The Influence of Scientific and Technological Progress on the Rational Use of Women’s Non-Working Time

E. S. Kogotkova

Modern scientific and technological progress, penetrating ever more deeply into the most varied aspects of life in a developed socialist society, ensures the rational use not only of the working time, but also of the non-working time, of its working people.

In this connection, considerable interest attaches to examining the question of the influence of scientific and technological progress on the rational use of women’s non-working time.

The singling out of the non-working time of women as an independent problem within the entire budget of non-working time is conditioned by the existence among working women of the so-called “second working day,” owing to the fact that the principal burden of labor in everyday life falls upon them.

The objective basis for the rational use of non-working time is the operation of the general economic law of the economy of time. In all socio-economic formations based on private ownership of the means of production and the exploitation of the labor of others, the law of the economy of time has an antagonistic character. If we speak of capitalism, then in it an extremely scrupulous economy of time exists side by side with its wasteful use. Therefore, the law of the economy of time operates there as a dominant tendency.

Matters stand differently with the operation of the law of the economy of time under socialism. The internal conditions determining the specific features of the operation of the law of the economy of time under socialism are: a) public ownership of the means of production, b) the absence of exploiting classes, c) the subordination of systematically organized production to the increasingly complete satisfaction of the growing needs of the people. Bearing in mind these features of the future socialist society, K. Marx wrote: “It has become clear that economy of time, as well as the planned distribution of labor time among the various branches of production, remains the first economic law on the basis of collective production. This becomes a law to an even much higher degree.”¹

Time, as a form in which human activity is realized, has two states: current time and already objectified time, embodied in material or spiritual values. Current time, in turn, is divided into working time, that is, the time directly

socially useful labor, and non-working time, that is, time free from the main productive activity. The economic law of the economy of time embraces all current time (working and non-working) and time already materialized, embodied in consumer values.

Working and non-working time, as the principal parts of current time, are in unity, but this unity is contradictory. The more there is of one, the less there is of the other, and vice versa. The ratio between working and non-working time at each stage of historical development is objective. It is determined both by the level of development of society’s productive forces and by the existing relations of production.

Modern scientific and technological progress brings about the introduction of mechanization and automation into production, the transformation of science into a direct productive force of society, and the growth of the cultural and technical level of working people, and, ultimately, leads to an increase in the level of the social productivity of labor. This means that the working time necessary for creating material goods is constantly reduced, while non-working time increases.

The tasks of communist construction require the creation of conditions for the formation of a comprehensively developed personality. This presupposes the rational use not only of working time but also of non-working time.

The problem of the rational use of non-working time is only now being posed. Here it is very important to determine what should be understood by the rational use of non-working time. According to G. A. Prudenskii’s classification, non-working time consists of: 1) time connected with work in production but not constituting working time; 2) time spent on household labor and other everyday needs; 3) time used to satisfy natural physiological needs; 4) free time.^2 At the basis of the classification of non-working time lie its two different functions: a) the function of restoring a person’s strength, expended in labor activity and in unavoidable expenditures of time; b) the function of the spiritual and physical improvement of the personality. We agree with G. S. Petrosian, who, in contrast to free time, conventionally calls all other types of non-working time “occupied time.”^3

It seems obvious that such expenditure of non-working time should be considered rational as a) ensures the growth of the free time of the individual and of society, and b) presupposes the effective use of free time itself.

By free time K. Marx meant time that is “both leisure time and time for carrying out higher activity,”^4 that is, “for education, for intellectual development, for the performance of social functions, for comradely intercourse, for the free play of physical and intellectual forces.”^5 F. Engels creatively supplemented this idea, emphasizing that free time is necessary “for participation in affairs concerning the whole of society, both theoretical and practical.”^6 V. I. Lenin attached great importance to free time; he believed that free time is time for rest, for one’s own development, for use—

^2 G. A. Prudenskii, Problems of Working and Non-Working Time. Moscow: Nauka, 1972, p. 250.

^3 G. S. Petrosian, “The Non-Working Time of Working People in the Period of the Full-Scale Construction of Communism,” Voprosy filosofii, 1965, no. 2, p. 36.

^4 From unpublished manuscripts of K. Marx, Bolshevik, 1939, p. 65.

^5 K. Marx and F. Engels, Works, vol. 22, p. 270.

^6 K. Marx and F. Engels, Works, vol. 20, p. 187.

Classics of Marxism-Leninism taught that free time can manifest itself with the greatest completeness only under the conditions of victorious socialism. Therefore the basic propositions characterizing free time were developed by them as applied to the communist formation. K. Marx pointed out that in free time the further harmonious perfection of the personality takes place, thanks to a person’s participation in social activity and to the raising of his spiritual and physical culture. All this leads to the return to production of a more developed individual, contributing to the further growth of labor productivity. Herein lies the unity of free and working time. The difference between them consists in the fact that “working time, even when exchange value has been eliminated, always remains the wealth-creating substance and the measure of the costs of labor for its production.” Free time, however, is “time which can be disposed of,” it is “wealth itself.”²

Proceeding from the principle that free time is intended for the all-round development of the personality, its expenditures are reduced to two groups: 1) active free time, 2) time of leisure and rest. The principal ways of spending all free time are subdivided into: a) study, self-education, b) performance of public assignments, c) upbringing of children, d) rest and entertainment, e) creative activity and amateur pursuits, f) physical culture and sports, g) passive rest, h) other expenditures of free time. Naturally, this classification is not complete and may be continued.

The literature contains a detailed list of time-budget surveys of working people conducted in the country.⁴ Three main stages of the surveys conducted are noted. The first stage—the 1920s; the second stage—1927–1932; the third stage—from 1957 to the present, when studies of time budgets are being carried out not only by individual scholars but also by entire research collectives and state institutions. As a result, considerable factual material has been accumulated, the analysis of which makes it possible to draw a whole series of conclusions of a theoretical and practical nature and, above all, to determine ways of rationally using the non-working time of working people. An analysis of the budgets of working people’s non-working time, carried out in Siberia, shows that its structure on weekdays is approximately as follows: a) time expenditures connected with production (travel to and from the workplace; receiving and handing over the shift)—6–8%; b) domestic labor and self-service (purchases of food and non-food goods, cooking, care of children, care of the dwelling, clothing, footwear, labor in a personal subsidiary plot, etc.)—19–27%; c) time spent satisfying natural physiological needs (sleep, eating, personal care)—47–50%; d) free time—20–23%.⁵

A distinctive feature of the use of non-working time is that it is at the disposal of the individual, who spends it at his or her own discretion. Society cannot regulate its expenditures. But it does not at all follow from this that free time, as part of non-working time, is subjective. Its absolute magnitude is objective. At any given moment it depends on: a) the length of the working day, the number of days off and holidays, the duration of vacations; b) the available stock of urban transport and the schedule of its operation—

work, c) the presence or absence of well-appointed housing, d) the presence of consumer-service enterprises and the organization of everyday-life services, etc.

The size of this article does not allow us to examine in detail the main sources and reserves for the rational use of non-working time. Let us name only a few. First, a reduction in the time spent at the workplace before and after work (receiving and handing over the shift), which can already be achieved without additional material costs, solely through the scientific organization of labor. Second, a reduction in the time spent traveling to and from the place of work. V. G. Kryazhev, comparing Strumilin’s data for 1923/24 with the results of a survey he conducted in 1960, shows that over this period monthly time expenditures on travel (to work and back) increased by 9.6 hours for men and by 15.4 hours for women.^11 The same is confirmed by data from other sociological studies. Third, a reduction in the time spent on housework and self-service. As a result of the building in our country of a developed socialist society, profound socioeconomic changes have taken place that have brought about progressive shifts in the use of the overall time budget of working people. However, to this day the population, including those employed in social production, spends a large amount of time on keeping house. According to available data, housework now absorbs, for the country as a whole, 125–150 billion person-hours annually, which corresponds to the annual time budget of 60–70 million people.^12

Under modern conditions, the household is a sphere in which predominantly women’s labor is applied. According to the Institute of Economics of the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, almost half of men and the majority of women spend more than 2 hours a day on housework. Moreover, women spend twice as much time as men.^13 This is also confirmed by data from surveys conducted in 1963 by the Central Statistical Administration of the RSFSR in Ivanovo, Gorky, Rostov, and Sverdlovsk, and by an international survey in 1965 in Pskov. Thus, in Pskov, on average over one day of the week, including the day off, women spend 4.1 hours on keeping house, and men 1.4 hours. The corresponding figures are: in Ivanovo—4.1 and 2.0 hours; in Gorky—4.5 and 1.8 hours; in Rostov—4.3 and 2.2 hours; in Sverdlovsk—4.7 and 2.0 hours^14; in Yerevan—4 hours 34 minutes and 2 hours 16 minutes.^15 These data indicate that under modern conditions men and women have unequal opportunities for the reproduction of their labor power. This inequality is due to a number of objective and subjective factors. The objective factors include both the woman’s performance of the function of mother and the insufficient development of everyday-life services. The subjective factors include the presence of survivals of the past in people’s consciousness, expressed in the entrenched old division of labor in the family, under which housework remains the woman’s domain, despite the fact that the man is no longer the family’s sole breadwinner.

The rational expenditure of non-working time presupposes an optimal combination of the total labor burden of working women with the amount of their free time. The task consists in creating such conditions for women that they can combine professional work—

^11 V. G. Kryazhev, Non-working Time and the Sphere of Services. Moscow, “Ekonomika,” 1966, p. 79.
^12 See: Economic Sciences, 1968, No. 1, p. 44.
^13 See: Non-working Time of the Working People of Novosibirsk. Publishing House of the Siberian Branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, 1961, p. 19.
^14 G. A. Prudenskii, Problems of Working and Non-working Time. Moscow, “Nauka,” 1972, p. 316.
^15 G. S. Petrosyan, Non-working Time of Working People in the USSR, p. 95.

work and social activity in the sphere of production with the performance of her function of motherhood.

The solution of this problem will be carried out on the basis of further scientific and technological progress. First, scientific and technological progress, as already noted, being a natural historical process that improves the instruments of labor and methods of production, brings about a reduction in working time and an increase in non-working time. However, the free time of women workers does not change in direct proportion to the change in the ratio between working and non-working time. Women use a considerable part of the increase in non-working time for labor in the household and in private subsidiary farming. Thus, when the working day was reduced by one hour, men’s free time increased by 0.9 hours, while women’s increased by only 0.5 hours⁶.

Therefore, the second and principal way of regulating the overall labor burden of women workers is the rationalization of everyday life, the reduction and easing of labor in the household. Rationalization of labor in the household is a capacious concept. It includes both the creation of the most favorable external conditions under which domestic labor is performed and the optimization of the labor processes themselves from the standpoint of making them easier and faster.

The solution of this task in our country is being carried out both through the development of mechanization and electrification of everyday life, the construction of convenient and well-appointed apartments, and through the maximum transfer of the functions of the individual family to large public enterprises—the organization of a system of public upbringing of children, and the development of the entire complex of enterprises and institutions in the service sphere.

These tasks are being solved throughout the entire period of existence of our society.

The Twenty-Fourth Congress of the CPSU outlined a broad program for the further development of industry and agriculture, and put forward, as the main task of the Ninth Five-Year Plan, the growth of the people’s welfare. The implementation of these decisions will be a new step in the development of scientific and technological progress, which will promote a further increase in the efficiency with which both working and non-working time is used by working people, especially women.

1. K. Marx and F. Engels, Works, vol. 46, part I, p. 117. ↩

2. V. I. Lenin, Complete Collected Works, vol. 299. ↩

3. K. Marx and F. Engels, Collected Works, vol. 26, part III, pp. 264–265. ↩

4. The Time Budget of the Urban Population. Moscow: Statistika, 1970. Appendix No. 4. See the works of Prudenskii, Blagov, Kryazheva, Gimadeeva, and others. ↩

5. G. A. Prudenskii, Time and Labor. Moscow: Mysl, 1965, p. 309. ↩

6. See: Nechenko, “Social Problems of Industrial Labor.” Materials of the All-Union Conference. Vilnius, 1970. ↩