So, how was the weekend?
It’s safe to say, most people try catch up on weekends. They try to catch up on sleep or reading or, dare I say it, work? Yes, that’s right, work. And I don’t just mean errands and yard work either. If you noticed that big announcement from Statistics Canada last week, about the changing nature of the Canadian family, one of the other fascinating statistics to emerge from that survey included this fact:
“By 9 o’clock each Saturday morning,” the survey noted, “better than 85 per cent of Canadians are up and out of bed … and working.”
Stats Can recognized that much of that 85 per cent consisted of unpaid work – chores, preparing meals, mowing the lawn – around the average Canadian household. But it also indicated, that by 10 a.m. on weekend mornings at least 15 per cent of Canadians (over the age of 25) are working at paid jobs. That means that even on weekends across this country, one in six Canadians drags the body out of bed to go to work.
“On Saturdays, many more of us are still on the job,” notes Statistics Canada analyst Susan Crompton, who also edits Canadian Social Trends.
The survey goes on to say that fully a quarter of those surveyed (about 11,000 respondents aged 15 and older living in private homes across the 10 provinces) by 10 o’clock Saturday morning are fully awake, up and, you guessed it, shopping. Why is the weekend suddenly becoming consumed by both paid and unpaid work? Said Ms. Crompton, during a CBC interview, it has to do with the greater number of women in the workforce, more people being self-employed and the rise of Sunday shopping.
It’s also partly a result of the Internet age, when people expect customer service 24/7. And, she says, it’s because most people can’t get all that needs to be done (or the money to pay for it) in just five days. They need weekends to make up the difference.
It took me a few minutes to realize it, but I’ve discovered that I’m as guilty as anyone for turning weekends into “work-ends.” Last Saturday, for example, I slept in … until just past 8. (The Stats Can survey said that half of the 8.2 million Canadians surveyed do sleep in, but are generally up and running by 8 o’clock Saturday morning.) But by 9 a.m. I was attending a board meeting, which consumed the rest morning. I consequently, was late getting to the bakery and missed out on my Saturday morning treat: Bredin bakery cinnamon buns. My first sacrifice of last weekend.
Our daughters are grown and gone from the house, but there were still animals to be fed, dishes to be cleaned and shelves to be restocked. So, much like a majority of Canadians (50 per cent of whom, the Stats Can survey explained, are hitting the stores between 2 and 5 p.m.) I did some shopping. That meant that about a third of my Saturday was absorbed by volunteer work and the other two-thirds by chores and keeping the economy buoyant. And, since I teach and hadn’t found sufficient time to grade students’ assignments before Friday night, I spent part of Saturday evening marking.
“Greater leisure on Sunday is due to fewer obligations,” the survey noted. That may or may not be true. Go tell that to the folks who now work in Sunday shopping outlets, at box stores or in malls, or for that matter, the farmers who rise extra early on Sunday to prepare for our community farmers’ market. However, the study does say that by early Sunday afternoon, more Canadians have managed to get around to their leisure pursuits – about 42 per cent are into recreation and relaxation by 1:20 p.m. on Sunday, almost 50 per cent by 4 p.m. “Sunday is still the last bastion of time for ourselves,” Ms. Crompton said.
I guess that’s true, since I do try to catch up on the week’s events by reading the Sunday papers, listening to Michael Enright’s “Sunday Edition” on CBC Radio or watching “Sunday Morning” on CBS TV from the U.S. And yet, the overwhelming feeling I guess we all have by Sunday evening is probably reflected in the survey too. More than 61 per cent of full-time working Canadians are fast asleep by 11 p.m. Sunday night.
Somebody ought to tell the producers of the Sunday 11 o’clock news.
