Schor Featured on NPR Show

Dr. Juliet B. Schor, senior lecturer in economics, yesterday discussed her recent research on "downshifting"--a phenomenon in which people sacrifice income and consumer goods in favor of more free time-- on "The Connection," a Boston-based National Public Radio show.

"I think it's an important issue in American society," Schor said in an interview yesterday. "I'm doing work that I hope is of interest to the public so I'm willing to talk about it. I was pleased because there were a huge number of callers, all of whom were calling in with personal testimony."

The producers of the radio call-in show said they were particularly interested in schor's work because of her participation in a survey conducted by the Merck Family Fund examining trade-offs between consumption and environmental attitudes.

"She's a specialist on the workforce," said associate producer Jill Kaufman. "She's also very well known when it comes to talking about how people work in America."

Schor said the Merck survey was the first nationwide estimate of downshifting and that results showed 28 percent of Americans have made voluntary lifestyle changes, including reducing hours, changing jobs, quitting a job deciding to stay home to take care of children of taking early retirement.

"The part of the survey that I wrote was about people who are voluntarily downshifting making voluntary changes in their lifestyle in order to gain more time, more control over their time, less stress, more balance," Schor said. "People aren't doing it because they're rejecting consume goods per se."

The survey found that 32 percent of the female population and 23 percent of the male population have been involved in the downshifting trend, said Schor, who is also director of studies for the committee on degrees in women's studies.

"There was a 10 point gender difference, which I thought was small," Schor said. "I would have thought it would be two-thirds women."

Schor also discussed her book, The Overworked American, in conjunction with the survey.

The book examines the "work and spend cycle," which involves working long hours and then walking a ``consumer treadmill," schor said.

Schor's research since publishing the book has concentrated on the spending side of the cycle.

She has conducted a survey called "Time, Money and Values."

"It looks[in] a lot more detail at consumer behavior and why people consume in the ways that they do including social dimensions of consumption like `Keeping up with the Joneses," Schor said.

Schor will be on leave next year, writing a new book detailing the results of her most recent survey.