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.

Someone I know in his late 20s works part time in a very well paid profession. He would like to be a police officer but can't afford to live on that wage, so he uses the extra time freed up by being part time in his paid role to volunteer as a Special.

A few friends are part time due to mental health reasons.

I was part time (30 hours) before kids because we had a large inheritance and didn't need the money.

I know that there a multitude of reasons why people might not be able to work full times, which I fully understand. However....
The money must come from somewhere.

Where someone's money comes from isn't really a concern to anyone but them, is it? No, it doesn't always have to come from somewhere, people just adjust their spendings and go with out luxuries and nice things. And are you sure you 'fully understand', because you sound very judgemental to me, op. I would expect someone who works in mental health to be a bit kinder.

I don’t think much of accepting help from parents while working part-time. But though I loved my work, I would have enjoyed working part-time if I’d had the chance in my 20s. So much more time for other interests. I could never fit it all in, in my 20s.

I have sometimes worked part-time since then and always preferred that. Earned enough to support myself, didn’t have big expenses but had many other interests.

Personally I worked part time when young, because I was either studying or trying to find a job in my field. When I was younger, I also commuted more and that was very tiring and a potential reason why people may choose to work part time. Now I truly believe and research backs this up, that most jobs can be done in condensed hours or part time for full time money. The problem is that in the UK presenteism is strong and I don't see this country adopting the model of Scandinavian countries.

wow it would be really worthwhile to lose 1/5th of your income so you could do the housework/cleaning/chores!

Can you really not see why that couldn't be worthwhile to some people?

It frees up the weekend for family or couples-time and means nobody is spending their precious weekend stripping beds/doing the food shop/catching up on laundry because everyone has been too busy during the week.

I work part-time and get all the housework done during the week so DH and I can spend our weekends doing more enjoyable things.

If they're earning enough to pay their way through life, put a roof over their head, food on the table, pay the bills and pay the appropriate amount of tax and NI on what they earn, then I have no issue with whether people choose to work full or part time. It's a free country.

When I finished uni I applied for both full and part time jobs as I just wanted a job!!

I used to before I had children but that’s because I hate working, hated the jobs I had (I’ve never had a career, just crap and boring admin type jobs), and at the time I didn’t need the extra money.

Extra money wasn’t worth the misery for me.

I worked part time in my late 20's pre DC. It had been a full time job as a maternity cover, then she wanted to come back but only part time, I loved the job so we agreed to a job share. There was a little bit of overtime if I wanted it so I ended up working about 24 hours per week. It worked really well for me as I also did volunteer youth work and gave me more time to do that. I stayed in that job until I had children, then was full time carer for my fil until he died and I now work part time again around school (DC both in primary school.) I was lucky that dh earnt enough we could afford for me to do part time and it really was a very nice work/life balance. It meant we couldn't go on expensive holidays but we had enough to live off and put some money aside each month in case we needed it. It worked well for us.

I think there are many reasons TBH! The younger people may have seen their DPs work their butts off ,and think" oh oh thats not for me!" I also think many people may get help with HB and so on (not too sure TBH) Many youngsters seem to be able to get by with going to Charity Shops for clothing, or still live at home with DP ,and eke their money out .Also when they have worked hard for their degree ,they probably want to find a job they enjoy, and failing that will take their time and work in a P/T role .

Because they want to. End of.

It’s good to have a healthy work-life balance and working full time doesn’t give you that.

Work isn’t the be all and end all of everything. Happiness and good health is more important.

If they don’t have to and they don’t want to, why should they?

I'm in the age range you're talking about and I have one friend who doesn't have a child or study and only works part-time. That means every, single other friend that I have either has a child, is studying or works full time (or more than one of these).
I literally do not know anyone in the position that you describe - are you sure they didn't have other jobs? If it's a zero hour contract then it's likely they had other jobs elsewhere.

I think that actually young people today have different values to 20 years ago. They are far more environmentally aware of the damage consumerism does to the planet and are therefore less likely to want to accumulate "stuff". If they need to use a car they'll rent one for the afternoon rather than working all hours to buy a flashy one and pay off the loan. Many of them cannot imagine ever being in a position to get on the property ladder no matter how hard they work so why slave away for a deposit when the £40,000k you need to save now will be £80,000K by the time you've saved it?

I think that they are also far more motivated by experiences than by having things. They are more "in the moment" than we used to be as we were always looking to what would happen next. So they'd rather take a day to go to a nice location for a trail run rather than clock the miles up pounding the pavements before work or (even worse) the treadmill afterwards.

Personally I think it is great that they have a much more balanced attitude than we did. I will always regret bowing to parental pressure to go into the city and work long hours in a job I hated rather than taking the time my friend did to travel, learn a language and study part time whilst she found out what it was she really wanted to do.

Because living to work isn't the be all and end all for some people. Maybe they have other interests or hobbies, or volunteer, all of which could allow them to enjoy life and feel more content than slogging away for 40 hours a week in job they dont necessairly love. For some people, their worth isn't defined by their job.

I'm in my forties and work part time in a supermarket to supplement my income from my office job. I have many young colleagues who are on part time hours - men as well as women. It is usually not by choice. Other than managers we now don't have any full time contracts. Most of them want full.time work and do over time when it is available but are only contracted for 16 or 20 hours. It is so that the supermarket don't have to pay them during lean times. I think it must be very hard.

The few people I know who’ve done it (I’m 30 and all my friends are professionals) did it to start a business in their extra day off. I knew one girl who did 9 days per fortnight and just used the extra day for fun, but that was in the Netherlands where they have more emphasis on work life balance, cost of living is lower, plus it was the hours she was offered when she got the job.

I’ve been thinking about doing it as I work long hours (10-12 hour days) and earn enough to make it very doable (I just got promoted so for a 4 day week I’d still be earning about what I earned in my last role, especially considering I’m in a high tax bracket so earning less would mean lower tax). I’ve been working full time to save up for maternity and working part time or not at all in future, but it’s taking us a while to get pregnant and I’m feeling like there’s more to life, especially as I don’t particularly love my job.

I do agree with you though - if you’re earning a low to middle income wage, living in a house share, in your twenties, it’s quite short sighted to work part time as it’s likely to massively impact your living standards and earning potential for the next 40 years. I know people of my generation put more emphasis on experiences than material things (supposedly) but at the same time everyone complains they can’t afford a house etc. I think delayed gratification is a hard lesson to learn for young people - I found it quite hard when I left university to realise it would be decades before I earnt a lot or could afford a nice family house like my parents. On the other hand though you could argue working part time and earning less is no different to choosing a certain career knowing it is lower earning eg. Arts, care etc. And nobody tends to berate young people for choosing those kinds of careers.

It is odd but maybe they are on zero hours contracts and so are reliant on benefits in some way? If that’s the case it may not be worthwhile for them to add irregular hours to the mix.

I did as due to tax brackets I could earn a very similar amount on 4 days as 5. I did 3 full days and 2 half days wfh. We were going through an incredibly stressful time with fertility treatment and recurrent miscarriages. This gave me some extra headspace and allowed me 2 half days to go out on big walks with our dog. It did me the world of good.

@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.

Why? Would it give you great satisfaction to see everyone working 70 hour weeks?

Mind your own business.

It sounds as though you are jealous of them OP! What is the matter with an Arts degree or humanities FFS? You imagine many youngsters only go to Uni so they can get a well paid F/T job .Big news! many youngsters want to increase their knowledge of their chosen subject ,and take a course in that .And before anyone asks me if this is true of my family .No my DS has a Masters degree in physics and a F/T job .However he has friends in a similar position who are working P/T and living at home !

I worked part time sometimes at that age. I worked a 6 day week for ages, and burned out. I didn't need the money and I enjoyed the time. I still value my time more than money - I'm specifically doing a degree, to enable me to earn enough to work part time rather than full time in the future...

@cologne4711

It's actually not as simple as a 1/5 earning lost.

My partner dropped from 5 days to 4. By the time every contribution had been adjusted (national insurance etc) he took home 1/10 less a month, negligible really for a whole day off and we hardly noticed.

I worked part time a lot during my 20s.

In one low paying role I only got about a tenner extra for working five days than I did working four so I refused the overtime after that.

Anyway once I moved on from menial jobs to office jobs I still worked my way up in my career to management before I finally went full time. I didn't have a child then and hadn't got married yet but I throughly enjoyed the freedom my lifestyle gave me.

Anyway I don't work at all now, since I got married and am now a SAHM. No regrets except working full time the last four years of my career and not living my best life.

Anyway stop judging people by your standards. A lot of the reason I worked part time was because of all the miserable older people on the job, still broke and living pay check to pay check. I thought well if it's going to carry on like that I might as well enjoy myself. Glad I did too as I still ended up being relatively successful in my field. If I'd listened to people like you I'd be screwed. Nowt to do with having kids or not, I reckon you're jealous underneath

There is more to life than children. There is more to life than work!

I don't understand it. I'm in my twenties. I couldn't afford a mortgage if I didn't work FT for two reasons - Saving for a deposit and a mortgage company wouldn't give me a deposit if I was on PT hours with a PT wage..

Don't they realise its so much harder to get onro the property ladder now? Fair enough if you're not interested. But most people should be

@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.

So every person in their 50s has less physical and mental energy than everyone in their 20s?

It's not about age. You could have a 21 year old with a crap diet, no physical exercise, maybe a health condition thrown in. Their colleague could be 55, run marathons as a hobby, eat well go to the gym and be the picture of health. Who would be physically/mentally stronger in this situation?

As I said in another comment. I'm 25 and disabled. I struggle more at work than my colleagues in their 50s do. Because their health is much better than mine. Age can be a factor to how much work someone can manage/decide to take on but it isn't the be all and end all. I struggle to work full time as well - I get it. But I guess if I went part time the OP would judge me because it would mean I have no goals in life and because I'm 25 I should be fully capable of working full-time. Even if I'm not.