The Time Bind: When Work Becomes Home and Home Becomes Work

by Arlie Russell Hochschild

"In this national best seller and New York Times Notable Book of the Year, Dr. Arlie Russell Hochschild, author of The Second Shift, reveals how the workplace has become a surrogate home for many parents and spouses who flee the pressures of family life for the relief of the workplace. Professor Hochschild's audiobook is based on three years of research at a Fortune 500 company in which she interviewed various top executives, managers, secretaries, as well as factory hands. Despite the company's ""family-friendly"" policies, such as flextime and parental leaves, few of the company's people were taking advantage of the ability to spend more time with their families. The Time Bind explains this paradox and suggests a way out of it."

Genres: Sociology, Nonfiction, Feminism, Gender, Business, Psychology, Self Help

Audible Audio

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

Arlie Russell Hochschild is the author of The Outsourced Self, The Time Bind, Global Woman, The Second Shift, and The Managed Heart. She is a professor of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. Her articles have appeared in Harper's, Mother Jones, and Psychology Today, among others. She lives in San Francisco.

Reviews

[Liz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Newsweek considers this book "important, provocative, groundbreaking." Perhaps that is a vestige of the fact that it was published 13 years ago, because the message hammered home over the 260 pages--American parents work too many hours and come up with lame justifications for it while their companies pay lip service only to work-life balance--can hardly be considered groundbreaking anymore. And just think, this book came out before Crackberries were ubiquitous.

I kept two points in mind from this book: First, that workers' tactics for dealing with their hours are to reduce the number of "expected" tasks at home ("my children don't really need a hot dinner"), pay other people for child care, grocery shopping, errand running and other tasks, and to fantasize about being a different version of themselves ("I bought all this camping equipment and someday I'm going to take my kids to the mountains") without ever acting on it. Second, home lives have become so harried, with so much to do in so little time, that workers at all ranks increasingly think of the office as the retreat that home used to be. After all, at the office there are no screaming kids and someone else takes care of scrubbing toilets and vacuuming floors.

The author offers a closing note of hope, looking into the future from which I read her book: "At a hypothetical future meeting of time activists, a unionized auto worker who wants to cut down on overtime in order to give hours back to laid-off comrades may yet join together with an upper-middle-class, working mom who wants to job share." In the 2010 where income inequality keeps growing and blue-collar unionized jobs are even harder to come by, this seems fantastical. After all, in my two most recent job interviews, I've heard the following from my potential colleagues: "Work-life balance? Well, if work is your life...ha ha," and "We come in on weekends to catch up...of course, you wouldn't be expected to do that." Sigh. Can I get a job in Denmark?

[Adriana · Rating 5 out of 5]

We think, we were free, but we are not feeling ourselves free. Actually, we are living in time prisons. They are made by us, we would like to escape them, but we have no time for that. And so the circle goes on.

This book makes you think about life as we have it nowadays, as women or men who work a lot, neglect their homes, children and souls.

Apparently we sold our soul for the possibility, 60 hours or more of weekly work.
Do we need those money? Do we need that work? Well, most of us do. But we get no life instead.

Lots of questions.

The book was very instructive for me, personally, because I could also get some ideas about how to motivate my environment and pupils. The book is not about motivation, but one can find there the idea that personal appreciation is more important than a material gift and works better.

The book was written in the 90s, the research was also done in that time. A lot of things are still very actual.

[Andrew Edstrom · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book should have been a magazine article. There is almost no content here, with the exception of Chapter 4 which is excellent. The book is overall unbalanced, you'll go 50 pages without her saying anything significant and then in one page she'll pack a bunch of really interesting facts that make you glad you got that far.

Overall, it's not worth the hassle. The 4-Hour Workweek does a better job explaining the problem with modern working life in 20 pages than this does in ten times that.

[mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Time Bind: Work-family balance

Books, family, Mental health, Quality of Life, Society, Time

This is a review of the 1997 book The Time Bind: When Work Becomes Home and Home Becomes Work. It was written by professor Arlie Russell Hochschild over the course of seven years, based on her research of a Fortune 500 company in the rural midwest in the early nineties. What I want to do here is link the work-family balance then, to what it has become today in 2023. Moreover, how what was then led to what is now. Specifically, a broken, disintegrated work-family balance that has crippled America.

Hochschild’s research
is what good journalism was. Because it was based on observation, research, and analysis and then, reporting what she had discovered. Notwithstanding any preconceived, or wished for findings. In other words she let the data dictate. In contrast to what is done today – selective reporting seeking to confirm a narrative.

The professor spent three summers watching, interviewing, and living with all members, from the CEO on down, of a transnational corporation. The story she tells in the book is heartbreaking. In a nutshell what she found was that the work-family balance strived for had instead become reversed. Work had become what home once was, and home what work was. The two worlds had been reversed.

This manifested in broken families wherein children and homemaking was devalued. Parents, married or single, much preferred life at work rather than life at home. The corporation had taken over the role of nurturer. “The work of tending to relationships calls for noticing, acknowledging, and empathizing … patching up quarrels and soothing hurt feelings.” (p.210) Adult workers, no matter their position in the company, got these needs met from, and at, work. Home is where they felt the most stress.

Four Models of family/work dynamics.

The Haven: work is a heartless world and home is a respite – a haven.
Traditional: gender specific. The man works and the woman stays home and cares for the home, children, and her husband.
Disintegrated: “no-job and weak family”. “Neither work nor home has any strong attraction for the individual.” (p. 203)
Work-family balance: family-friendly options at work, or “Total Quality” work system.
[One and two were , and are, in decline, four almost non-existent, and three on the increase.]

Four male views of women workers.

Full human beings. [I don’t know what that means?]
Just like men and expected to pull the same load.
Exotic foreigners.
Alien rivals – taking away jobs, money, and fun.
Three types of divorces.
Good ones. Both former partners better off, happier.
All-right ones. Non-hostile.
Bad ones. Still intensely angry at their exes after a decade. [A plurality were in this category.]
In all three instances, however, the children suffer.

What Happened
is this. The Fortune 500 company, under intense global competition, had to increase productivity and work load. The factory, and all product related services became 24/7 operations. In addition, the over-all culture changed from male dominated to gender neutral. Furthermore, consumerism and materialism became dominant trends, or memes. Moreover, alcohol was a popular remedy. [As it has always been.]

The result was families broke apart under the stress. Work became more rewarding and home more costly, especially children. The nineties saw the emergence of the “latchkey” child. (p. 221-28) The emotional and psychological toll of this new arrangement has had devastating effects on both the parents and children. These kids are the Millennial Generation. (b. 1980-2000, age 22-43 now.)

[A needed research study would be a follow-up of these particular children today. How are they doing?]

The Real World
happened, too. Destroying even the security of work. One worker Hochschild interviewed accurately predicted what was coming.

“I don’t know if we’ll get family-friendly policies here in the plant. You always get the sense that you can be replaced. The company doesn’t say that to us. They don’t have to. We hear a lot of rumors that Amerco [fictive name] may take the operation out of the country and pay fifty cents an hour to Mexican workers to do our jobs. That means high-seniority people will bump people like us out of the plant.” (p. 154)

In a cruel slice of irony, those high-seniority, professional managerial people are now on the chopping block. Because of technological progress and artificial intelligence – many of those positions can now be replaced by systems such as ChatGBT. Thinking, design, and decision making can be done better by machines. Without all the costs of human fallibility.

In My Life
I didn’t feel the Time Bind, or role reversal. Nevertheless, my family did break apart because of the cultural changes. I had a great work-family balance. Because I had great separation from work, family, and home.

I tended bar in Denver, working late into the early morning. My commute from my home in the mountains was thirty miles and took an hour. At Windy Point, about the half-way marker, work would fade away. Home and family then became my focus. In addition, I never worked for any corporation, global or otherwise. Also, I have always been an ‘independent contractor’. I have never been dependent on a job, or a slave to consumerism.

Tending bar for a private business allowed perfect work-family balance for me.

Work-family balance was disrupted in the nineties and has continued right on up through today. Exacerbated by the internet and the information age. Work now extends 24/7 for a lot of people. Family is becoming obsolete. The culture is one of “hustle”. He who never sleeps has a competitive edge. In addition, no family responsibility can also be an advantage.

We are well into the culture of narcissism.

In Conclusion.

Like Alison Jolly in Lucy’s Legacy, Hochschild was hopeful. However, also like Jolly, wrong. So far.

Hochschild seems to think that if light is shown on potential problems – those problems can be avoided or remedied. So far that hasn’t been the case.

The good ideas, what Hochschild called “An angel of an Idea” (p. 25-34) that came from first-wave Feminism have not evolved into a system that works. Instead, we are in dire straights. Individuals, families, communities, and societies all coming apart. Indeed, there appears “no way out.” (p.243)

A five star read.

Tagged: behavior, happiness, health, Time bind, work-family balance

[Christie Flora · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book really got to me.

It explores how the lines between work and home have blurred — workplaces acting more like families, and homes starting to feel like second jobs. So much of what Hochschild describes echoes what I hear from clients every week. People doing their best, juggling so much, often wondering why they feel so depleted.

There’s a weight to it. I found parts of the book really heavy — it left me feeling a bit flat, even sad. The way people have adjusted to the overwhelm, like it’s just how life is now… it made me want to yell, it doesn’t have to be this way!

But it also lit a spark.

We’ve done this before. We have changed the way we “do time.”
A century ago, people pushed back against 12-hour workdays — and the 8-hour day was born. That was a movement. A cultural shift.

Maybe it’s time for another one.

What if we designed life differently? What if we brought intention, care, and balance back into how we structure our days?

This book doesn’t give you a solution — but it’s a powerful lens. One that helps explain a lot of what people are quietly wrestling with. And I think that kind of clarity is worth sitting with.

[Simone · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's crazy that this book was published in 1997, detailing life from the early 1990s, before the crazy rise of crack-berries, iphones, and ipads and written before the recession and the exodus of even more American jobs, it feels in some ways like a time capsule. Some of her concerns about outsourcing parental responsibilities seem almost quaint.

Still the book is incredibly compelling, using individual worker's stories painted in lush detail to tell of the dire nature of "work/family balance." Hochschild uses the metaphor of shelter to describe the worker's time away from work, some are about to build lush time-palaces, while others are forced to live in time pup-tents that they move from location to location in the weekly schedule. Parents rigorously schedule an hour of "quality time" with their children, but then get upset when the child doesn't use the quality time appropriately.

"They pack one activity close to the next and disregard the 'framing' around each of them, those moments of looking forward to or looking back on an experience which heightens its emotional impact.They ignore the contribution that a leisurely pace can make to fulfillment, so that a rapid dinner, followed by a speedy bath and bedtime story for a child - if part of 'quality time' - is counted 'worth the same' as a slower version of the same events. As time becomes something to 'save' at home as much as or even more than at work, domestic life becomes quite literally a second shift; a cult of efficiency, once centered in the workplace, is allowed to set up shop and make itself comfortable at home. Efficiency has become both a means to an end - more home time - and a way of life, an end in itself."

[Molly · Rating 2 out of 5]

Until the final chapter of this book, I actually wondered if the author preferred that women stayed in the home to raise children, keep house and cook. I understand that is not the point of the book but there seemed to be this idea that parenting and managing a house should be easy and carefree. Parenting and managing a household is not easy no matter how much time you have. It is no wonder we escape to work. And things like hiring house keepers, easy meals and ordering pre-made meals or outsourcing home, as she calls it make life more manageable no manner how many hours you work. I am just not sure what picture of an easy going life at home she has in her head. She seems to think that by working less we can cook homemade meals from our garden, clean, sew clothes and still provide our kiddos with all the time they desire.

[Kim Donehower · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you find yourself feeling more calm and competent and in control at work than at home, read this book. It will re-assure you about your experiences and explain thoroughly how this state of affairs comes about.

[Kris Muir · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hochschild presents the view that home used to be a haven for rest, and work used to be a place of stress. Yet, today, those roles have flipped. Work and family are “enmeshed yet competing emotional cultures.” The workplace has adapted many of the familial structures of valuing the individual, creating a culture, and fostering a community. And home has adapted to a cult of efficiency, where families have to shuffle hurriedly and even feel pressure to schedule their quality time like a meeting on their calendar.

Through face-to-face interviews at a Midwestern company that she anonymously calls Amerco, Hochschild discovers some hard truths about working families, who are “both prisoners and architects of the time bind in which they find themselves.” People work long hours, whether you work in a manufacturing plant or you work in the executive suite. What remains interesting is why people work long hours. The research presented here suggests that the motivations for working more are problematic : work to support your family but also to avoid your family, especially if you have small children. Hochschild presents in vivid detail the confessions of many workers of taking extra shifts or of staying long hours to avoid the stress of young children at home during their “third shift.” In her words, “some people find in work a respite from the emotional tangles at home. Others virtually marry their work, investing it with an emotional significance once reserved for family.”

“Time Bind” asks us to re-examine our assumptions about work and home, to face the harsh realities of gender expectations, and to realize that “the more attached we are to the world of work, the more its deadlines, its cycles, its pauses and interruptions shape our lives and the more family time is forced to accommodate to the pressures of work.”

Happy Reading!

[Caroline]

Read for school.

[Darren Glazier · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pleasantly surprised by the insightfulness.

[Lynda Pires · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sadly repetitive. I couldn’t finish it in earnest and skimmed until the end. Three stars because it was a solid assessment of our societal situation- even thought written in the 1990s. But, there are tons of writers today who take a less judgy tone, especially toward working parents.

[Rom · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read most of this book for my introduction to sociology class. Whilst the point she is making is certainly worth dwelling on and applying to one‘s own life, the book itself is just insanely repetitive. The lengthy case studies and details about some of the workers of the company she assessed simply did not add much merit to the actual content, one after the other saying the same thing. Read an article or a shorter version of this (or only chapter 4) and you‘ll have all the information you need - which, again, is itself worth thinking through.

Hochschild‘s main observation is that home has become work, while work has become home. We spend too much time at work, and end up trying to make domestic life as efficient as we used to with work. Life is passing by in high speed, while leaving more loss than gain. Made me open my eyes that I do not want such a life and that I am lucky to realize this early on. This however is no longer an earth shattering or revolutionary observation as some years have passed since the release of this book and most of us have unfortunately realized this reality in our own lives.

[Lara Torgesen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Arlie Russell Hochschild’s book The Time Bind details some of the striking paradoxes in the modern work world, in which women now make up about half of the workforce. While people still like to pay lip service to the idea that home is a haven, family is first priority, and work is only a necessity to support them, Hochschild’s research shows the reality indicates just the opposite. People are putting in longer hours at work than ever before. Flex-time and part-time schedules are underutilized, even by the people who champion them. Workers increasingly see the workplace as a “haven,” where they are needed and valued, and home as a hurried, hectic, and stressful place to be. In addition to the infamous “second shift” that now still typically waits for women after their long workday, Hochschild describes an emerging “third shift,” or the time that now has to be spent dealing with the problems resulting from absentee parents and spouses over the long term. Interestingly, it seems that people have tried to somehow make up for lost dreams of the perfect home and perfect family by creating workplace renditions in their stead. Linda Avery talks about how she goes to work early just to “get away from the house.” Her husband only “babysits” at the house when she’s at work and takes off from the moment she walks in the door, leaving her to take on the flurried home life of trying to handle the needs of kids, cooking, cleaning, and other endless home demands. When she arrives at work, she gets a “warm welcome” from co-workers in a calm environment where she feels confident and self-assured. Her “children” at work are older, more mature, and easier to manage. She can take on the role of the perfect, well organized, and well-groomed “mother” while at work. Is it any wonder she dreads returning to the “rat race” of home? Bill Denton, likewise, can take on the role of the wise and kindly father at work. He puts in long hours at the office and is always there when people need him, loves what he does, and doesn’t even really know what he’s missed of his actual home and private life, because his wife has always stayed home and managed the entire sphere there. Vicky King is another paradox. She is a strong advocate of flexible schedules, yet herself is as much a workaholic as Bill Denton. However, she lacks Bill’s stay-at-home wife to manage the private/home sphere, and so she and her husband have had to figure out various arrangements that unavoidably pass some of the temporal costs of their absence to their children, who at times feel the need to fight back and demand more from them.

Reading this book brought back to me so many of the challenges that are posed by trying to have an egalitarian marriage, a fulfilling career, and a happy home life with children. I’ve been on “all sides of the coin,” so to speak—worked part-time with children, worked full-time with children, stayed home full-time. In each scenario, there are unsettling questions raised. “Am I missing something important in my children’s lives by not being home?” “Can I still bring her to daycare with a cough this bad but no fever?” “Will I give up everything for my children only to fade away into oblivion myself?” In my case, I never really felt like work was a “haven” or some sort of ideal family. The company tried, to be sure, but it was more like a dysfunctional family with a few crazy people and a few people who were less than honest and less than ethical with other co-workers and with clients. I definitely preferred my real home and family to the workplace. In an ideal world, I would prefer to have a good job with equal pay to my spouse’s and have us both work about 25 hours a week and share home responsibilities based on our personal preferences.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

Initially I approached this book thinking that it told the familiar (and not particularly interesting) tale of how the endless demands of the workplace are slowly eating way at the little time that we have to spend with our families or just ourselves. Well, this is NOT that tale. Rather, Professor Hochschild explores and succinctly describes how the workplace has become the dynamic community in our lives, to the exclusion of all else and at a price. The reasons have little to do with "work becoming unmanageable;" rather, it is "work becoming community." I find her ideas provocative, eye-opening and remarkably non- ideological, as it is simply reporting what is happening in our Country and to some extent throughout the world. Anyone who runs around 24/7 with a cell phone, beeper, blackberry, etc. knows what I am talking about. Highly recommended.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This seemed to be a part 2 to the "Second Shift" written by the author. The notion is that family life is suffering due to work constraints and because work has become a more enjoyable place than home. There has been a role reversal, and although people acknowledge that work is more fun and is more appreciated by others, it is difficult to individually attempt to create home as a haven with two full-time parents. Work gets outsourced and people convince themselves that the children don't really need -insert blank-. The most interesting notion is the Third Shift that people take care of: that of rebelling children that are angry at their parents, and the appeasement process. That 'quality time' is difficult to do in a timed, efficient manner. I thoroughly enjoyed this book.

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great report of how the roles of home and work have flip-flopped over the last few decades. It was very interesting and enlightening. However, I felt like the author’s findings definitely could have been condensed. Maybe I just don’t have patience, but it got to the point that I felt like she was intentionally milking the stories of the separate families just to lengthen the book. It was hard to get through toward the end. Still, I find myself referencing the book’s concepts in different conversations I have with others about the work/home-life balance.

[Haley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book for a sociology class that I took, but I have kept it and reread it because it speaks volumes to me. Hochschild does an amazing job discussing the changes within work and family. This book kept me reading far longer than I anticipated when I started it. Honestly, it was hard for me to put down. It's a powerful book sending a powerful message and it emphasizes the importance of family and making time for these important activities. A lot of great and powerful information that sticks with you long after the book has finished. Highly recommend.

[Alannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Undoubtably one of the best non-fiction books I've read in a long time. Hochschild achieves what can rarely be said about writing about this kind of academic research; it balances interesting observations with a pleasing writing style that encourages the reader to carry on chapter after chapter. For once I'm glad that this was a compulsory read for one of the courses I'm taking at university.

[Sofia Pi · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was a good and innovative sociological research. I particularly liked her insistence and I enjoyed the way she writes. Although I read it as part of my MSc ,it reminded literature. she wants it to be a best seller and popular that is why she chooses to write in this style. Sometimes melodramatic. Yet, a great message and a clear depiction of nowadays society.

[Andrea · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was used as text in my intro to sociology class. It was very helpful in explaining why the nation has some of the problems we have right now and what we should do to fix them. I still use this book as reference when discussing societal issues.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book for a sociology class. It is really interesting. It shows how companies are demanding so much time from their employees that it makes it very difficult to make time for family. It might have some bad language, I can't remember.

[Will · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Time Bind is a book by sociologist Arlie Russell Hochschild in 1997, The Time Bind: When Work Becomes Home and Home Becomes Work. The book refers to the blurring distinction between work and home social environments

[Amanda · Rating 1 out of 5]

blah. good old required reading in college!

[Sarah Curtis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating book about working moms.

[Catherine]

My mom told me the other day I read this book, but I don't remember it; that's gotta tell you how great it was.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book for a college class and I really enjoyed.

[Amy Hunter · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the few books from college that I actually kept. I actually have read it several times and have found it interesting and enlightening each time through.

[Stefanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A truth bomb, still relevant (if not more so) today.

[Haley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Highly recommend for pretty much anyone. Very practical food for thought about the impact of what has become a trade-off between work and family, and what we might be able to do about it.