warehouse etc.

I was so stressed in those jobs that I probably would have committed suicide if I did them full time.

Humans aren't actually programmed to work (in the sort of indoor, sedentary, intensive way we do these days) 35/40 hours a week. In the conditions we evolved in, groups of hunter gatherers would have only spent a smaller proportion of the day obtaining food. Many people struggle with the proportion of our lives we now are expected to work (primarily to buy stuff) we dont need) and want a simpler life.

Not everyone goes to university. I didn't.

Not sure why you're so invested in what other people do.

I think your experience is unusual. I have never met anyone like the people you describe who work part time in jobs that could be done full time.

Now... years later and in their 40s things are still the same, they are still sponging their parents or new partners because they don’t see a point on growing up.

Looking at them made me realise what a huge favour my mum made to me by letting me fend by myself.

@Mabelannie

If you’ve got no prospect of ever getting on the housing ladder however hard you work then I guess you might as well work to live. That will be the case for some young people these days.

Yes, I don't see how a shop assistant on minimum wage is going to be able to buy his/her own house even working full time.

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.)

Bloody hell, do you realise how patronising you sound?

Working in a shop is not "wasting your life". We'll always need retail workers.

I used to work part time in retail because full time roles involved working every Saturday and I didn't want to work Saturdays as it was the only full day that I could spend with my husband, plus I had a dog and I'm one of those crazy owners that didn't/wouldn't leave her all day, but not sure why you've got your knickers in such a twist about part time workers, the world would be very boring if we were all the same.

@KitKatKit

Because climbing the career ladder isn't for everyone? Because life is short and they would rather have less money and more time for themselves?

If they're paying their taxes and not causing harm to others, why is it anybody else's business?

Exactly. In my last job there were men who worked part time because they wanted to.

Yoof or today eh?, why when i were a lad ...

etc ,etc, etc....

A lot of jobs are part time.
The high employment figures we saw before lock down included lots of PT and zero hours work

@RosesinGranGransgarden

My ego? I was telling them to do the opposite of what I did?! I loved retail but to be honest no one graduates and thinks 'let's get down Tesco and see if they're hiring.' The problem is that people get stuck, you graduate, you find a job you don't hate, it's easy, there's banter and free food, you have a few knock backs in your chosen career, the next minute you've been there ten years. It happens so often! We live in an expensive city and there's no way you could save for a house deposit and work part time in a shop. Even renting a flat on your own would be impossible, without help or a partner/friend. The trouble is they couldn't see that house shares get boring after five plus years. Either that or they had a trust fund

Maybe they do have a trust fund then. In which case, the answer is that people who have enough money not to work full time in jobs they don't love that are badly paid... don't.

There probably are at least some of them with some form of disability or condition they've not chosen to make you aware of too. And they won't necessarily all be planning to stay in the expensive city.

When I was in my late teens / early 20s I worked part time because I wanted to. I hated working in all honesty, in any and every job I’ve ever had (and I’ve done a lot of different things from make up artistry to marketing manager and lots in between! I’m 40 now). I just prefer to be at home. I don’t get any sort of self worth or enjoyment or satisfaction from working. When I had my son I became a stay at home parent / carer (son has disabilities) and for me that’s been far more rewarding and enjoyable than any paid work I’ve ever had. I do appreciate however I am lucky to be able to choose whether to work part time or full time however due to family circumstances, not everyone has that choice and I understand that. (When I was younger I inherited money / property which meant I didn’t need to work full time).

@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.

That's rubbish. Houses are much more expensive now compared to a full time wage, not just compared to a part time wage.

Firstly, your issue here is generally just younger people. Not their working hours, they just clearly annoy you in general.

Secondly, not everyone wants to buy a house. Not everyone wants a new car. Some people are more than happy with life's simple joys

Thirdly, because we have clocked on quicker than you that for the majority, less working hours and less money but more 'me' time is much better than more money and more hours.

Evidently, all your working hours have turned you into a judgemental tw*t, and we don't want to turn into you.

I agree with you Op, I don't get this at all. When I was young and childless it wouldn't have occurred to me to work part-time, even when living at home, I mean I still had to pay for my keep and travel expenses and I needed money for driving lessons, then a car and holidays, socialising and then for a deposit for a flat. In fact I often used to have an extra job working as a barmaid in the evenings and weekends and as a waitress at weddings during the summer months - that is how I managed to save for a deposit and manage a mortgage on my own. A lot of friends were the same, working extra jobs as they needed to earn extra for the same reasons. I wonder if the same people in their twenties and thirties who come on here moaning about how hard they have it and how they will never be able to get on the property ladder are the same ones who only want to work part-time. I think your twenties and thirties are exactly the time you should be working hard for your future security - when you have the energy.

Yes, if the city is so expensive, the couple of hundred extra pounds a retail worker would take home working 5 days a week not 4 simply isn't going to add up to enough for a deposit.

This seems unusual to me. I think everyone in the demographic you are talking about whom I know wanted to work full time and only worked part time if there wasn’t the option for a full time post. These were few and far between though.

@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.

Arts degrees include more things that 'the arts' if you see what I mean.

I worked "part time" when I was in my 20s and spent the rest of my time trying to get an arts-based income going. Ultimately it was not commercially successful but I have no regrets about the things I didn't purchase in my 20s.

Before having DS I always worked part time as DP worked long hours always (more than full time). His hours meant he couldn't share any household responsibilities (cleaning/cooking) and i wasn't prepared to work full time and do everything at home. I wasn't in a well paid job so wasn't worth working full time and hiring a cleaner.