We need to work less to live better – Science Matters

By David Suzuki with contributions from David Suzuki Foundation Senior Editor Ian Hanington.

Since the 1950s, almost everything about work in the developed world has changed dramatically. Rapid technological advances continue to render many jobs obsolete. Globalization has shifted employment to parts of the world with the lowest costs and standards. Most households have gone from one income-earner to at least two. Women have fully integrated into the workforce, albeit often with less-than-equal opportunities, conditions and pay. A lot of our work is unnecessary and often destructive — depleting resources, destroying ecosystems, polluting air, water and soil, and fuelling climate change.

Yet we’re still working the same or more hours later into life within the same outdated and destructive system, furiously producing, consuming and disposing on a wheel of endless growth and conspicuous consumption. The gap between rich and poor is widening and working people — and those who can’t find work — are falling further behind, crushed by growing debt, increased competition for scarce jobs and declining real wages and benefits.

Read More:http://www.davidsuzuki.org/blogs/science-matters/2017/01/we-need-to-work-less-to-live-better/