Work and Leisure

38 Chas Critcher and Peter Bramhamleisure life chances. The overall trends are clear, if only occasionally recognised.With the exception of brief periods in the early and very late 1990s, thedistribution of income has become more and more unequal since the early1980s. The taxation and benefit systems which might redress imbalances havebeen redesigned to exacerbate inequality. The shift from direct to indirecttaxes, for example, is universally acknowledged to have a disproportionateeffect on the purchasing power of the poor.The statistical evidence is overwhelming (Office for National Statistics2001). In 1971 the average income of the richest tenth of the population wasthree times that of the poorest tenth; by 1999 it was four times. Real incomeshave risen across the society but the rich have got richer much faster than thepoor have got less poor. There remain substantial differences of incomebetween men and women, becoming smaller for single people but remainingconstant among married couples. Households experiencing unemploymentor headed by a lone parent, pensioners, disabled and low-paid people are alldenied access to the increasing disposable incomes of society as a whole. Thedistribution of wealth is even more extreme, the most wealthy 5 per centholding half of the nation’s wealth. On the whole society has been gettingmore prosperous, often measured by the decreasing amount of time necessaryto work in order to purchase any nominated good. But this increase, likethe increase in employment, is distributed in ways which are systematicallyunequal.These overall changes in paid employment have been described graphicallyas the emergence of the ‘40–30–30 society’ (Hutton 1995). The economicclass division between rich and poor in the labour market has been complicatedby the emergence of an insecure middle class. Changes in patterns ofemployment have resulted in new patterns of work and time inequalities. NewRight economic strategies of privatisation, casualisation and deregulationhave, according to Hutton, reshaped class cleavages and the nature ofinequalities. The top 40 per cent are relatively privileged, since their marketpower has increased since the early 1980s. They include the minority of fulltimeemployees whose jobs are secure or unionised, as well as the long-termself-employed. The middle 30 per cent are marginalised and insecure. Theirjobs are precarious, often with few substantial benefits. They include parttimeand casual workers, low paid people and those whose self employment isshort term. Finally, the bottom 30 per cent are those who are disadvantaged,largely excluded from the employment market. Here we find unemployedpeople and their dependants, people on government schemes and those inthe benefits trap (Hutton 1995: 105–10). Hutton is quite clear about theimplications of this new employment structure for social divisions.For the majority of the population this is an irrational state of affairs.They do not have the wherewithal to cover all the eventualities thatmight hit them, from divorce to unemployment, nor can they build up a